Muslim Religious Militancy: Causes and Cure

Islamic religious militancy is a matter of great concern for the Muslim and the non-Muslim world today. The analysis of the ideology of the militants reveals that they find the legitimacy of their military activities in the ideal of the establishment of an Islamic state to establish the universal rule of Islām, and in the specific interpretations of some Qur’ānic verses, Aḥādīth of the Prophet (r), and also from the establishment of the Islamic state in Madīnah by the Prophet (r), his the military expeditions and those of his companions against their opponents and from the treatment of our historians of the individual military campaigns against the Muslim regimes of their times. The Muslim militants also fight against their Muslim governments on the grounds that they are not the true Islamic governments. The militants do not bother to kill the common Muslim masses, who vote and support such rulers. They take it as collateral damage. The world naturally reacts to this cult, especially the west, being at the helm of the world politics. Not only do the West tries to crush the Islamic militants, across the world, but also, topple the Muslim democratic governments having any ideal of an Islamic Khilāfah. This frustrates the peaceful political activists and strengthens the military activists, further. To end this ongoing and mounting cult of religious militancy, it is necessary to review the specific and traditional interpretations of the academic sources of Islām: Qur’ān, Ḥadīth and Fiqh, regarding the legitimacy of militancy in Islām. Secondly, to remove their misconceptions, it is necessary to engage the militants in dialogue through a counter narrative, which the author tried to present here.

Ab-Initio Investigation of Pristine and Intrinsic Vacancy Defect-Containing A3sno and A3pbo A: Ca, Sr and Ba Inverse Perovskites

The A3SnO and A3PbO (A: Ca, Sr and Ba) inverse perovskite oxides have gained immense research attention as they exhibit physical properties suitable for thermoelectric, superconducting and magnetic devices. The emergence of stoichiometry dependent stable ferromagnetism in these inverse perovskites has recently made these materials potential candidates for utilization in spintronic and quantum computing devices. In the present work, DFT based first principles total energy calculations have been employed using the full-potential linearized augmented plane-wave method to explore the electronic, magnetic and thermodynamic properties of pristine and intrinsic vacancy defect containing A3SnO and A3PbO (A: Ca, Sr and Ba) compounds. The electronic structures of these compounds are computed with the inclusion of spin orbit coupling interactions which plays an important role in topological nature of these compounds. Furthermore, the spin-polarization calculations have been carried out to investigate the impact of vacancy defects on magnetic and electronic properties of these inverse perovskites. The thermodynamic stability analysis indicated that these materials can be synthesized under Ca/Sr/Ba rich and Sn/Pb intermediate-rich conditions. Moreover, the defect formation energies revealed that Ca/Ba/Sr vacancies are the most stable form of vacancy defect under oxidation (O-rich) conditions, while O and Sn/Pb vacancies are found to have stableunder reduction (O-poor) and Sn/Pb-poor conditions, respectively. Our calculations reveal that charge neutral Sn or O vacancies can give rise to stable ferromagnetism in non-stoichiometric A3SnO and A3PbO (A: Ca, Sr and Ba) compounds.