Interfaith Marriages in Islam: A Case Study of Christian Wives of Muslim Rulers

Force Conversion is adaptation of a different religion or irreligion under duress. Some who have been forced to convert may continue, covertly with the beliefs and practices originally held, while outwardly behaving as converts. At many places the Orientalists put the statement that Islam basic purpose is to establish sovereignty throughout the globe and its primary purport deals with ‘authority’, ‘political’ and ‘economic’ matters for which it also used force for the implementation. Although it is an erroneous statement as Islam’s basic purport is religious, pure and simple; it deals with other social issues. While Islam stressed upon free will and there is no restriction in accepting other religions. As other religions are not in pure form now and Islam is being preserved by Allāh, so it teaches to submit oneself to the Will of Allāh. The early converts to Islam were the Prophet (peace be upon him) close friends Abu Bakr (may Allāh be pleased with her) and his family members in which his faithful wife Khadija (may Allāh be pleased with her), his cousin Ali were on the top, sand his slave Zayed. None of them argued and accepted Islam immediately. Among them Abu Bakr (peace be upon him) enjoyed prominent place among Arabs and with his influence five people accept Islam in which Sa’ad, Zobeir, Talha, Othman and Abd-al-Rahman who were member of prominent families. Abdul Rahman converted four people of his family. Likewise Bilal (may Allāh be pleased with her) was the first slave, ransomed by Abu Bakr (may Allāh be pleased with her). These early converts of Islam were men of piety and dignity.1

Mangroves of the Active Indus Delta - Changes and Their Cause

Extensive GIS and field studies of Indus delta were conducted during 2005-08 to determine the influence of reduced flow of river Indus on dynamics of Indus delta changes as well as of its vegetation degradation during 49 years period from 1953 to 2001. There was huge loss of 67% in dense forests with slight reduction of 23% in the river flow in initial 25 years period whereas there was a minor loss of only 9% of dense forests in spite of huge reduction of 57% of river flow in next 24 years period. It was noted that lagged effect of river water dilution remained variably effective from 5-7 months after floods. It was further determined that Indus delta mangrove forests were not degraded due to higher salinity levels. Comparative figures for different parameters of forest cover, forest density, annual growth rate as well as Shannon’s diversity Index H (richness) and E H (evenness) for least flooded zone (23.12 ppt) and most flooded zone (18.74 ppt) were 60.58 vs. 56.19, 598 vs. 202, 17.46% vs. 18.08%, 0.45 vs. 0.08 and 0.40 vs. 0.07 respectively. It was determined that reduced flow of river Indus had no adverse effect on delta erosion, accretion as well as mangrove forest degradation as such. It was apparent that biological interventions of various nature and magnitude were responsible for the said degradation.