Bâbâ Farîd’s Hymns in Granth Ṣâhib with Qur’ânic Backdrop: A Review

Bābā Farīd al-Dīn Ganj-i-Shakar, considered as the first Punjābī Sūfī poet, not only exercised his skill but also conveyed Qur’ānic and Prophetic (PBUH) message through his Punjābī poetry. His poetry is a rich source of Islamic teachings in lingua franca of the Punjab. The research intends to explore that whether the inclusion of his poetry in the Sikh scripture is recognition of Muslim mysticism or the poetry itself. The study attempts to examine the relation of the hymns of Bābā Ṣāhib with the teachings of Holy Qur’ān. Bābā Farīd, because of his high stature as an originator of Punjābī poetry, got a place in Granth Ṣāhib. The goal of this research is to highlight the pivotal position of Bābā Ṣāhib in connecting the two major religions of the world. The paper not only substantiates the historic position of Bābā Ṣāhib but also gives an insight to the services rendered by his poetry in promoting the interfaith harmony in the Sub-continent. This article focuses on Bābā Farīd as a literary and moral Canon, which led his work to be included in Sikh scripture. Moreover, it hints at the nuances of religious tolerance, mutual respect and love for knowledge, which lacks otherwise in a multi-religious society. In this article some of Bābā Ṣāhib’s verses in Granth Ṣāhib will be traced and analysed, taking into account their Qur’ānic interpretations. The comparative and somewhat historical approaches have been adopted to lay out a vivid analysis of his hymns in relation with the verses of the Holy Qur’ān and hence a message is extracted. Thus, he, evidently becoming part of one of the greatest anthologies of Punjābī poetry, attracted a huge outreach. The research question of this article is, whether the Holy Qur’ān is a basic source of Bābā Ṣāhib’s poetry or otherwise. It is strongly recommended that in order to attain actual harmony in our society, Bābā Ṣāhib’s work should be published in Shah-Mukhi script for the contemporary readership.

Improving the Teaching of Writing Narratives at Lower Secondary Level in Private School of Karachi

This study aims to improve the teaching of writing narratives in an English language classroom. By using a qualitative method and a collaborative action research, the study was conducted in a private school in Karachi, Pakistan. In this study, the primary research participant was an English language teacher who was teaching English language at lower secondary level. There were five students who were the secondary research participants of the study. Their work was analyzed to see whether there was any improvement in their written narratives that was taught by both researcher and the research participant. In our English language classrooms, teaching of writing is done in a very traditional manner where teachers focus to product rather than the process of the writing. Teachers do not pay attention on writing and rewriting in order to improve the children's work. Mostly, the first draft of children's work is considered as final draft. Children encounter problems while writing because they are not provided with opportunities to develop their writing skills and they are often asked to write about topics which are not relevant to their lives. Thus, writing is best learnt in a natural setting with topics that are pertinent to their lives. Teachers need to provide a variety of experiences to children while teaching writing skills. The purpose of the study was to improve a teacher's teaching of writing narratives and to guide him/her to introduce above motioned strategy to make a shift from product to process of writing and thus, transform students into independent writers. For this study, reflective journal, observations and interviews were used to collect data. The teaching of writing narratives was found to be a useful activity as it builds practical and theoretical knowledge of the research participant. It was found that children best learnt to write when they are asked to write about topics that are relevant to their lives. Another observation was that the use of scenario to motivate children to write is less effective because it limits their creativity and they end up producing similar kind of texts. The use of writing frameworks and the steps of PA facilitate the teaching and learning of writing skills in an English language classroom. Furthermore, this study is significant for ELT in the context of Pakistan where writing, in English, is regarded as the most difficult skill among other teaching language skills. The finding of this study will