Before the creation of Pākistān, there were multiple points functional as circles of Qur’ānic Durūs. Among these, Dars-e- Qur’ān by Sheikh al Tafsīr Maulānā Aḥmad ‘Alī Lāhorī (d:1381A.H/1962A.D) was of a distinguished standing. Scholars from remote areas of Delhī, Luckhnow, and even of Deobund used to come over here for the genesis of the Qur’ān. Among these personalities is Maulānā Akhlāq Ḥusain Qāsmī of Delhī as well as the famous and great literary figure of the Islamic World Maulānā Abu’l-Ḥasan ‘Alī Nadvī (d:1420A.H/1999A.D). Maulānā ‘Alī Mian made a mention of it in the session of ‘Ālmī Rābitah al Adab al Islāmī in 1999 A.D at Lāhore. He said,“I confess with pride that I have gained a lot from Maulānā Aḥmad ‘Alī Lāhorī”. Moreover, these were not only the orthodox scholars who benefited from Ḥaḍrat Lāhorī but a large number of modern scholars were also on his panel as well-wishers. The name of the famous literary and scholarly figure Dr. Syed ‘Abdallāh (d:1406-A.H/1986A.D) may be quoted as an example. Prior to and after the creation of Pākistān, out of many distinguished Qur’ānic Circles, a few of these are particularly worth mentioning:
Maulānā Abu’l-Ḥasanāt Qādrī (Masjid-e-Wazīr Khān)
Maulānā Dāwūd Ghaznavī (Chuniān Wālī Masjid)
Maulānā Ghulām Murshid (Bādshāhī Masjid)
Maulānā ‘Abdallāh Farūqī (Delhi Muslim Hotel, Old Anār Kalī)
Maulānā Maudūdī (‘Abd al-Karīm Road, Qil‘ah Gojar Singh).
Dr. Isrār Aḥmad was also one of the links in the chain; he established Circles of Durūs-e- Qur’ān not only in Lāhore but in the entire country and invested all his potential to make the message of the Qur’ān so public. This book highlights his services and thoughts. There are five chapters in the book. The first chapter is entitled “Dr. Isrār...
Allah almighty has created Human beings, the angels, and jinn for His worship alone. To guide the human beings to the right path, Allah almighty has sent many messengers to all nations and pieces of lands. Hazrat Adam (A. S.) was the first human being as well as the first Prophet of Allah on the Earth, while the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was the last of all in this chain. There will be no prophet after him. Now, it is the duty of every Muslims to carry and spread this universal message to the whole humanity. In this context, the message of Islam is universal. This article deals with this issue through giving proofs from the Holy Qur'an and Sunnah.
cademic leadership is essential for quality education and the growth of academic institutions. Ineffective academic leaders create leadership crisis. The purpose of this research project was to explore leadership crisis in academia and solution to this crisis, and to construct and validate an effective academic leadership scale in the context of Pakistan. A mixed method design that comprised four independent studies was used to meet the objectives. In study 1, the crisis situation in academia of Pakistan was explored. Focus group technique and semi structured interviews were used with a purposive sample of faculty members, students and academic leaders from randomly chosen higher education institutions to explore the reasons and solutions to academic leadership crisis. Thematic analysis was used for data analysis. Results indicated reasons and solutions to academic leadership crisis, collectively described by three groups of participants (viz., faculty members, students, and academic leaders). All three groups agreed that main reasons of academic leadership crisis were the ineffective leadership along with issues in educational institutions, decline of ethical and moral values, and unjustified methods of leader selection. The participants suggested that we need to replace current academic leaders with effective leaders to bring change in the institutions. Study 2 was designed to explore the charcteristics of effective academic leadership and to compare these charcteristics with the characteristics of corporate leadership. A purposive sample of 200 particpants: students, teachers and corporate sector employees provided the sources of data for the qualities which they deemed essential in effective academic and corporate leaders. Multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis were used to analyze the data. Communication skills, assertiveness, creativity, integrity/honesty, confidence, motivation and humbleness were the similar attributes in both effective academic and corporate leaders. As 12 differences concern, people expected an effective academic leader to have intellectual ability, cooperative skill, flexibility, knowledge, understanding and respectful attitude, which provideed a softer image of academic leader. Whereas, a corporate leader was expected to be visionary, disciplined, and passionate In study 3 qualities of effective academic leaders were used to develop a tool/ measure of effective academic leadership. A pool of 26 items was generated for measuring effectiveness of academic leaders through scale construction. A purposive sample of 100 academic leaders of public and private sector universities from different cities of Pakistan was selected. After using exploratory factor analysis, a uni dimensional solution was found which accounted for 52.83% variance. Cronbach‘s alpha yielded a value of .97. Construct validity of the final 19-items scale was established via using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) through AMOS 21.0. Convergent validity of scale was established by correlating scores on Effective Academic Leadership Scale with the scores on Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Bass & Avolio, 1992). Results revealed significant positive correlation between the two scales (r =.32. p <.01). Study 4 was conducted to assess the relationship and predictive strength of effective academic leadership in job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Job satisfaction appeared to be significantly positively related to EALS whereas organizational commitment remained non significant with EALS. Limitations, future suggestions and implications of all the studies have also been discussed.