Theological Foundations for Interfaith Dialogue in Islam

According to Qur’an, the difference of opinion among peoples of the world is natural and something that will always be there. However, in order to stop the difference from becoming a conflict, people should hold dialogue. The significance of dialogue in Islam is well understood by the fact that God chose to hold dialogue with angels concerning the creation of man. Furthermore, the Qur’an declares dialogue the greater jihad and arrangement of a successful dialogue is considered as a manifest victory In order to arrange a successful dialogue, Qur’an lays out a number of principles: 1- Dialogue should be held in such a nice way that it may lead the opponent to get a close friend. For this it is necessary to speak mildly and the dialogue must be based on wisdom and sincerity. 2- Dialogue should rest on the principle of mutual respect and should not contain any kind of abusive and taunting language. 3- Dialogue must not override the principle of justice and equality and must not be affected by the past experiences or personal grievances towards the opponent. 4- Dialogue should not address the issue of pulling everyone together, e.g. The opponent (for example a nation) should not be blamed for the evil deeds of few. 5- Dialogue should be held with an attitude that is characterized by patience and tolerance and efforts must be made to keep the vicious elements out from harming the process. 6- Both parties should openly acknowledge and recognize the mutually positive attributes. 7- Imposing one’s opinions upon the opponent must not be the objective of dialogue. 8- Both parties should, despite the inherent difference of opinion, pursue to find practical solutions by striving towards finding a common ground.

Wasterwater Treatment Using Bioprocessesand Nanofiltration

The water pollution is one of the environmental problems due to the bioaccumulation tendency of toxic materials. The purpose of present study was to treat wastewater through bioprocesses, in combination with nanofiltration (NF) as a post treatment process to remove heavy metals (Cu(II) & Pb(II)), and reactive dyes (Drimarine Yellow HF-3GL & Drimarine Black CL-B) from aqueous solutions. The bioprocesses were conducted in batch and column mode. The biosorption characteristics of immobilized heat inactivated hybrid biosorbent (HI HB) and Active hybrid biosorbent (Active HB) for metal ions and dyes removal were assessed as function of biomass dosage, contact time, pH, initial dye/metal ion concentration and temperature. Maximum uptake of Cu(II), Pb(II), Drimarine Black CL-B & Drimarine Yellow HF-3GL was 213.53, 365.90, 14.57 and 7.82 mg/g at pH 5, 4.5, 3 & 3, respectively, by immobilized HI HB. The biosorption capacity did not increase with increase in biomass dosage. Langmuir isotherm described well the biosorption process. The kinetic data fitted well to pseudo-first and pseudo-second-order kinetic models. Thermodynamic study illustrate that process was feasible at low temperature. Removal of Cu(II), Pb(II), Drimarine Yellow HF-3GL & Drimarine Black CL-B with immobilized Active HB was also explored as a function of pH, biomass dosage, initial dye/metal ion concentration, contact time and temperature. The results demonstrated that all studied parameters influenced the process. Increase in initial dye/metal ions concentration and bed height was found to be favorable conditions for maximum dye/metal ions removal in column mode study. Characterization of biosorbent was carried out by FTIR, SEM, TEM, XRD and TGA analysis. FTIR analysis of biomass showed participation of –OH, and –COOH as major functional groups involved in sequestering of metal ions and dyes from aqueous solution. Furthermore, NF increased the % removal of studied metal ions and dyes. The study provides understanding on treating wastewater through adsorption in combination with NF for Cu(II), Pb(II), Drimarine Yellow HF-3GL & Drimarine Black CL-B removal.