Understanding and Promotion of Civic Behavior Among Students in the Light of Sīrah

Civic behavior reflects the values related to individual’s attitude towards family, peer group, and neighborhood and includes the way one behaves in the society and community as a whole. The purpose of the present study is to describe what civic behavior is, its characteristics, its status in the Hadith, and the way forward for improvement of the civic behavior as guided by Sīrah of the Holy Prophet (ﷺ). Study implies that truthfulness, mercifulness, polite talk, helping others, respect for others, caring and sharing and promise-keeping, loyalty, sympathy, honesty, kindness, brotherhood, cooperation, fairness and unity are the core qualities that make the individual a civilized and active citizen and our Holy Prophet (ﷺ) is the embodiment of all these virtues. Descriptive approach was followed to explain and analyze the concept. First the concept of civic behavior was interpreted, then its importance and characteristics were discussed. After that it was explored in the light of the teachings of the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ). The findings highlight that the civic behavior in its best form was preached and practiced by the Holy Prophet (ﷺ) and his companions. Each dimension was interpreted in the light of the Quran and the Sīrah. It was concluded that Sīrah of the Holy Prophet (ﷺ) is an immaculate source of guidance and inspiration for not only Muslims but also for the whole mankind in acquiring the core values and abilities that determine the Civic behavior of an individual which ultimately results into a well-organized, peaceful and civilized society The study suggests that civic behavior of the citizens has significant impact on the formation and development of a peaceful society. It is recommended that civic behavior as reflected in the life of and practiced by the Holy Prophet (ﷺ) should be promoted and practiced for achieving a civilized social setup.

Separation of Heavy Metals and Dyes from Aqueous Solution by Biopolymer and Surfactant Supported Ultrafiltration

Polymer Enhanced Ultrafiltration is a technique that is equally effective for removing both inorganic and organic pollutants from water. In this study, inorganic pollutants such as heavy metals (i.e. Cu, Zn, Pb, Ni, Co) and organic pollutants or dyes like Methylene Blue (MB), Alizarin Red S (ARS) and Reactive Black 5 (RB5) were removed. This is surfactant as well as bio-polymer based technique; surfactants are amphiphilic in nature with polar head and non-polar long organic chain. At a certain concentration namely critical micelle concentration (CMC), solution properties change and aggregation or assemblage of surfactant monomers take place in the interior of solution. This aggregation or micelles in the interior of solution have capacity to entrap pollutants: inorganic pollutants on the micellar surface and organic dyes get accumulated into core of micelles in both a separate or simultaneous fashion. Thereafter a membrane is used to hamper these entrapped pollutants along with surfactants on one side of solution called retentate while the pollutants free stream of water is obtained on other side of membrane called permeate solution. Removing efficiency of pollutants in this permeate solution is assessed by two major physical parameters, rejection co-efficient (R) and permeate flux (J). These parameters are highly dependant on many factors, for example, choice of surfactant, pH, membrane pore size, pressure, concentration of surfactants and target pollutants. This study was divided in two parts: In part (I), heavy metals i.e. lead, cobalt, nickel, copper and zinc were removed with help of bio-polymer namely sericin at Chemical Engineering Department, University of Waterloo, Canada; whereas in part (II), organic dyes for example Reactive Black 5 (RB-5), Methylene Blue (MB) and Alizarin Red S (ARS) were separated by using suitable surfactants i.e. SDS, CTAB, CPC and TX-100 at Chemistry Department Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad-Pakistan. Concentration of metals and organic dyes in permeate solution was measured by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) and UV-Visible spectrophotometer respectively. Mainly two parameters rejection percentage (R%) and permeate flux (J) were studied on account of their importance to measure and control the separating efficiency of surfactants/sericin from water in both part I and part II. Three membranes of different pore size of 5000, 10,000 and 30,000 MWCO (molecular weight cut-off) were used in this study.