How did u get into the field of computers?

I received my Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley. I received my Master's degree and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University. I currently work at Google.

I have been interested in the field of computers from a very early age. My first computer was the Apple ][+. I think it is still lying around in my garage somewhere, kept as a memento of my childhood. I remember spending many hours as a child using the computer for both entertainment and education. I recall occasionally being so engrossed in some endeavor (playing a game or writing a computer program) that it would be difficult for my mother to pull me away to eat my dinner.

I took computer classes in my elementary school and high school; although those classes were interesting, it was not until I started my B.S. at U.C. Berkeley that I fully appreciated the scope and depth of the field of Computer Science. Upon graduating, I decided to continue my studies by obtaining my Master's degree and Ph.D. As per Maula's ^(TUS) bayaan, my parents and grandparents have always stressed the importance of education, in the context of both deen and duniya - for this guidance I consider myself very fortunate.

Your PhD research involved algorithms used for powering search engines, which are being used by Google today. Could you explain to our readers how a search engine works

The basic technology behind search engines has existed for many years (since the 1960's). The advent of the World Wide Web greatly changed the scale of the data, requiring much more sophisticated technology, but many of the key building blocks existed previously. A search engine allows a user to type in a query, which is a set of terms describing what the user is looking for. The search engine must then return a list of relevant web pages. Often times people ask me, "How is it possible for a search engine to search the entire web for my query in a fraction of a second?" The heart of a search engine is the index; that is what allows a search engine to answer your queries so quickly. There is a very simple analogy that everyone is familiar with. If I give you a book about India, and ask you to find me the passage describing Mumbai, would you flip through the book, page-by-page, looking for a paragraph discussing Mumbai? No, you would immediately turn to the end of the book, where there is an index, listing exactly the pages on which the word Mumbai appears. You then only need to concern yourself with those pages when looking for information about Mumbai. A search engine index works in exactly the same way; before you have ever issued a query, the search engine will crawl the Web, and build up an index that lists for each word, all of the web pages that contain that word. Of course, a book has only a few hundred pages, whereas the Web has billions of pages, making the problem much more complex in practice. But at a very high level, the analogy with finding information in a book holds. One of the critical challenges search engines face is that the user wants to see only a few (say ten) results; figuring out which ten results to display for the query Mumbai out of the millions of pages that discuss Mumbai is a very difficult problem, and is the target of substantial research and development.

The presence of a "masjid" has a profound effect on community life. What are the changes that you see and feel in your Jamaat after the iftetah of the masjid at the hands of Aqa Maula ^(TUS)?

For the past several years, the focus of our entire Jamaat was on completing our masjid and preparing for the inauguration. Because our masjid site is where our markaz used to be, we had no fixed location to hold our functions for miqaats during the construction period. We would rent different halls for each function, and have to move around the jazams and thaals every time. But we all knew that it was a temporary situation, and each time we shuttled around the boxes of jazaams, we remembered that we would soon be returning to the base of the beautiful hills on Old Canyon Road, except in place of a markaz, there would be a beautiful masjid. The masjid now acts as the focal point for our community. We were always a strong jamaat, but the masjid has helped sharpen our focus and deepen our mohabbat. The barakat our jamaat received began even before the iftetah. During the construction period, mumineen in the jamaat would often come by to the masjid site to see the progress and to do dua. Whenever I had important or difficult decisions to make, and needed to restore a sense of personal balance, I would visit the masjid site and imagine how it would look when completed, with a sea of mumineen seated in front of Maula ^(TUS) during the imminent iftetah.

Your family received the sharaf of khidmet in the masjid project, as well as hosting a ziyafat for Maula ^(TUS) at your residence during Maula's ^(TUS) visit. Share with us some special moments in the course of Aqa Maula's ^(TUS) visit to Fremont.

Maula's ^(TUS) visit last year was unforgettable in countless ways. From the day the date of the iftetah was announced, when the flurry of emails and phone calls began, to the emotional day of the wada' majlis, each of us had a singular commitment to khidmet and ensuring that all of the events progressed smoothly. I was impressed with the tireless efforts of the mumineen from our jamaat as well as other jamaats towards the common goal of Maula's ^(TUS) khushi. Seeing the commitment of others is in part what gave us the courage to humbly accept the sharaf of khidmet in the masjid project given to my family at the hands of Shahzada Qaidjoher Bhaisaheb Ezzuddin. We were given the sharaf of Qutbi Manzil, the structure of the masjid complex used as a mawaid and hall.

The ziyafat we had the naseeb of hosting was very memorable. It would be impossible to convey that night in mere words. We had purchased our residence only a few months earlier (on the day of Maula's Milad Mubarak). The moment of Maula's ^(TUS) arrival for the ziyafat, with family members partaking in talaqqi sharaf as Maula ^(TUS) walked up to the entrance, with mumineen gathered on either side, and with an array of brilliant lights covering the landscape, is nearly indescribable. We pray that our naseeb holds the sharaf of many more ziyafats.

Perhaps the most memorable moment was when Maula ^(TUS) after returning to Mumbai, referred to his journey to Fremont as "walayat ni safar" - those words are cherished here by all.

May Allah grant our beloved Aqa Maula ^(TUS) a long and healthy life till Qayamat.