Interfaith Marriages in Islam: A Case Study of Christian Wives of Muslim Rulers

Force Conversion is adaptation of a different religion or irreligion under duress. Some who have been forced to convert may continue, covertly with the beliefs and practices originally held, while outwardly behaving as converts. At many places the Orientalists put the statement that Islam basic purpose is to establish sovereignty throughout the globe and its primary purport deals with ‘authority’, ‘political’ and ‘economic’ matters for which it also used force for the implementation. Although it is an erroneous statement as Islam’s basic purport is religious, pure and simple; it deals with other social issues. While Islam stressed upon free will and there is no restriction in accepting other religions. As other religions are not in pure form now and Islam is being preserved by Allāh, so it teaches to submit oneself to the Will of Allāh. The early converts to Islam were the Prophet (peace be upon him) close friends Abu Bakr (may Allāh be pleased with her) and his family members in which his faithful wife Khadija (may Allāh be pleased with her), his cousin Ali were on the top, sand his slave Zayed. None of them argued and accepted Islam immediately. Among them Abu Bakr (peace be upon him) enjoyed prominent place among Arabs and with his influence five people accept Islam in which Sa’ad, Zobeir, Talha, Othman and Abd-al-Rahman who were member of prominent families. Abdul Rahman converted four people of his family. Likewise Bilal (may Allāh be pleased with her) was the first slave, ransomed by Abu Bakr (may Allāh be pleased with her). These early converts of Islam were men of piety and dignity.1

Islamic Studies for Engineering Program: A Topical Framework

Islamic Studies is taught at undergraduate level as compulsory core subject in engineering programs following the recommendations of national educational policies of Islamic Republic of Pakistan and Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan, but the contents of the course are only the repetition of what student had studied earlier in their course of studies from beginning, also the topics selection do not match with the cognitive maturity of learners neither their professional needs. This exploratory study was to find the need for revision in the content of Islamic Studies course at undergraduate level in engineering discipline. A cross- sectional exploratory survey was conducted to discover the needs for the topics of interest for the subject of Islamic Studies at undergraduate engineering program. Needs in the current study are considered as gaps between the existing course contents and preferred contents or topics by the respondents. The data was collected through purposive sampling from 808 research respondents of engineering (from both Public and Private Higher Education Commission (HEC) recognized, and Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) institutions of Karachi as well as general universities, total 12 universities). The sample comprised of five categories: students of engineering discipline (541), teachers of engineering discipline (170), Teachers of Islamic studies (experts) teaching in Engineering discipline,Teachers (experts) of Islamic Studies that are teaching to wide range of academic disciplines (32), and engineers who are working as professionals (65). The gender representation in the sample remained 66% (male), and 34% female respondents. A questionnaire using extent data analysis technique for structure and content was developed to collect data. Face and content validity of the tool were determined firstly through self-validation, secondly it was determined through expert validation; the questionnaire was presented to three experts of Islamic studies. Against 92 items 78 items received positive agreement. Two items showed negative agreement, and fourteen items showed no agreement. Percentage of overall agreement was 0.898549_ Kappa, suggestions of one of the three experts were incorporated. Thirdly a small scale pre-test was conducted to further ensure the validity of the tool. Informal pre-test was applied on a small, non-probability sample of45 Electrical Engineering undergraduate students of 7th semester, 09 Polymer & Petrochemical Engineeringundergraduate students’ of 7th semesters and 02 graduates of Mechanical Engineering of public sector University of Engineering and Technology. Responses of 12 teachers from Electrical and Polymer & Petrochemical departments (6 from each) were also recorded. Findings of pre-test related to structure, layout and vocabulary were used to make necessary changes before the pilot study. Questionnaire was also translated into national language Urdu.It went through Expert Validation with three Language Experts. Against 85 items the percentage of overall agreement remained Kappa Po: 0.882351. All suggestions were incorporated accordingly. The questionnaire was a blend of quantitative (closed questions with a prescribed range of answers), and qualitative (two open ended) questions. In piloting phase, data was collected from 65 (47 male (72%) and 18 females (28%) respondents of public sector university of Engineering and Technology and private sectorUniversity of Engineering and Technology, the two Major public and private sector Engineering Universities. Frequency of responses showed the content validity. Data for the main study was collected in two phases: at first stage the data was collected from 808 respondents during March 2013 to July 2013. Cumulative results of hypotheses testing disclosed that nine themes out of thirteen themes received unanimous agreement from all four groups of respondents. However, four themes i.e. theme three four, nine and twelve did not receive unanimous agreement of respondents although the percentages of agreement remains higher. In response of the qualitative query regarding “suggested topics if any other than surveyed items” various topics received from respondents which were divided and merged by the researcher in the 32 appropriate themes. From the categories; 93 out of 541 (17.19%) students,24 out of 170 (13.95%) teachers of engineering discipline,19 out of 32 (59.37%) teachers of Islamic Studies discipline, and 15 out of 65 (23.07%) engineering professionals proposed topics of repetitive nature. Either these were already in the survey form or proposed by respondents uniformly. Subjective analysis revealed that interest of society is influenced by the socio-political aspects of the country.124 out of 541 students, 62 out of 170 teachers of engineering discipline, and 15 out of 65 professionals commented positively in response to last opinionated question. After analyzing the data, it was presented to three subject experts for endorsement at second stage. Experts endorsed the final list of topics presented to them for comments. Each of them positively commented towards the research outcomes. Thirdly, data was also collected from 90 participants (professional Engineers) working in core fields outside Karachi. At the time of data collection (July, 2013), these Professionals were working with private sector Limited Company. This further validated the results. The finding of the study proves the notion of needs as gaps. Cumulative results indicates thatnine themes out of thirteen themes are taken as ‘needs of the research participants’ across categories while significant variation in agreement observed for the remaining four themes with above 75% agreement . Moreover, comments received from participants proved their interest towards subject of Islamic Studies as academic discipline.