Doctrine of Peace: An Islamic Perspective, an Analysis of the Hindrances in Peace Making Process

The present day global community is confronted with several challenges, absence of peace being the biggest one. The UNO and other regional organizations strive hard to achieve this goal. Unfortunately the world is far from achieving the goal of ensuring peace. It is also a fact that in most cases the Muslim world is in turmoil and it is involved or has been involved in one way or another. In order to find out the real causes of unrest, it is imperative to analyze the situation from academic, political, economic and social aspects.  This article deals with first aspect i.e. The academic. It has three parts, in the first part importance of peace has been elaborated in the light of the Quran and the Sunnah. In the second part, importance of peace treaties of the Prophet (PBUH), and one of His successors Umar, the second Caliph, has been brought in to focus. The issue that the foreign policy of Islamic State is based on perpetual peace has been discussed in this part. While in the third part those obstacles have been discussed which have caused to damage the  peace process in the world.

Drought Induced Morpho-Physiological Changes in Okra and its Mitigation By

Okra is an important vegetable crop known for its high nutritional value. It needs frequent irrigation for good economic yield. Despite the fact that Pakistan has world’s best irrigation system, it is amongst world’s most water stressed countries. Keeping in view the upcoming water shortage in future, a study composed of four different experiments was conducted during summer season for two consecutive years (i.e. 2013 and 2014). In first experiment, to find out critical crop growth stage and to assess harmful effects of drought on okra growth, quality and yield parameters, deficit irrigation (50% less water than normal requirement) was applied at seedling (S), vegetative (V) and reproductive (R) stage, alone as well as in all possible combinations (i.e. S+V, V+R, S+R, S+V+R). While in second and third experiment the foliar application of salicylic acid and ascorbic acid at different growth stages of okra (2 leaf stage, 4 leaf stage, flowering stage and their combinations) was evaluated for drought mitigation. Additionally, in fourth experiment inoculation of okra seed with different doses of azotobacter prior to seed sowing were also tested under drought conditions. Results of study revealed that drought at seedling stage increased plant mortality percentage. However, the survived plants successfully recovered and gave good yield while drought at vegetative and reproductive stage was highly destructive for morphological and reproductive traits, respectively. However, drought at all growth stages (S+V+R) was found most destructive as compared to single stage. Foliar application of 2 mM salicylic acid at 4 leaf + flowering stage improved okra yield, while application of 2 mM ascorbic acid at 2 leaf + 4 leaf + flowering stage showed good results under water stress conditions. After application of ascorbic acid and salicylic acid revealed significant results in case of morphological (plant height, stem diameter, internodal distance, root length, root shoot ratio, number of leaves, number of branches, leaf area and leaf area index), physiological (photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, relative leaf water contents and cell membrane permeability), biochemical (N, K, Ca and chlorophyll pigments) and yield traits (pod length, pod weight, number of pods/plant, number of seeds/pod, fruit yield/plant, fruit yield/ha, seed yield/plant and seed yield/ha). Seed inoculation with 1.5 g per 10 g okra seed was found superior in improving all parameters under water stress conditions except number of branches/plant, total dry matter contents, phosphorus concentration, pod diameter, number of seeds/pod and 1000 seed weight.