Islamic Perspective on Social Welfare

The study was carried out with the core objective about Islamic principles and teachings regarding welfare and its observance in ‘Pakhtun’ society under interpretative methodology of social sciences in ‘Gadhar-Hamza Khan, Shankar and Jamal Garhi’ of District Mardan. For collection of the relevant primary data 30 participants were purposely selected through convenient sampling method and then thoroughly interviewed while using interview guide as tool of data collection. After collection of the data, different themes were derived which were properly analyzed and presented in sequential orders. The study concluded that the most of the participant were lacking enough knowledge about calculation and distribution Zkwāt and ‘Ashr as they used and considered both term terms interchangeably. The study further concluded that priority was given to ‘Ashr rather Zkwāt. Awareness and observance about teachings of Islam in true spirit, inclusion of reading materials in curriculum of schools, colleges and universities, and deliverance of religious sermons by clerics about promotion of welfare activities were presented some of the recommendations.

A Constraint-Based Analysis of Syllable Based Processes in Mahbashi Yemeni Arabic

This thesis deals with the phonology of Maḥbashi Yemeni Arabic (MYA).It is the first descriptive analysis of the phonology of MYA. It provides a normative analysis data for the syllable based processes of MYA demonstrating that the dialect under investigation have similar but not identical phonological environments of the syllable based processes: syncope, epenthesis and vowel shortening. The analysis is presented in terms of Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky ,1993). As for the methodology and data collection, the researcher made use of data collected from a set of people who are native speakers of Mahbashi Arabic. The researcher recorded their conversations taking place in official, social, cultural, religious and domestic contexts. The recorded data covered different types of words:monosyllabic, disyllabic, tri-syllabic and quadri-syllabic. The findings confirm that MYA shares some the syllable structures with Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and it differs in other syllable structures. By closely examining a wide range of data, the study proved that MYA exhibits ten syllable structures; CV, CVC, CVV, CVVC, CCV, CCVV, CCVCC, CCVC, CVCC and CCVVC. As far as syllable structure of consonant cluster is concerned, the faithfulness constraints MAX-IO>DEP prevails over the markedness constraints *σ[CC, *CC]σ . The syllable related processes:syncope, epenthesis and vowel shortening were examined through the interaction of different constraints. As far syncope is concerned, the study proves that the constraint i,u]σ is active in MYA and is ranked high in the constraint hierarchy.The study accounted for epenthesis and asserted that the constraints * σ [CCC is active in MYA. The study has shown that vowel epenthesis is governed by the relative ranking of the CONTIGUITY family constraints; D-CONTIG and J-CONTIG where D-CONTIG dominates J-CONTIG in MYA. With regard to vowel shortening, the study revealed that the constraints *3 μ and MAX IO (μ) were in conflict. therefore, opacity constraint and lexical phonology and morphology (LPM) were able to account for vowel shortening when the long vowel of the verb is suffixed by either a subject or an object morpheme. This thesis concludes that OT provides the means to effectively account for the syllable structure and its processes in MYA. The study shows that the superiority of OT was evidenced in solving and providing the reasons for the occurrence of these processes rather than merely stating the rules in a rule-based theory fashion. This has been proved and indicated in the universality of the constraints and is reflected in the dialect specific ranking of the constraints.