Perceptions of Pakistani Society About Western Enlightenment: An Analysis in the Light of Islamic Teachings

The study was conducted to examine some of the important questions raised by both the religious scholars and the proponents of the Enlightenment movement. The purpose of the study was to interpret enlightenment in Western and Islamic context and to examine the impact of western enlightenment on contemporary Pakistani society in the light of Islamic teachings. The study was quantitative in nature. Survey was conducted to probe into the perceptions of the Pakistani people regarding impact of western enlightenment on various aspects of contemporary Pakistani society. The sample of the study was 1000 people from four provincial headquarters of Pakistan including male and female from urban and rural areas of the provincial capitals. Two research instruments were developed by the researcher based on review of the related literature. First was a questionnaire named WEBI, Western Enlightenment Beliefs Inventory; second was a checklist named WEKAPC, Western Enlightenment Knowledge, Attitude and Practices Checklist. Results showed that most of the respondents were of the view that western enlightenment exerted significant influences on their thinking, lifestyles, and education, culture, media and social practices. Majority of the respondents thought that western enlightenment emphasized on tolerance, cultural harmony, equality, social justice and independent thinking. Gender-wise comparisons indicated that male respondents were more positive towards western enlightenment than the female respondents. It was recommended that Pakistani society needs to be made aware of the philosophy of western enlightenment and Islamic values which are characteristics of western enlightenment movement. There is need to initiate interfaith dialogue to understand socio-cultural dynamics of a Muslim society and a western society.

Plasma Instabilities in Linear and Quasi-Linear Regime

Kinetic Plasma instabilities are important for regulating the temperature anisotropies of electrons and ions in the solar wind. The plasma compression generates the perpendicular anisotropy, T┴ >Tll, which leads the mirror instability for high beta situation but for low beta regime the electromagnetic ion/electron cyclotron (EMIC/EMEC) instabilities. The said unstable modes including electrons are simplified and reduced quasi linear kinetic theory with assumption of bi-Maxwellian velocity distribution function. For mirror mode instability, the linear growth rate of electron mirror mode can be much higher than the proton mirror mode and electron part operates over a range of unstable wave numbers that is much broader than proton part. But in quasi linear analysis, high initial growth rate does not necessarily imply dynamical importance, the saturated magnetic field intensity associated with electrons is extremely low and that the influence on the particle temperature is minimal. The EMIC/EMEC instabilities are taken into account with parallel propagation in two dimensions. The present manuscript extends the analysis to two (or with cylindrical symmetry, three) dimensions. The analysis is further extended to include quasilinear description with the assumption of bi-Maxwellian velocity distribution function. Such an analysis lays the foundation for eventual study in which cyclotron instabilities as well as obliquely propagating unstable modes such as the mirror instability are simultaneously taken into account.