Free will and predestination in early Islam

I. INTRODUCTION. 1. The aim of the study is to describe the arguments about "free will and predestination" in Islam from about 80 A.H., when they started up to the time of al-Ash`a.rï, about 330 A.H. 2. A discussion of the main sources. II. THE OPPOSING TRENDS IN ISLAM. 1. The Qur'an emphasizes both Divine omnipotence and human responsibility. 2. Tradition contains many conceptions not present in the Qur'an. 3. There is a contrast between the theistic conceptions of the Qur' En and the impersonal and atheistic conceptions of Tradition; this is to be traced to the continuing influence in Tradition of pre-Islamic fatalistic ideas, since the Qur'án firmly opposes the fatalistic attitude, whereas many Traditions are thoroughly fatalistic. III. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE DOCTRINE OF QADAR. 1. The doctrine of .Qadar was held by the IVlaimûniya and the Ashab al-Su' al among the Khawarij towards the close of the first century of the Hijra. It is a logical development of the Khariji emphasis on righteousness in God and man, through such questions as that of the punishment of children and others who are not responsible for their actions. The opposition to the doctrine among the Khawárij seems to spring not from belief in God but rather from a conservative attitude. 2. The doctrine of Qadar as held by Ghailän and others of the Murji'a is again connected with the conception of righteousness (which likewise brought some of them into conflict with the Umaiyads) . Some of these men stand close to the Qadari sects of the Khawarij. 3. The little that is known about the Qadariya as a separate sect and about Ma'bad al-Juhani,the reputed originator of the discussions in Islam, suggests that they belonged to the same circles as Maimun and the others. IV. THE MU`TAZILA. 1. The Mu'tazila really began with Abu 'l- Hudhail. 2. The Mu'tazila, far from being pure rationalists, were thoroughly Muslim in many of their conceptions; but they believed in Reason and in rational ideas. 3. Abu 'l- Hudhail and the early school of Basra. were concerned more with the physical aspects of metaphysics than with purely religious issues; yet they contributed to these by their analysis of human activity and by their general arguments to prove God does no evil. Al- Na.zzam made God subordinate to rational ideas. 4. Bishr b. el- Mu'tamir, founder of the school of Baghdad., was naive in some ways, but stimulated. thought by his theories of man's power over generated. effects and of the infinity of goodness . 5. .The followers of Bishr, influenced by Basra, were more rationalistic then their master. They might be said to be working out the rationalism of al-Nezzan. 6. In Basra 'Abbad criticized the school of Baghdad and began to make clear the inadequacy of their rational conceptions. This process culminated in al- Jubba'ï with a growing realization of man's incapacity and God's omnipotence. Al- Ash`ari made what was logically the next step, whereas Abu Hashim turned back rather to older views. V. THE UPHOLDERS OF THE DIVINE QADAR. 1. Quite apart from the Mu'tazila there was considerable and diversified theological activity before the time of al-Ash`arI. 2. Abú.Hanifa is typical of many who united theistic and non-. theistic conceptions without feeling any inconsistency. 3. The threefold classification of Qadar, Kasb and Jabr was only beginning to appear about 300 A.H. Before that time kasb and Jabr were not distinguished. The Jahmiya, who were subsequently regarded as the chief exponents of Jabr, were originally upholders of the Divine Qadar whose primary aim was to assert the unity and majesty of God. 4. There was a close approximation to orthodoxy in the Ahl al-Ithbat. Of their three main members, Dirar was probably the author of the conception of Kasb (acquisition), al-Najjar of the doctrine that the power accompanies the act, and Burghuth of the distinction between voluntary acts and those done under compulsion. They seem to have explained evil by saying that God was beyond man's comprehension. 5. Hisham b. al-Hakem also worked at the analysis of human activity, and made a distinction between choice and compulsion. 6. The Wasïya or Testament of Abú 'Hanîfa contains third century Hanifa views, similar to those of al-Najjar but slightly more conservative, yet theistic rather than fatalistic. 7. Khushaish is representative of the anti-intellectual position of Ahmad b. Hanbal and his followers. He combines theistic and non-theistic conceptions without any misgivings. 8. The practical rather than the theoretical side of religion is illustrated by al-Kharraz. His mysticism makes him sympathetic to fatalistic resignation. He shares in the common confusion, but is able to derive truly religious, and therefore theistic, ideas from unpromising fatalistic material. VI. AL-ASH'ARI AND HIS CRITICS. 1. The essential point of his conversion was the recognition that Revelation and not Reason is the ultimate source of religious truth. Yet he continued to use rational methods of argument. 2. He emphasized the omnipotence of God to the neglect of the aspect of human responsibility, but insisted that evil is not to be attributed to God although He wills it, defending this position by various subtle arguments. 3. He was a leader in the revival of Islam chiefly because of his deep spirituality, with which he combined a keen intellect and participation in the typical Muslim mentality (the sense of dependence). 4. Al Ash`ari was criticized by the school of the Hanafiya. The divergence of view, which is apparent in the creed of al-Tahawi and the Fioh Akbar II, becomes explicit criticism in the Sharh al-Pioh al-Akbar (attributed to al-Maturïdi) . These deal more adequately with human responsibility, and so are more balanced, but they lack the spiritual fervour of al- Ash'ari. VII. CONCLUDING SURVEY. The deterministic outlook of Muslims belongs to the framework of civilization and culture in which Islam developed, rather than to the prophetic proclamation. The religious impulse did something to transform that background from fatalism to a more theistic determinism, but in other respects the background has largely persisted

