Analysis of Rights of Foetus in the Light of Searah Nabviyah: Comparative Study With Positive Law

The article titled: the rights of foetus in Islamic law, aims at explaining the rights of foetus without discussing different theories of the scholars in this regards. It also defines the foetus and gives literal and technical meanings besides different stages of foetus mentioned in the Holy Quran and the Hadith. The article explains the rights granted to foetus in the lights of serah before birth and these rights are a binding on the concerned people and violation of foetus’ s rights is prohibited and it is a cognizable offence. The article also discusses the attitude of west regarding foetus rights as the western society is totally ignorant about the rights of foetus and their legislation in this regard is contrary and several western laws are causing the violation of foetus’s rights. Thus, the champions of human’s rights are blind to the rights of foetus which is foundation and beginning of human life and first step for the human race. It is that has given these rights to mankind for the first time and informed human being about their rights through the first human’s rights charter given at the time of the Noble Prophet {blessing of Allah and peace be upon him}. This charter is known as the charter of Madina between the Muslims and the Jews. The article concludes: mankind cannot be protected unless the sperm of man is protected and foetus is protected in the womb of the mother from abortion because these are the future of humanity.

Evaluation of Dry Nuts for Aflatoxins and Their Reduction by Chemical and Γ Ray Treatments

Aflatoxins are secondary metabolites of mould Aspergillus section Flavi species. These toxins are very carcinogenic, mutagenic and teratogenic in nature. They are opportunist toxins and can exist in any food or feed commodity. Nuts are inspired worldwide for their nutritional, sensory and health promoting attributes. Aflatoxin contamination of tree nuts (almonds, pistachios and walnuts) and ground nut is a significant food safety related problem worldwide. Infect, aflatoxins were first reported in 1960’s in peanut feed. As nuts are mostly consumed mostly directly, so the chances of aflatoxin decontamination during food processing procedures are also minimized. Aflatoxin contamination can occur pre-harvest, in field, postharvest like transport, handling and storage. The lack of preharvest control of mycotoxins has made them a postharvest threat. The contamination of a single nut in a lot can lead to the deterioration of the entire lot due to proliferating mycoflora. There are a number of outbreaks reported in literature in different countries throughout the world due to the consumption of aflatoxin contaminated food and feed stuffs. No single method is currently available which can detoxify aflatoxins and eliminate fungal load responsible for aflatoxin contamination along with the guarantee of wholesomeness of all types of food commodities. The present study emphasizes on multiplication of fungal species and the formation of aflatoxins in selected nuts during storage at two different moisture levels. The second major focal point of the study was decontamination of aflatoxins, along with elimination of contaminating fungal species using physical method, gamma and ultra violet irradiation, and chemical method like citric, lactic and propionic acid in ground and tree nuts. The results of the study showed that physical methods like γ and UV radiations can effectively reduce total aflatoxin content as well as aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), the most toxic aflatoxin. The irradiation (γ and UV) also significantly reduced the contaminating mycoflora. The degradation of aflatoxins by irradiation was also kinetically evaluated and found to follow first order rate kinetics. The degradation rate constants are also reported. The advantage of using irradiation is that it does not result in the formation toxic chemical residues. Organic acids also reduced the total as well as AFB1 to permissible limits. The degradation of aflatoxins by organic acids was found to follow exponential decay function. Citric acid was more effective than lactic and propionic acids in detoxifying aflatoxins. The results revealed that lactic and propionic acids can more efficiently reduce the fungal count than citric acid. The lipid fraction, tocopherol content and free fatty acid profile of the ground and tree nuts were also estimated at different time intervals during storage. The fungal growth significantly affected the oil quality of nuts, in view of the fact that being consumed as substrate by the infecting mycoflora. The tocopherol content was not significantly affected by gamma irradiation, where as UV irradiation significantly degraded the tocopherol content following first order rate kinetics. In case of fatty acids, γ-irradiation selectively affected saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids, resulting in a decrease in oxidation index, ensuring an extension of shelf life. Over all irradiation particularly gamma ray treatment proved to be effective in reducing fungal count and aflatoxin content without significantly affecting the quality of the selected food.