The Single Monad Model
Reader responses and scholarly discussion of time and cosmology.
SMONAD LIBRARY
Book reviews and scholarly reception
Read the original collected reviews, scholarly excerpts and foreword comments, with clear links to their sources.
Reviews by book
Duality of Time
The full Kirkus review and twenty-two individual reader responses.
Ultimate Symmetry
The full Kirkus review and three individual reader responses.
The Meccan Revelations
Four reader responses to the translation work.
Scholarly reception and foreword
The earlier collection includes excerpts from Shigeru Kamada’s review in the Journal of Islamic Studies, volume 21, issue 3, pages 418–420, and from James Morris’s foreword. The full supplied excerpts and their references are retained below.
Kamada review: DOI 10.1093/jis/etq026
Book reviews describe a work’s arguments and assess its presentation. The research papers and their stated assumptions provide the separate route for evaluating particular mathematical or physical claims.
Original review collection and scholarly excerpts
These excerpts retain the attributions and source links supplied on the earlier website. They include the historical review collection as it appeared there; the complete Kirkus reviews above preserve their concluding assessments.
| Amazon Page | https://www.amazon.com/author/mhajyousef | |
| Kirkus Reviews | https://www.kirkusreviews.com/author/mohamed-haj-yousef | |
| On Google | https://g.co/kgs/hbLaz6 | |
| Goodread | https://www.goodreads.com/mhajyousef | |
| WorldCat | https://www.worldcat.org/wcidentities/lccn-nr2001018936 | |
| More Info | http://mhajyousef.smonad.com | |
See also this Introduction. See also Other Projects.
Some of these published books have been reviewed by various reviewers on Amazon and other journals and book review providers:
* This review on Ibn Arabi - Time and Cosmology and the Single Monad Model, by Prof. Shigeru Kamada (University of Tokyo), was published in the Journal of Islamic Studies (Oxford University Press), Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 418-420, see also: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26200769 or https://doi.org/10.1093/jis/etq026.
Here are some excerts from this review:
One of the remarkable characteristics of this book is its constant reference to the latest developments of the theories of modern physics.
The similarity between the world-view of modern physics and that of Ibn Arabi is interesting, and this kind of study should be encouraged. ... I wonder if Ibn Arabi's theory could be successfully expressed in mathematical formulas. A work which succeeded in doing that would bridge humanities and science, and contribute to mutual understanding between the two fields of human knowledge.
The most important contribution of this book seems to me its elucidation of the complicated process of creation/manifestation, which makes clear the link between the metaphysical One and the phenomenal Many, the cardinal question of mysticism. Another contribution is that it clarifies in a concrete way how a Muslim mystic formed his thought through inspired reflection on particular Quranic texts.
Prof. James Morris (Boston College) writes in the forewrod:
This constantly challenging and thought-provoking study is clearly the fruit of years of research on one of the most difficult subjects to be found in the writings of one of Islam's most seminal, creative, inspired, and notoriously difficult thinkers. So even those who may find Ibn Arabi's language and speculations difficult to follow will surely come away from their reading with a heightened appreciation of the relative poverty, thoughtlessness, and lack of sophistication in today's dominant public discourse about religion and science.
* This is Kirkus review of the Ultimate Symmetry, that is Volume III of the Single Monad Model: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/mohamed-haj-yousef/ultimate-symmetry/.
Here are some excerts from this review:
"At the heart of this book is the postulation of “nested symmetries,” five kinds that account for the “apparent dynamic multiplicity of creation.” Oneness of God is “conceived” as an “abstract point beyond geometry.” Normal symmetry applies to the physical world governed by the laws of classical mechanics, specifically the elements of space and time understood in Euclidean terms. Super-symmetry denotes the relation between the physical and psychical, which is essentially identical to Quantum Field Theory’s matter/antimatter couplet. Hyper-symmetry refers to the connection, explored in quantum mechanics, between particles and waves and, by extension, the appearance of continuous space. And ultimate symmetry explains how the curved space of contemporary physics can be generated from Euclidean geometry’s “homogenous” space. Underlying these threads is the divine Principle of Love, the original source of motion that explains the universe’s longing to continuously return to a state of harmony." -- Kirkus Reviews
* This is Kirkus review of the Duality of Time, that is Volume II of the Single Monad Model: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/mohamed-haj-yousef/duality-time.
Here are some excerts from this review:
"A historically illuminating account of an ancient but still relevant conception of the universe." -- Kirkus Reviews
"A researcher offers a comprehensive presentation of an ancient Islamic theory of time that has implications for modern cosmology and physics." -- Kirkus Reviews
"The author's command of the pertinent historical and theoretical material is breathtaking, with some of hisconclusions peculiar but tantalizing. For example, he argues that ancient alchemy can actually be understood as a precursor to quantum mechanics, and that Ibn al-Arabi anticipates contemporary discussions of black holes." -- Kirkus Reviews
"According to Haj Yousef (The Single Monad Model of the Cosmos, 2007), the medieval Islamic philosopher Ibn al-Arabi devised a cosmology that not only anticipates the emergence of modern quantum mechanics, but also provides solutions to its most vexing problems. At the heart of Ibn al-Arabi's view of the universe is adualistic conception of time. On the one hand, time is ontologically real if understood from the perspective of each moment. But the experience of time is always as a continuous volume--a perceptual distortion of the real world, an imaginary manifestation. The paradox of our observation of time is that we're only ever encountering time as the past, the continual re-creation of each discrete moment ad infinitum.As a result, the world bifurcates into two states: a vacuum, the empty space that constitutes time in its reality, and the void, the phenomenal expression of time as we experience it.This division opens up the possibility of simultaneously existing dimensions, thereby creating the conditions for a monistic harmony of the psychical and the physical." -- Kirkus Reviews
These are various Amazon reviews:
* Single Monad Model Book Reviews on Amazon.
* Duality of Time Book Reviews on Amazon.