Purification, characterization and crystallization of the F-ATPase from Paracoccus denitrificans.

The structures of F-ATPases have been determined predominantly with mitochondrial enzymes, but hitherto no F-ATPase has been crystallized intact. A high-resolution model of the bovine enzyme built up from separate sub-structures determined by X-ray crystallography contains about 85% of the entire complex, but it lacks a crucial region that provides a transmembrane proton pathway involved in the generation of the rotary mechanism that drives the synthesis of ATP. Here the isolation, characterization and crystallization of an integral F-ATPase complex from the α-proteobacterium Paracoccus denitrificans are described. Unlike many eubacterial F-ATPases, which can both synthesize and hydrolyse ATP, the P. denitrificans enzyme can only carry out the synthetic reaction. The mechanism of inhibition of its ATP hydrolytic activity involves a ζ inhibitor protein, which binds to the catalytic F₁-domain of the enzyme. The complex that has been crystallized, and the crystals themselves, contain the nine core proteins of the complete F-ATPase complex plus the ζ inhibitor protein. The formation of crystals depends upon the presence of bound bacterial cardiolipin and phospholipid molecules; when they were removed, the complex failed to crystallize. The experiments open the way to an atomic structure of an F-ATPase complex.his work was funded by the intramural programme of the Medical Research Council via MRC programme U105663150 to J.E.W., and by support from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council to M.J.O.W

Estimating the Relative Sociolinguistic Salience of Segmental Variables in a Dialect Boundary Zone

One way of evaluating the salience of a linguistic feature is by assessing the extent to which listeners associate the feature with a social category such as a particular socioeconomic class, gender, or nationality. Such ‘top–down’ associations will inevitably differ somewhat from listener to listener, as a linguistic feature – the pronunciation of a vowel or consonant, for instance – can evoke multiple social category associations, depending upon the dialect in which the feature is embedded and the context in which it is heard. In a given speech community it is reasonable to expect, as a consequence of the salience of the linguistic form in question, a certain level of intersubjective agreement on social category associations. Two metrics we can use to quantify the salience of a linguistic feature are (a) the speed with which the association is made, and (b) the degree to which members of a speech community appear to share the association. Through the use of a new technique, designed as an adaptation of the Implicit Association Test, this paper examines levels of agreement among 40 informants from the Scottish/English border region with respect to the associations they make between four key phonetic variables and the social categories of ‘Scotland’ and ‘England.’ Our findings reveal that the participants exhibit differential agreement patterns across the set of phonetic variables, and that listeners’ responses vary in line with whether participants are members of the Scottish or the English listener groups. These results demonstrate the importance of community-level agreement with respect to the associations that listeners make between social categories and linguistic forms, and as a means of ranking the forms’ relative salience

