”اس کتاب میں تنقید کے بنیادی اصولوں پر روشنی ڈالی گئی ہے“ (34)
یہ کتاب 1996ء میں منظر عام پر آئی ۔ پروفیسر عبد الحق نے مختلف احباب کے مضامین کواس تصنیف میں جمع کر لیا ہے۔ اس میں تنقید کے بنیادی مباحث سے بحث کی گئی ہے۔
Human beings are the masterpieces of the Creator of the universe and He enjoined them to preserve human life. One form of the preservation of life is the utmost care for the rights of even an embryo. The study of the rights of the embryo laid down in the primary scriptures of Islam suggests that the embryo is accorded respect like living people. The rights of children start well before their birth. At present, cases ofabortion are reported daily. Muslim jurists have dwelled on ordinances about abortion for the benefit of people. At present, medical science has revealed all the stages of childbirth from conception to delivery. The effects of abortion, both positive and negative, are not hard to grasp in the light of modern scientific research Not to talk of living people, Islam guarantees the life of the early developmental stage of a baby within the uterus of the mother. This extraordinary care for a child during its embryonic period demonstrates that Islam attaches high priority to human life even before its start on the face of the Earth. Should one abort without a legitimate cause, the legal experts from the main schools of Islamic jurisprudence hold that the perpetrator will pay a fine and make compensation. If, on the other hand, a fetus is removed from the womb to end a pregnancy as it may harm a woman physically, it is allowable; only a healthy mother may give birth to healthy babies. In a like manner, when a couple feels unable to train and educate somany kids, they may have an operation to end a pregnancy by removing an embryo. However, while resorting to abortion, parents must not lose sight of the do’s and don’ts of abortion jurists have laid down and not just fall victim to the catchy slogan of “family planning”.
This study is a sociological revisit of a Punjabi village in Pakistan after over 50 years. The village was previously studied by Eglar (1960). Since then no viable research is conducted to throw light on changes in social structural aspects of the village. Keeping this in view, we designed a retrospective longitudinal study on changes in various social institutions from 1960s through 2008. To understand changes in the social structure in a holistic way, institutions covered in this study are caste system, marriage and family, gender roles, decision making, traditions, belief system and leisure. For objectivity and representativeness of the results, quantitative data was collected through a probability sample survey. An extensive, complex and comprehensive interview schedule was developed to interview persons, age 55 + years. These persons are assumed to have observed changes during the study period. Of all the households in the village (350), every second household was systematically selected resulting in 109 respondents. Our findings are based on descriptive, trend and regression analyses of the data. Our results show that social structure of the village has changed substantially since 1960. The transition in traditional stratification structure started in 1970s leading to significant changes in 1990s and onwards. This shift from traditional to non- traditional occupations occurred mainly due to infrastructure, international migration and education, in about that order. Influence of caste on various social aspects (except marriage) declined significantly in 1990s and onwards. During the same time period, class system has partially replaced the rigid caste system in the village. Overall, caste system has weakened primarily due to economic factors. Our data shows that most of the marriages were taking place between close relatives from 1960s through 1980s. Substantial decline in these marriages was replaced by corresponding increase in inter-caste marriages after 1990. Education and economiciv factors are significant for the change in marriage patterns. During the same period, a shift is observed from joint family system to nuclear one, primarily due to lack of integration and intolerance. This resulted in fading away of role of grandparents in decision making which got replaced by parents and grownup children. Traditional gender roles, particularly of women are also changing since 1980s, mainly due to education that has partially influenced their autonomy. Positive change in attitudes towards daughters is observed to have appeared in the recent past. However, the majority celebrates birth of sons than daughters at the time of study. Our findings suggest that one-half of the villagers believe in various superstitions. Beliefs in black magic, taweez, ghosts and dreams are strong perhaps due to their religious relevance. Trend regarding visiting sufi shrines remained consistent throughout the study period. Changes are also found in traditions regarding deaths and marriages. Many traditions on death are losing their significance. On the contrary, some new traditions on marriage emerged during the last two decades. Economic conditions and influence of media, particularly television played important role in bringing about the change. Watching television is a popular leisure activity in the village. Leisure activities such as folklores, visiting neighbors and smoking huqa disappeared during the last two decades. Traditional sports are almost replaced by modern ones such as cricket, football and badminton from 1990s and onwards. The trends show that changes have occurred in almost all the social institutions in the village over the period of time. Pace of changes, in general, was slow before 1990 which got accelerated afterwards. Major agents of social structural changes in the village include education, international migration, television, computer, infrastructure (e.g. highway) etc.. If the trends in our study are extrapolated, one may expect that the traditional socio-cultural elements in future will be replaced by the unconventional ones.