A CRITICAL STUDY OF CLINTON BENNETT’S THOUGHTS TOWARDS SIRAH OF THE HOLY PROPHET ﷺ

Sirah of the Holy Prophet ﷺ is the topic on which a lot of work has been done both in the Muslim and non-Muslim world. For Muslims it was the source of aspiration and adaptation for the practical purposes of social life while for the non-Muslims it was the source of inquisitiveness and understanding Islam as a successful religion in the past and present time. Therefore, Muslim enthusiastic interest in the biography of the Holy Prophet ﷺ developed and evolved into a regular science while the west has modified the knowledge of biography according to their own order of preference but within the same biographic precedents. Both have tried to reconstruct the biography of the Holy Prophet ﷺ historically, chronologically and logically. Clinton Bennett is one of the western scholars who has contributed not only in the Islamic literature but also the biographic field. His work consists of numerous issues in Islam. Whatever he has learned from Islam and the Sirah of Holy Prophet and thus concluded in the form of his own thoughts, he has expressed most of them in his famous five books for example ‘In Search of Muhammad’, ‘Muslims and Modernity’, ‘Studying Islam’, ‘Interpreting the Qur’an’, and ‘Victorian Images of Islam’ (doctoral thesis)’. This study focuses on Clinton Bennett’s work on Sirah specifically with his broader view of the subject. This research is descriptive and analytical in nature and presents a detailed analysis of the work it is based upon.

Rights of Prisoners: A Camparative Study of Shariah & Law With Special Reference to Pakistani Statutes and Case Law

Though the essential concept of rights may transform for prisoners however the prison walls do not keep the fundamental rights altogether out. The transformation of concepts of rights though subtracts several liberties however grants certain special rights to the inmates. This research is an attempt to explore those rights in a thematic way. In this regard, the first category relates to the right to avail ‘alternative strategies to imprisonment’ or ‘non custodial methods’. These methods are not very popular in Pakistani criminal justice system. The primary reason for this resistant attitude is that the out-dated laws offer extremely weak surveillance and monitoring mechanisms to support these methods/ alternative strategies. Therefore most of the times the system while failing to trust these mechanisms rules out the possibility to employ these strategies. Resultantly the detainee/offender gets affected. Chapter II, III and IV of this research particularly provide a discussion on pre-trial/pre-sentencing, post-trial/sentencing and post-sentencing non-custodial methods respectively. The second thematic category relates to the ‘rights of reformation of inmates during imprisonment’. In this regard, Chapter V specifically deals with the rights of prisoners captivated under terrorism charges. These prisoners face inequitable attitude not only during the trial but also in post-conviction scenario. This Chapter is a statutory and judicial scrutiny of the matter which provides recommendations to solve the issue. Chapter VI is a thorough discussion on the right of reformation and rehabilitation, the relevant available strategies to ensure this right in Pakistan, their reasons of failure and the suggestions for improvement. The next category relates to the post-imprisonment rights of ex-prisoners with specific reference to the ‘right of repatriation’. Chapter VII highlights the current statutory position with relation to the ex-prisoners/convicts in Pakistan. It suggests the remedies in the light of English statutory mechanisms to deal with the issue. vii Chapter VIII is a comparative study of the modern viewpoint on above-cited rights with the Islamic perspective. This Chapter concludes that the basic concepts of nearly all the modern rights and the rights provided by Sh’ariah to the prisoners are similar. Sometimes the legal procedure lacks with regard to some modern rights however this deficiency might be removed through proper law making. The final Chapter gives the concluding suggestions. Thus this thesis is not a discussion regarding the provision of basic amenities to the prisoners as their right but it touches some thematic approaches of rights of prisoners starting from the rights of ‘detainee prisoners’ towards ending upon the rights of ‘ex-prisoners’.