Historical Contribution of Islamic Waqf in Human Capital Development Through Funding Education

Islam being a complete code of life encompasses all aspects of a person’s personal and social life. Islam considers those as Muslims who submit to the will of Allah Almighty in all aspects of life. Islam is not merely a matter of private life and its worship system is not restricted only to a set of rituals, but has pervasive social consequences and develops a strong sense of moral society based on system of rules around center of universal concept of justice. Therefore, Islam proposed institutions with relation to justice, governance, cooperation and solidarity for achieving high economic growth and development. Achievement of development and growth of economy is fast in a society or country if it has developed human capital (human resource). Human capital is developed when education is imparted and facilities of health and sound life are provided to human beings. According to Islamic principles, if human beings cannot afford proper education in the society (or other facilities such as health care) then those who are well off endow their properties in Zakat, Awqaf (plural of waqf) and Charities for their better development and nourishment. These properties when endowed as Awqaf are deployed for propagation of education (knowledge, skills, training etc.) by establishing Madrassas (schools, maktabs, colleges, universities etc.) libraries, translating books, and conducting research. In Islamic society there were many Awqaf founded for establishing Madrassas. This paper is dedicated to discuss the development of human capital through education funded by Islamic Awqaf by reviewing literature.

Building Teacher Leadership Capacity: Appreciative Inquiry in Action

This paper discusses how teacher leadership is developed through appreciative inquiry. The research was conducted in a boys' public secondary school of District Ghizer in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. It is usually assumed that engagement of teachers in leadership roles contribute to school improvement. Thus, AI was applied as an approach for energizing and positively charging participants through great conversation, appreciative interviews and supportive and positive feedback. However, embedded in qualitative research paradigm, the 5 D's cyclic model of AI was used as a data generation tool which comprised of I) defining positive core, ii) discovering, iii) dreaming, iv) designing, and v) delivering. By purposive sampling, three research participants' teachers were selected for capacity building by experiencing teacher leadership roles in the school context. Thus generated data was analyzed, and transcribed. As a result, themes were produced by coding process. The coded themes were further evaluated to make interpretations. The research findings reveal that use of appreciative inquiry to leadership development is a heart touching process. The participants argue that they were inspired and energized by caring, respect, positive questioning, scaffolding support and positive feedback. Thus, they enhanced their leadership capacity through leadership activities like experiencing shared vision exercise, executing co-planning, co-teaching, observing and being observed and by conducting workshop to share learning experiences as a result of this study. Hence, change was observed in their perception, practices and attitudes whereby it was concluded that teachers seemed receptive towards change. This shows that teachers execute leadership roles in the public sector school when they are leaded by action and inspired by collaborative approaches, through timely appreciation within and outside of the classroom.