I am Abdul-Baqi

A RESTful NodeJs App

A minimalist app to track mosques around the world

Posted on December 18, 2017

Node.js is a backend javascript engine. Express is a lightweight web framework that sits on top of Nodejs. In this post, I am going to go build a RESTful app talking steps at a time. Down the road, I will use Semantic-UI as a CSS alternative to Bootstrap. I am... [Read More]

Tags: nodejs express mongodb mosques technology web

O Jerusalem

Assorted thoughts on history and religion of this city

Posted on December 8, 2017

Jerusalem has been the center of world affairs since antiquity. By default, at any time in history, this city remained under the rule of the righteous people. However, there were short times when unlawful people ruled this town. Soon rightful owners would rage historical battles to reclaim this beautiful city,... [Read More]

Tags: Jerusalem Israel Zionism Palestine history

Web Scraping with UN SDG site

Posted on November 26, 2017

In this post, I will take you through a web scraping journey. I will scrape UN SDG database and produce csv file. [Read More]

Tags: python web-scraping technology data

Flask: Form, Ajax and SQLAlchemy

Posted on November 26, 2017

In this post I will demonstrate how to integrate database into Flask. I will build a small form containing text input. This input is dynamically populated through `ajax` when you start typing things. The data that ajax populates is coming from postgresql database. [Read More]

Tags: flask sqlalchemy ajax javascript technology web

Civilization : Human, Agriculture, Water and Fire

How Quran draws a roadmap of human civilization

Posted on November 22, 2017

Civilization started on the earth with the start of first man, or rather the first family. In a world void of Allah, it is very difficult to imagine the first human family coming to existence by itself [Read More]

Tags: civilization quran human water fire irritation

The Illusion of Banks

parable of the finanical markets on a desert island

Posted on October 31, 2017

It was a very interesting read when Mervyn King in his book The End of Alchemy simplified our modern financial crisis via this parable. Enjoy the reading! [Read More]

Tags: finance banks money derivatives

2017 Internationl Conference on Sustainable Development Goals Statistics

Posted on October 30, 2017

I attended this conference which was organized by the Philippine Statistics Authority in Manila from October 4 - 6, 2017 and is co-organized by United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD). It was a lively three days of interesting sessions and presentations, majority of which are available in the conference website. I... [Read More]

Tags: sdg Philippine statistics conference

Visualizing trend lines

With IMF and EIU data

Posted on October 19, 2017

I have created this visualization showing certain macro-economic indicators in Islamic Development Bank’s 57 member states. The data are drawn from IMF and Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) dataset. This post stands as a documentation for creating such visualizations. I confess that the documentation in this post is kept at a... [Read More]

Tags: visualization javascript chartjs python IDB technology data

Growing innovation skills and culture

nesta toolkit for innovation

Posted on October 18, 2017

Today I finished a two day workshop on innovation skills and culture in workplace delivered by Nesta. They are a UK firm work on innovation for public good and promote designing innovative solutions through content creation and helping create the learning experience within organizations. Here are few noteworthy points. [Read More]

Tags: nesta innovation IDB

Of Joseph and Chile

How Chile was saved by Prophet Joseph's countercyclical economic model

Posted on September 29, 2017

Myself nowhere close to be an economist, I naively can claim to have a solution to all economic problems of developing countries. Send high level delegate to Washington DC to meet the gurus at the IMF and World Bank. Note down carefully their suggestions of monetary and fiscal policies. Come... [Read More]

Tags: economy chile joseph quran