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.

Masculine Politics and Women Political Participation in Punjab, Pakistan

This mixed methods research study intended to explore how the feminine identities of women are used to undermine women capacities, create social barriers and restrict their political participation. For the qualitative research 20 women registered voters were recruited from Bhawana city, District Chiniot, purposively along with 8 women parliamentarians from different political parties. The information collected from the respondents was analyzed through thematic analysis. The results demonstrated the strong hold of domesticity ideology, gendered division of labor and roles, clear demarcation of private and public sphere, strong adherence to biological determinism, hegemonic masculinities and dominance of feminized outlook. The quantitative part of the study comprised of cross sectional survey of 414 women voters from selected villages of Tehsil 18 Hazari, District Jhang and Tehsil Gujar Khan, District Rawalpindi. Model fit indices of femininity, gender roles, political behaviors (political efficacy, political interest, political culture, political socialization), political trust and political participation showed the goodness of fit of samples through Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The descriptive analysis elaborated that respondents scored high on femininity, traditional gender roles and patriarchal political culture and low on political interest, political efficacy, political socialization and political participation. The Correlational Analysis described that femininity is negatively correlated with political participation, political efficacy, political trust, political socialization and political trust (conduct of politicians) and positively with patriarchal political culture and political trust (performance and ability of the politicians). Structure Equation Model (SEM) also confirmed the above results.