FATA’s Merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: An Historical Analysis

Nation-building is an evolutionary socio-political process. It not only provides security, dignity and ownership to a community, but also ensures democratic participation of people within the state to claim rights and perform duties. It enables a state to defend its sovereignty, achieve economic goals, and protect national interests at regional and global levels. Since 9/11 incident, terrorism has become a global challenge. To counter this menace Pakistan also aligned and provided land routes to foreign forces to get access to a landlocked Afghanistan. Across the Pak-Afghan border, through the tribal belt known as FATA, terrorism has spilled over Pakistan. The exclusive status of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), in the past seventy years of Pakistan’s history, had deprived fundamental rights to the people of FATA. These tribal areas were governed by a separate law known as Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) made by the British in 1901. This law has proved as the main obstacle in bringing FATA in to the mainstream of Pakistan. After examining the historical and geographical aspects of FATA, the article shows how FATA remained outside the nation-building process in Pakistan. In this connection it seeks to see the position of FATA in the constitutions of Pakistan, including state initiatives to own this western belt and obstacles faced in merging FATA with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK). It narrates the events that led to the merger of FATA with the KPK and high lights future challenges as well. It recommends that FATA’s merger would help establish a strong line of defence against terrorism. ______

اختلاف عودة الضمیر و اثرہ علی تباین تفاسیر الآیات الکریمة

This topic basically discusses the issue of the difference in the antecedent of the pronoun in the Holy Quran. In addition to that, it also throws light on the influence of the difference in the antecedent on the interpretation of the Quranic verses along with the preferred statement regarding the difference in the antecedent such as the difference in the antecedent of the pronoun in the following Quranic verse: وَكُنْتمُْ عَلى شَفا حُفْرَة مِنَ النارِ فأنَْقذكَُمْ مِن ْھَا (آل عمران )103: By pondering over this Quranic verse, we find that there are three statements regarding the antecedent of the pronoun ""ھا in ""منھا. First, the antecedent of the pronoun is ""النار. Secondly, the pronoun stands for ""حفرة. Thirdly the reference of the pronoun is ""شفا. The preferred one is the first statement because of three reasons which are as under: 1-The purpose of Allah Almighty in this Quranic verse is to save the Muslims from "("النار Fire or Hell) and not from "("حفرة excavation) or "("شفا bank of Hell). 2-"النار" is the nearest antecedent and according to the principles of exegesis when it is possible for the nearest noun to become antecedent, the farther one should not be taken as antecedent. 3-There is not conformity in femininity between the pronoun ""ھا and its antecedent ""شفا. And as for as the antecedent ""النار is concerned it conforms with the pronoun ""ھا. 4-The apparent meaning of this Quranic verse determines this antecedent as well. Obviously, there are various factors which are involved in creating differences in the antecedent of the pronoun such as having not mentioned the antecedent clearly and the possibility of being various antecedents at a time. Indeed, the influence of the difference in the antecedent on the interpretation of the Quranic verses is one of those issues which have been discussed by many interpreters of the Holy Quran, writers, scholars and linguists. Going through the various books on the interpretation of the Holy Quran, we find that this aspect of the Holy Quran has been discussed by them in bits and pieces but no exclusive work is available on this topic in one book. So the efforts have been made in collection and compilation almost all important and relevant material on this topic so that it may be brought to the readers in a comprehensive, well organized and an approachable shape. This thesis contains three chapters and each chapter has its sub-chapters. The first chapter deals with the literal, technical and metaphorical meaning of ()اختلاف i.e (Difference) and its reasons. The second chapter discusses the meanings of the pronoun and its grammatical rules. The third chapter throws light on the Influence of the difference of the antecedent of pronoun on the interpretation of Quranic verses. In addition to that the results, findings and recommendations have been stated at the end of this Ph.D thesis.