A CRITICAL STUDY OF CLINTON BENNETT’S THOUGHTS TOWARDS SIRAH OF THE HOLY PROPHET ﷺ

Sirah of the Holy Prophet ﷺ is the topic on which a lot of work has been done both in the Muslim and non-Muslim world. For Muslims it was the source of aspiration and adaptation for the practical purposes of social life while for the non-Muslims it was the source of inquisitiveness and understanding Islam as a successful religion in the past and present time. Therefore, Muslim enthusiastic interest in the biography of the Holy Prophet ﷺ developed and evolved into a regular science while the west has modified the knowledge of biography according to their own order of preference but within the same biographic precedents. Both have tried to reconstruct the biography of the Holy Prophet ﷺ historically, chronologically and logically. Clinton Bennett is one of the western scholars who has contributed not only in the Islamic literature but also the biographic field. His work consists of numerous issues in Islam. Whatever he has learned from Islam and the Sirah of Holy Prophet and thus concluded in the form of his own thoughts, he has expressed most of them in his famous five books for example ‘In Search of Muhammad’, ‘Muslims and Modernity’, ‘Studying Islam’, ‘Interpreting the Qur’an’, and ‘Victorian Images of Islam’ (doctoral thesis)’. This study focuses on Clinton Bennett’s work on Sirah specifically with his broader view of the subject. This research is descriptive and analytical in nature and presents a detailed analysis of the work it is based upon.

Synthesis and Characterization of Polyethylene Composites Based on Polysaccharide

Some novel biodegradable polymer composites were synthesized, using polyolefin as a matrix with various natural polymers including chitosan, starch and carboxymethyl cellulose as biodegradable additives. The compatibility of the components was enhanced with different silane coupling agents. The materials were heat mixed in brabender plasti- corder mixer using roller rotor. During mixing, different temperatures were used to mix and decompose the initiator to start the grafting of silane and crosslinking of the polymer. The blended materials were hot pressed into sheets. The hydrolysis and the condensation reactions of silane were carried out in hot water at 95°C for 20 hours. After crosslinking reactions, the prepared sheets were dried in vacuum oven for 16 hours before characterization. The structural analysis of the non-crosslinked and crosslinked composites was carried out using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) techniques. The crosslinking reaction was confirmed by FTIR spectra, which revealed the important absorption peaks of siloxane (Si-O-Si) and Si-O-C bonds. SEM images also revealed that crosslinking has improved the dispersion and interaction between polymer and the additives. The degree of crosslinking as determined by gel content analysis was found to be directly proportional to the amount of chitosan in HDPE/chitosan composite. In LLDPE/starch/sepiolite composite, it decreased with high sepiolite loading. Thermogravimetric analysis showed higher thermal stability of the crosslinked composites. Differential scanning calorimetry showed decreasing trend of percentage crystallinity with increasing amount of additive. This behavior is associated to the network structure and the disorder of close packing of polyethylene chains. Rheological studies of crosslinked composites showed linear viscoelastic behavior with high complex viscosities (h*) and dynamic shear storage moduli (G`) reflecting a strong interaction between matrix-filler interphase and the elastic nature of the crosslinked samples. High tensile strength (TS) and reduced elongation at break (Eb) values were observed in all the crosslinked samples of HDPE/chitosan and HDPE/carboxymethyl cellulose composites. However, the TS and Eb values of non-crosslinked and crosslinked formulations for LLDPE/starch/sepiolite composite showed decreasing trends with high starch and sepiolite loading. Creep experiments indicated a small deformation in crosslinked composites, which showed that silane effectively coupled the immiscible components.