Perilipin 5 Deletion Unmasks an Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress-Fibroblast Growth Factor 21 Axis in Skeletal Muscle.

Lipid droplets (LDs) are critical for the regulation of lipid metabolism, and dysregulated lipid metabolism contributes to the pathogenesis of several diseases, including type 2 diabetes. We generated mice with muscle-specific deletion of the LD-associated protein perilipin 5 (PLIN5, Plin5MKO ) and investigated PLIN5's role in regulating skeletal muscle lipid metabolism, intracellular signaling, and whole-body metabolic homeostasis. High-fat feeding induced changes in muscle lipid metabolism of Plin5MKO mice, which included increased fatty acid oxidation and oxidative stress but, surprisingly, a reduction in inflammation and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. These muscle-specific effects were accompanied by whole-body glucose intolerance, adipose tissue insulin resistance, and reduced circulating insulin and C-peptide levels in Plin5MKO mice. This coincided with reduced secretion of fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) from skeletal muscle and liver, resulting in reduced circulating FGF21. Intriguingly, muscle-secreted factors from Plin5MKO , but not wild-type mice, reduced hepatocyte FGF21 secretion. Exogenous correction of FGF21 levels restored glycemic control and insulin secretion in Plin5MKO mice. These results show that changes in lipid metabolism resulting from PLIN5 deletion reduce ER stress in muscle, decrease FGF21 production by muscle and liver, and impair glycemic control. Further, these studies highlight the importance for muscle-liver cross talk in metabolic regulation

Diversification of importin-α isoforms in cellular trafficking and disease states.

The human genome encodes seven isoforms of importin α which are grouped into three subfamilies known as α1, α2 and α3. All isoforms share a fundamentally conserved architecture that consists of an N-terminal, autoinhibitory, importin-β-binding (IBB) domain and a C-terminal Arm (Armadillo)-core that associates with nuclear localization signal (NLS) cargoes. Despite striking similarity in amino acid sequence and 3D structure, importin-α isoforms display remarkable substrate specificity in vivo. In the present review, we look at key differences among importin-α isoforms and provide a comprehensive inventory of known viral and cellular cargoes that have been shown to associate preferentially with specific isoforms. We illustrate how the diversification of the adaptor importin α into seven isoforms expands the dynamic range and regulatory control of nucleocytoplasmic transport, offering unexpected opportunities for pharmacological intervention. The emerging view of importin α is that of a key signalling molecule, with isoforms that confer preferential nuclear entry and spatiotemporal specificity on viral and cellular cargoes directly linked to human diseases

Perception, cognition, and linguistic structure: The effect of linguistic modularity and cognitive style on sociolinguistic processing

The Interface Principle posits that morphosyntactic variation does not elicit the same kinds of perceptual reactions as phonetic variables because “members of the speech community evaluate the surface form of language but not more abstract structural features” (Labov, 1993:4). This article examines the effect of linguistic modularity on listeners’ social evaluations. Our point of departure is the sociolinguistic monitor, a hypothesized cognitive mechanism that governs frequency-linked perceptual awareness (Labov, Ash, Ravindranath, Weldon, & Nagy, 2011). Results indicate that “higher level” structural variables are available to the sociolinguistic monitor. Moreover, listeners’ reactions are conditioned by independent effects of region of provenance and individual cognitive style. Overall, our findings support the claim that sociolinguistic processing is influenced by a range of social and psychological constraints (Campbell-Kibler, 2011; Preston, 2010; Wagner & Hesson, 2014) while also demonstrating the need for models of sociolinguistic cognition to include patterns of grammatical variation (Meyerhoff & Walker, 2013; Walker, 2010)

