112. Al-Ikhlas/The Purity of Faith
I/We begin by the Blessed Name of Allah
The Immensely Merciful to all, The Infinitely Compassionate to everyone.
112:01
a. Proclaim the truth:
b. HE is Allah, the One, and Only God–
c. - the infinite, limitless, indivisible, and most unique.
d. One in Essence and Peerless in Attributes.
112:02
a. Allah, the Eternally-Besought of all at times of need while HE seeks none.
112:03
a. HE has no family.
b. Neither giving birth to nor parenting anyone: no son, no daughter, no downstream family,
c. nor being born of anyone: no parents, no siblings, no upstream family.
112:04
a. And equal or comparable to HIM is no one, has never been anyone, and shall never be any.
The word Jihād has been awfully misinterpreted in the post 9/11 literature. Quite a few critics of Islam have deliberately used Jihād as synonymous with terrorism. Robert Spencer, a prominent critic of Islamic Jihād, also maintains that Islam teaches violence, intolerance and extremism. The following research article is a critique of Spencer’s views on Islamic concept of jihad. It aims to prove that Islam is a tolerant creed and has nothing to do with violence and terrorism. The Holy Qur’an substantiates this claim and shows that the persecuted Muslim community was allowed to take up arms against the terrorists who not only tormented the innocent people but also expelled them from their native homes.
The world of mathematics education is progressing rapidly with new knowledge being generated through advanced research. In order to make sense of the new mathematical discoveries and information in the field of mathematics education, conceptual understanding of mathematical concepts is very essential. Moreover, mathematics teaching and learning to promote students’ conceptual understanding in the context of Pakistan is considered challenging. Nevertheless teachers try to handle the emerging challenges while teaching for conceptual understanding. This study aimed to explore the challenges of mathematics classrooms and the strategies that mathematics teachers use to promote mathematical understanding in the middle school of a private Learning Resource High School in the context of Gilgit-Baltistan. In order to achieve the research purpose, a qualitative case study approach was used to carry out this study. The participants of this study were two mathematics teachers. The tools used for the purpose of data collection were: semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, post lesson discussions, document analysis and reflective journal maintained by the researcher. The interview data was audio-taped and transcribed. Further, the data was analyzed by coding and categorizing under various themes. The study revealed that during the teaching and learning of mathematics, teachers face certain types of challenges such as English language barrier, non-availability of teaching resources and their utilization, lack of classroom culture of exploration and issues in teaching of algebraic concepts. Similarly, the study also revealed that to overcome the emerging challenges, the teachers facilitate students with the help of contextual low-cost no-cost materials, contextualizing the mathematical concepts and through the involvement of the students. This study can help mathematics teachers and educators to design various types of activities to overcome the challenges.