Muslim-Christian Relations in the Era of Prophet Muhammad: Review of Najrān Delegation’s Case in Modern Context

Muslim–Christian relations are as mature as Islamic history itself. Historical evidences state the first interaction of Muslims and Christians occurred in 5th year after nabuwwah (615 AD) when Muslims migrated to Ḥabshah (Abyssinia) and second contact was established after immigration of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) to Madinah. After getting socio-political stability in 8th hijrī (629 AD), Muhammad (PBUH) sent letters and ambassadors to different statesmen and religious leaders to spread the Islamic Mission and Message globally. One letter was also sent to the chief Bishop of Najrān. In response, the chief Bishop of Najrān accepted the invitation and personally came to meet the Prophet (PBUH) with his reputed delegation. The beloved Messenger (PBUH) warmly welcomed this delegation. As a result, the peace agreement was reached after some theological debate and discussion. Later on, throughout history, the relations between Muslims and Christians have been in situation of up and down. It’s also a fact that over the centuries, the Muslims-Christians relations had sometimes been one of enmity, sometimes one of rivalry, competition, and encounter. In spite of it, the Najrān’s delegation case has a historical significance in Muslim-Christian relations in the literature of both religions. Therefore, in this study efforts were made to explore the event of Najrān delegation as theological foundations for Muslim-Christian relations in times of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and how can we get benefit from it in modern era. Moreover, this study perceives that the case of Najrān delegation was the first practical interaction between Muslims and Christians of that age. Hence, we could get benefit from it with its modern applications and interpretations. The analytical, comparative and historical approaches have been adopted in this study with qualitative paradigm. I compared and analysed the case in Islamic and Christian context and then gave recommendation for its application.

An Analysis of Procedural Justice in Performance Management System of Private Sector Firms

Procedural justice in performance management system is meant or creating and maintaining a comfortable and productive working environment for all the employees where they could perform to the optimum level with a perception of fairness and balance in the effort and reward structure within the overall context of performance management system. `In general, procedural justice means fairness / honesty in different functions of a system-. Procedural justice in performance management system has been a key area of interest for the researchers and practitioners. A lot of research has been carried out in this area and some of it has been in the recent years. This is even more important in today's volatile business world where the absence of justice in performance management system can cause a negative word of mouth, decrease in motivation, high turnover ratio, conflicts and intra- organizational politics including introduction of worker unions etc. Non availability of procedural justice in performance management system is also one of the main areas of concern for the employees and especially for those in the private sector of Pakistan where economic downturn and political instability of the country has contributed to the employees' insecurity in the workplace especially in the private sector. Managers have their own perspective about performance management which is equally important and needs proper understanding. This research was aimed at understanding the perspective of both the employees and managers in the private sector. Two hypotheses were proposed for creating a model and for proving the significance of relationship among important variables. One of the hypothesis which was taken from the proposed new model on procedural justice identified few important components for creating and delivering a procedurally just performance management system. The second hypothesis was taken from the work of (Taylor, Renard and Tracy, 1998) which was linked with the new model for it partial replication. This research was conducted under the parameters of a professional research methodology. Initially the managers and business owners of private enterprises were contacted for the initial interviews for having a need analysis of this research. Data collection was done through two separate questionnaires where one of the questionnaires was for the employees of private organizations and the other one was for the managers of the private organizations. Similarly the questionnaire that was for the employees was constructed from the variables of first hypothesis and the questionnaire that was for the managers was constructed from the variables of the second hypothesis. This was done by the proper operationalization of the research concept and by identifying all the related research dimensions. It was a cross sectional and generalizable study with an overall population sample of two hundred. Data was collected from fifty managers and one hundred and fifty employees who were all from private sector of Pakistan. Pilot Test was conducted at an earlier stage for finding acceptable values of Cronbach Alpha for all the items of two questionnaires. Five Point Likert Scale was used for the proper coding of data on SPSS. Chi Square Test was applied on the collected data of both the questionnaires for proving the research concept through quantitative means. Frequency distributions and bar charts for each item have been given as well. Findings of this research work have identified the potential obstacles for the implementation of a justice based performance management system in private firms. The results of this research match with the practical observations and also with the past research. In the overall perspective, this research recommends the use of new research based model on procedural justice proved in this research for both the practitioners and academia. So this fact has been established that a positive contribution of the factors like willingness of top management, pre appraisal training of assessors, representing the post appraisal voice of employees, periodic performance feedback and accountability of assessors will surely enhance the procedural justice in the performance management system. This procedurally just system can be helpful for the organizations for better satisfaction with the system, improved working conditions and lesser distortion of appraisal results. Finally some useful recommendations have been given for the benefit of ractitioners and academia. It can be useful for the practitioners to have a gap analysis for the current and required level of procedural justice for their organization. This research puts a clear emphasis of the use of those variables which make a procedurally just system with its distinct benefits for an organization.