The Universality and Scope of Justice in Islam

Definition of justice and its scope is something about what legal and political philosophers could never reach a unified position throughout a history. In these days, many in the West are trying to present Islam and its law and justice as something utterly uncivilized, unjust, cruel, and outdated and of no use in modern world. Positivist's concept of justice that prevails in the world today, mostly based on temporary secular-materialistic values, is in most of the cases opposed to the eternal principles and rules laid down by God Almighty. Justice according to the early proponents of Natural law, if not based on the universal values in itself is not justice, and as such is doomed to failure. Today we are witnessing the kind of global justice that threatens even to destroy humanity.  The present article is an effort to find out the most suitable definition of justice according to the Islamic law, and present the concept of universality and scope of justice in Islam in a way to show the absolute God's principles and values are unchangeable and everlasting, and only rightful solution to be followed today.

Secondary School Students Attitudes Towards Mathematics

This small-scale research study set out with two purposes. The first purpose of the study was to investigate the difference between public and private school students' attitudes towards mathematics at the secondary level in Quetta, Pakistan. Another aim of the study was to find out whether there is a difference between male and female students' attitudes towards mathematics. The population in this study consisted of (n = 387) students of ninth grade selected through stratified random sampling from twelve secondary schools. Data was collected through an adapted questionnaire 'Attitudes Toward Mathematics Inventory' (ATMI) (Tapia, 1996) that consisted of 40 statements arranged under four subscales (self-confidence, value, enjoyment, and motivation). Students were asked to indicate their degree of agreement with each statement in the ATMI, from 'strongly disagree' to 'strongly agree'. Data were analysed using the non-parametric equivalent of the independent t-test. The results of the study indicated that there were no significant differences between public and private school students' attitudes towards mathematics at the secondary level. Results at subscale level also revealed that no significant differences between the public and private systems were found except for the subscale 'value of mathematics'. Furthermore, the results of the study indicated that there were significant differences between male and female students, where male students reported to have a significantly high degree of positive attitude towards mathematics as compared to their female counterparts. Interestingly, results in each school type also revealed that male students claimed to have a more positive attitude towards mathematics than female students. The results of the study provide significant insights into male and female students' attitudes towards the discipline in both public and private secondary schools. Based on the results of the study, some recommendations have been put forward for policy and practice. Furthermore, the results of the study can be used as a baseline for further research.