Interfaith Marriages in Islam: A Case Study of Christian Wives of Muslim Rulers

Force Conversion is adaptation of a different religion or irreligion under duress. Some who have been forced to convert may continue, covertly with the beliefs and practices originally held, while outwardly behaving as converts. At many places the Orientalists put the statement that Islam basic purpose is to establish sovereignty throughout the globe and its primary purport deals with ‘authority’, ‘political’ and ‘economic’ matters for which it also used force for the implementation. Although it is an erroneous statement as Islam’s basic purport is religious, pure and simple; it deals with other social issues. While Islam stressed upon free will and there is no restriction in accepting other religions. As other religions are not in pure form now and Islam is being preserved by Allāh, so it teaches to submit oneself to the Will of Allāh. The early converts to Islam were the Prophet (peace be upon him) close friends Abu Bakr (may Allāh be pleased with her) and his family members in which his faithful wife Khadija (may Allāh be pleased with her), his cousin Ali were on the top, sand his slave Zayed. None of them argued and accepted Islam immediately. Among them Abu Bakr (peace be upon him) enjoyed prominent place among Arabs and with his influence five people accept Islam in which Sa’ad, Zobeir, Talha, Othman and Abd-al-Rahman who were member of prominent families. Abdul Rahman converted four people of his family. Likewise Bilal (may Allāh be pleased with her) was the first slave, ransomed by Abu Bakr (may Allāh be pleased with her). These early converts of Islam were men of piety and dignity.1

Chloroplast Genome Sequencing of Ajuga Bracteosa and its Phylogenetic Relationship in Familylamiaceae

Medicinal plants were playing an important role in our lives due to their remedial properties. Lifesaving medicines were produced by these plants. For their better use in food and medicines genomes sequencing of these medicinal plants was needed. Ajuga bracteosa is a medicinal plant in family Lamiaceae (mint family). It is a herbal plant and used in many medicines. In this research work chloroplast genome sequencing of Ajuga bracteosa was carried out by next generation sequencing technique. DNeasy plant DNA extraction kit was used for the extraction of DNA from fresh young leaves of Ajuga bracteosa. Quality and quantity of DNA was evaluated using agarose gel electrophoresis and uDrop plate of Multiskan GO spectrophotometer. DNA was lyophilized before shipment to Novagene, Hong Kong, a commercial NGS facility. Sequencing was done using Illumina HiSeq 2500 instrument, using PE150 run, and approx. 4Gb data was produced. Quality of short reads was checked using SolexaQA tool. Short reads were mapped back to Ajuga reptans chloroplast genome downloaded from NCBI. Mapping was visualized using Tablet tool, which attested to high coverage depth of chloroplast genome. The genome was de novo assembled using Velvet tool, and several velvet runs were performed by changing kmer values. Assembled contigs from these Velvet runs were imported in Geneious tool and used to generate full length chloroplast genome. The assembled genome size was 150,373 bp, divided in usual LSC, SSC and IRs. Overall genome structure and gene synteny matched to Ajuga reptans chloroplast genome. Phylogenetic analysis showed divergence of Ajuga bracteosa from its relatives in family Lamiaceae. This study showed intra specific and interspecific relationship within family Lamiaceae. So, this work will help the researchers in proper identification and differentiation of Ajuga bracteosa from the other plants of same family.