100. Al-‘Adiyat/The Chargers
I/We begin by the Blessed Name of Allah
The Immensely Merciful to all, The Infinitely Compassionate to everyone.
100:01
a. By the war-horses, charging, snorting, rushing to the battlefield,
100:02
a. striking sparks with their hooves,
100:03
a. and charging by the dawn,
100:04
a. raising a trail of dust,
100:05
a. and storming into the midst of the enemy troops together.
100:06
a. Indeed, the human being has always been ungrateful and grudging to his Rabb - The Lord,
100:07
a. and truly he is a witness to it,
100:08
a. and he is truly very excessive as well as aggressive in his passion for wealth.
100:09
a. But does he not realize what will happen to him when the contents of the graves are thrown out -
100:10
a. and that which is within the hearts will be made known,
100:11
a. at that Time, their Rabb - The Lord will be Fully Aware of them?
During these troubled times fallacious notions are being deliberately and repeatedly spread throughout the world by many biased, ill-informed and even mischievous persons regarding Islam and Holy Prophet Mohammad(SAW). Those writers have tried to damage the graceful and towering personality of Mohammad(SAW) in the eyes of the world. Thus, Islam is under the pressure of media, politicians, and even financial world donor institutions. The result of all this propaganda is that Muslims are considered a threat to Western way of life. Muslims are portrayed as fanatics, fundamentalists and terrorists. This article presents the Islamic view about interfaith dialogue especially in the light of the Quranic verses and Hadith of Prophet (SAW). Certain events from the life of the Prophet (SAW) have also been quoted when the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) held interfaith dialogue with the rulers, envoys and other factions. These incidents include different strategies of the prophet (SAW) calling DAWA and preaching for interfaith dialogue. At the same time Prophet (SAW) presented Islam as a religion of harmony and peace.
This small-scale qualitative action research seeks to explore possibilities and challenges involved in facilitating a social studies a teacher to reflect on her own classroom teaching and learning processes. The study is based on the premise that reflection is significant to improving teacher's classroom practice. For this purpose, an action researcher worked with one social studies secondary level teacher from a community based private school of Karachi. In this regard, the study explores the participant teacher's existing perceptions and practices of reflection in general, and on her own classroom teaching and learning in particular. Subsequently, based on this reconnaissance, a general plan of action was developed and implemented with some variations to facilitate the teacher's reflection. The data for the reconnaissance and implementation of action stages were collected through semi-structured interviews conducted at pre and post classroom observation, classroom observations (through taking running notes), tape recording of input sessions and the researcher's reflective journal. The gathered data were analyzed soon after each action step for reflection and further action. The study reports some possible strategies to facilitate teachers in gaining an understanding of reflection and its practice. These strategies are: a) developing a conceptual understanding through sharing of relevant literature and b) the using Guided Reflection Protocol strategy. The study also reports the challenges faced in the process. Finally the report concludes by presenting key learnings of the researcher as a teacher educator and action researcher and focus for further research.