Muslim-Christian Relations in the Era of Prophet Muhammad: Review of Najrān Delegation’s Case in Modern Context

Muslim–Christian relations are as mature as Islamic history itself. Historical evidences state the first interaction of Muslims and Christians occurred in 5th year after nabuwwah (615 AD) when Muslims migrated to Ḥabshah (Abyssinia) and second contact was established after immigration of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) to Madinah. After getting socio-political stability in 8th hijrī (629 AD), Muhammad (PBUH) sent letters and ambassadors to different statesmen and religious leaders to spread the Islamic Mission and Message globally. One letter was also sent to the chief Bishop of Najrān. In response, the chief Bishop of Najrān accepted the invitation and personally came to meet the Prophet (PBUH) with his reputed delegation. The beloved Messenger (PBUH) warmly welcomed this delegation. As a result, the peace agreement was reached after some theological debate and discussion. Later on, throughout history, the relations between Muslims and Christians have been in situation of up and down. It’s also a fact that over the centuries, the Muslims-Christians relations had sometimes been one of enmity, sometimes one of rivalry, competition, and encounter. In spite of it, the Najrān’s delegation case has a historical significance in Muslim-Christian relations in the literature of both religions. Therefore, in this study efforts were made to explore the event of Najrān delegation as theological foundations for Muslim-Christian relations in times of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and how can we get benefit from it in modern era. Moreover, this study perceives that the case of Najrān delegation was the first practical interaction between Muslims and Christians of that age. Hence, we could get benefit from it with its modern applications and interpretations. The analytical, comparative and historical approaches have been adopted in this study with qualitative paradigm. I compared and analysed the case in Islamic and Christian context and then gave recommendation for its application.

A Spirituality Based Model of Personality Assessment for Managers in Relation to Job Satisfaction, Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Paranoia and the Moderating Role of Workplace Spirituality.

Personality is a very broad and complex phenomenon which has been vastly studied in different domains from diverse perspectives and there is no single perspective where all researchers have a consensus. There are many personality related traits, attitudes and behaviors of organizational concern, but in case of personality, the models are again mainly borrowed from psychology. The major limitation of the models is that they measure the personality in bits and pieces rather than taking a holistic view. Here we need a basic or ontological dimension to take an integrated view of personality. Spirituality as per many scholars is an ontological dimension of personality. The researchers in psychology in general and in management sciences in specific are now giving attention to the subject. The individual as well as the workplace spirituality are very well researched topics now a days. The current study has focused on the exploration of spirituality as a pivotal phenomenon in assessing human personality through its psychometric capabilities. So spirituality can be a phenomenon where the personality can be gauged holistically as personality traits, attitudes and behavioral outcomes can be predicted through it. This will help the organizations to select, develop and retain appropriate employees in a more meaningful way. The theory suggested that the spirituality can be gauged from low to high with different attitudinal, behavioral and transcendental consequences. After extensive literature review of spirituality across different religions especially incorporating the eastern philosophy, which was missing part in current management science literature, a theory and a definition of spirituality was established which was further used as a basis to develop a scale. For this very purpose, in the first study a tool was developed keeping in view the definition of spirituality, and then its validity as well as the reliability were tested. Furthermore to authenticate the validity of the spiritual phenomenon and its psychometric capabilities, the instrument was tested with certain variables related to employees’ personality. In this regard the variables taken constituted an attitude that is Job Satisfaction, a behavior that is OCB and a personality disorder that is Paranoia. To test the role of WPS in nurturing the spirituality at employee level, it was taken as a moderator in the research model. In the first study, the items were collected from multiple sources and an exhaustive list was developed and then by using grounded theory approach the a list of 30 finalized items was developed. Further the instrument was pilot tested on a sample of 100 students and then it was finally tested on a sample of 430 individuals. After reliability analysis the items with unacceptable loadings were eliminated and the list was reduced to 18 items. In the second study, a sample of 600 respondents was selected from 30 cross sectoral organizations. Out of the sample 530 were useful having no missing values. To analyze the data correlation, regression, and SEM techniques were used. The results supported all the hypothesis in general and hence the findings suggested that the low vs. high spirituality have their respective implications, such as employees with high spirituality are more satisfied, high in exhibiting OCB and were less paranoid. Workplace spirituality also moderated the relation between IV and DVs. Furthermore the study has multiple contributions for literature as very fruitful implications for the practitioners while selecting, retaining employees and enhancing their performance.