By Assad Bhuglah

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In almost all the major cities of the world, residential buildings are characterized with high-rise and high-density of residents. More and more high-rise residential buildings are being introduced to the cities individually or in clusters. Super high-rise projects, as tall as 70 or 80 stories high are being designed and constructed in North America and Asian cities, such as Tokyo, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Limited land areas, geographic and demographic conditions are the major factor behind the mushrooming of high rise buildings. With the increasing trend in rise of urban population, accompanied by growing industrialization and expanding commercial activities in the cities, there will be a greater tendency for people to move where the work is and create new lives there.

Ramadan is undoubtedly great and blessed, but not everyone who happens to live it is automatically entitled to get the blessings it brings. What is going to be your share from the treasures of Ramadan? Like the fertile soil, you may become soft-hearted and moist-eyed, sow the seed of belief and determination inside yourself, and add to your capabilities. Thus, a seed will grow into a sapling, and a sapling into a tree. The tree will be laden with the fruits of good deeds, and you will reap the fruit — the fruit of eternal bliss. Just like the farmer, as you sow so shall you reap; and the more you toil, the more you shall get. But if you remain hard-hearted, like the farmer who slept when it was time to wake up and work, then the blessings and goodness of Ramadan and Tarawih (night prayers during the holy month) will pass without benefiting you, just like the downpour that does not benefit the rock.

God has set the Quran apart through its distinct arrangement, style and structural unity, as well as through its contents, the ease with which it can be memorized, its impact, and the inability of its contemporaries, or anyone else for that matter, to meet the challenge to produce something comparable to it. He has declared the Quran above doubt and suspicion, free of contradiction and, hence, of indisputable reliability, its verses clear and unambiguous. The Quran's authenticity does not depend, nor should it depend, on any narrative, however well-attested it might happen to be. Its definitive certainty is founded on the fact that it is the speech of God to which no falsehood can gain access in any way whatsoever. The Prophet received it through Gabriel, and as he began reciting it to others at God's command, he inspired in them the desire to memorize and recite it, to teach it and circulate it both orally and in writing. Yet it was God who undertook to gather it together in the Prophet's mind, causing him to recite it properly, making its meanings clear, and preserving it.