Adeel Malik
Gary Miller is a Canadian mathematician and lecturer on religion. A Christian missionary for 15 years, he was a student of religion and often wrote to church figures from different Christian sects, asking them what they thought of a certain verse in the Bible or its interpretation, and posing challenging arguments.
Around 1977, Miller turned his attention to the Qur’an for the first time, wishing to put it to the test in the same way. As he read the Qur’an, he continued to find it in agreement with his own beliefs and with what he thought was common sense.
He concluded that he had already been a Muslim for years without knowing it. He adopted a Muslim name, Abdul-Ahad Omar, though he continued to go by his original name.
He exclaimed the verse that he found the most surprising when he read it for the first time was the following:
Then do they not reflect upon the Qur’an? If it had been from [any] other than Allah , they would have found within it much contradiction.
[Qur’an 4:82]
After hosting his own TV and radio show in Canada, Miller turned his attention to mathematics. He was granted special admission to obtain an MSc in mathematics from Queen’s University Canada, after a series of entrance exams had determined that his personal study of mathematics was more than equivalent to an undergraduate degree.
Within one year, he had obtained his degree in 1990. He then received a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council grant from the Canadian government to fund his doctoral studies at the University of New Brunswick, where he obtained his PhD in 1994.
Miller also holds a diploma in Tertiary Education from the University of New Brunswick.
After teaching mathematics in Canada, the US (where he was the entire mathematics department at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon), Miller moved to Saudi Arabia, where he taught mathematics at King Fahd university as well as graduate courses in the Women’s College in Dammam.
At the time of writing, he is teaching mathematics at the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi.
“[This is] a blessed Book which We have revealed to you, [O Muhammad], that they might reflect upon its verses and that those of understanding would be reminded.”
[Qur’an 38:29]
Source: The Mindful Muslim
