Islamic Microfinance: An Overview and Prospects in Pakistan

This paper will highlight the significance importance of the Islamic microfinance working in Pakistan as well as across the world. In 2007, the Great economic damage the global economy of the world including United States, European Union as well as Asia, it made the researcher to study about the alternate system in the replacement of Conventional Financial System, after that study and research they recognized that there is no concept of interest in Islamic Financial System, it is totally based on asset-based system, this recognition shift their area of interest from conventional financial system to Islamic financial system. Islamic financialSystem plays a significant role in economic growth of a country through accumulation of deposits and providing the plate form of financing to speed up economic activities. In the last two decades, the traditional microfinance is replaced by the Islamic microfinance in Pakistan as well as in the whole world. This paper will highlight the working methodology of Islamic microfinance models and institutions that how these Islamic microfinance institutions working asan interest free sector in Pakistan and in the world. The paper is also highlighting the difference between conventional micro financing and Islamic micro financing that what are the models and functions that differs the Islamic micro financing from the traditional micro financing.

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.