Atiya Fyzee, Shibli, and Iqbal: English as a Social Butterfly

Taking an ‘analogical’ approach to the issue, this study reads the saga of Atiya Fyzee’s relationship with Shibli Nomani and Allama Iqbal as a plausible allegory of the transforming cultural relationship of the Muslims of the subcontinent with English (in what this term comes to mean as a language, as a discipline of studies, and as a synecdoche of Western culture). The history of this cultural interaction since the British colonization I have divided into three broad phases: the initial, the middle, and the present. The initial phase I earlier dealt with by exploiting Sheikh Muhammad Ikram’s analogy, later employed by Nasir Abbas Nayyar, that Shibli’s attitude towards English was the same as his attitude towards his step-mother at home. English, in other words, was a stepmother for Shibli, and for the generations represented through his figure in this early phase of cultural interaction of the Muslims of the subcontinent with the language. The present paper focuses on how one can analogically read in the personal histories of the representative figures of this culture the stories of how in the subcontinent the larger cultural reception of English gradually changed from being treated as a ‘step-mother’(and hence forging with her a relationship of cultural exchange) to being treated as a ‘social butterfly’ or a ‘social sweetheart’, as a symbol of liberal humanist high culture, and how such terms of cultural engagement with English were unacceptable to both Shibli and Iqbal. The paper closes on how even this image of English as high culture gradually dissolved with the cultural disintegration wrought by an ever-increasing and relentless consumerist culture in the postcolonial times.

Genetic History of Pakistani Cattle Breeds Using High Density Snp Array Genotyping

Human domesticated cattle genetic resources nearly 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. ). A total 1,019 cattle breed is present around the world. This study gives a detailed assessment of genetic diversity in Pakistani cattle breeds from different agro ecological zones and genotyped for 500,939 autosomal single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP). Mean minor allele frequency (MAF), which were 0.23, 0.20, 0.22, 0.22, 0.20, 0.18, 0.20, 0.22, 0.21 and 0.18 for Achi, Bhagnari, Cholistani, Dhanni, Dajal, Kankrej, Lohani, Red Sindi, Sahiwal and Tharparkar cattle, respectively. Across all breeds 64% SNP markers were observed polymorphic (MAF > 0.05) within breeds and remaining 36% were considered as monomorphic markers. Experiment 2 discussed the two different approaches, selective sweep and population differentiation index (FST), to identify selection signatures between and within breeds in Pakistan. First method was used to detect haplotypes fixation on genomic regions within breeds. Second, FST was used to identify genomic regions having different allele frequencies between these breeds. The melanocortin 1 receptor (MCIR) gene was found on BTA 18 at 147, 573, 32-147, 590, 82 bp for Lohanni breed. This gene was previously associated with an adaptive trait in Bos indicus. A number of putative genes linked with productive traits (LAP3, CAPN3, CYP19, SAR1B, and RPS6KA2), reproductive traits (PIK3CA, SPERT, and IGF1R), nervous system (KIT, FGF5, ASIP and HSPB9) and immune response (IL2, IL4, SERPINA3-8 and BOLA3) were identified as being under selection. Experiment 3 examined population genetic properties of copy number variations (CNV). High resolution results of CNV revealed genome wide admixture proportion and agro-ecological variation pattern within and among these breeds. We detected 53 CNV regions and these regions overlapped with genes involved in traits related to immune response, body size and parasitic resistance. This could provide possible genetic relationship among these Pakistani indigenous breeds and other cattle breeds of the world. It is important to mention that small sample size of this study may not be truly representative of the whole population and could lead erroneous conclusion about the entire population. This study might be used properly and conserved in order to manage with unpredictable future environments. Moreover, a genomic understanding of natural selection how and where has shaped the genetic pattern of these breeds in Pakistan was exposed by loci identified that are important to the development of these breeds. The results of this study make a foundation for more suitable application of selective breeding and conservation approaches of Pakistani cattle breeds.