Genomic Profiling Identifies GATA6 as a Candidate Oncogene Amplified in Pancreatobiliary Cancer

Pancreatobiliary cancers have among the highest mortality rates of any cancer type. Discovering the full spectrum of molecular genetic alterations may suggest new avenues for therapy. To catalogue genomic alterations, we carried out array-based genomic profiling of 31 exocrine pancreatic cancers and 6 distal bile duct cancers, expanded as xenografts to enrich the tumor cell fraction. We identified numerous focal DNA amplifications and deletions, including in 19% of pancreatobiliary cases gain at cytoband 18q11.2, a locus uncommonly amplified in other tumor types. The smallest shared amplification at 18q11.2 included GATA6, a transcriptional regulator previously linked to normal pancreas development. When amplified, GATA6 was overexpressed at both the mRNA and protein levels, and strong immunostaining was observed in 25 of 54 (46%) primary pancreatic cancers compared to 0 of 33 normal pancreas specimens surveyed. GATA6 expression in xenografts was associated with specific microarray gene-expression patterns, enriched for GATA binding sites and mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation activity. siRNA mediated knockdown of GATA6 in pancreatic cancer cell lines with amplification led to reduced cell proliferation, cell cycle progression, and colony formation. Our findings indicate that GATA6 amplification and overexpression contribute to the oncogenic phenotypes of pancreatic cancer cells, and identify GATA6 as a candidate lineage-specific oncogene in pancreatobiliary cancer, with implications for novel treatment strategies

Somatically ill persons’ self-nominated quality of life domains: review of the literature and guidelines for future studies

OBJECTIVE: To review which domains somatically ill persons nominate as constituting their QoL. Specific objective is to examine whether the method of enquiry affect these domains. METHODS: We conducted two literature searches in the databases PubMed/Medline, CINAHL and Psychinfo for qualitative studies examining patients' self-defined QoL domains using (1) SEIQoL and (2) study-specific questions. For each database, two researchers independently assessed the eligibility of the retrieved abstracts and three researchers subsequently classified all QoL domains. RESULTS: Thirty-six eligible papers were identified: 27 studies using the SEIQoL, and nine presenting data derived from study-specific questions. The influence of the method of enquiry on patients' self-nominated QoL domains appears limited: most domains were presented in both types of studies, albeit with different frequencies. CONCLUSIONS: This review provides a comprehensive overview of somatically ill persons' self-nominated QoL domains. However, limitations inherent to reviewing qualitative studies (e.g., the varying level of abstraction of patients' self-defined QoL domains), limitations of the included studies and limitations inherent to the review process, hinder cross-study comparisons. Therefore, we provide guidelines to address shortcomings of qualitative reports amenable to improvement and to stimulate further improvement of conducting and reporting qualitative research aimed at exploring respondents' self-nominated QoL domains

Maize Production in a Changing Climate

Plant breeding and improved management options have made remarkable progress in increasing crop yields during the past century. However, climate change projections suggest that large yield losses will be occurring in many regions, particularly within sub-Saharan Africa. The development of climate-ready germplasm to offset these losses is of the upmost importance. Given the time lag between the development of improved germplasm and adoption in farmers’ fields, the development of improved breeding pipelines needs to be a high priority. Recent advances in molecular breeding provide powerful tools to accelerate breeding gains and dissect stress adaptation. This review focuses on achievements in stress tolerance breeding and physiology and presents future tools for quick and efficient germplasm development. Sustainable agronomic and resource management practices can effectively contribute to climate change mitigation. Management options to increase maize system resilience to climate-related stresses and mitigate the effects of future climate change are also discussed