The Meaning Of National Security Politics Essay

The Meaning Of National Security Politics Essay The advancement of the idea of security in the worldwide situation is being affected by the adjustments in condition. This could be unmistakably found in the progressions of the idea of security during the universal war and the post cold war period. In post cold war period, the rise of new affable clashes, huge scope monstrosities and even massacre are in gradual rate. As globalization comes to fruition in the post cold war time, it is firmly accept that it will haul along critical addition in brutal violations, medicate exchanges, transnational fear mongering, ailments, ecological debasement and numerous different parts of human life. These contemporary security concerns couples with the suffering issues of ethnic viciousness and between state clashes are currently at the bleeding edge of potential and existing dangers. 3.2 CONCEPTUAL MEANING OF SECURITY Security as indicated by Barry Buzan is an immature idea (Hawkesworth and Kogan, Vol.2â [46]â ). Its status as a disputable political worth and its routine abuse as a method of reasoning for state arrangements and activities, suggest that the idea absences of the natural importance. Buzan (1991) clarifies that one reason behind the moderate theoretical advancement of security can be ascribed to the way that the idea opposes straightforward definitionâ [47]â . Another is that force commands security in the pragmatist school, which has been superior in global relations hypothesis. Security has consistently been deciphered as the characteristic outcome of successful amassing and effort of intensity. Security is inherently a social idea. In a goal sense, it gauges the nonappearance of dangers to gained esteems. From an abstract perspective, safety efforts the nonattendance of dread that such qualities will be attackedâ [48]â . Lexical meanings of being secure allude to being sheltered against assault, invulnerable, dependable à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢ ¦, in actuality, and to being untroubled by threat or dread on the otherâ [49]â . This definition focuses to the social (abstract) nature of the idea of security. One should take note of that the goal state of being great for ones secure presence has meaning just when set against the capacities and aims of potential foes. This additionally proposes there can be no supreme meaning of security. 3.3 THE MEANING OF NATIONAL SECURITY The widening of the extent of security with regards to the country state is a disputable issue. As referenced, there are researchers who were against the transition to expand the degree and significance of national security inspired by a paranoid fear of decimating the explanatory utility of the idea. Richard Ullman who at first bolstered the call to extend the extent of security inevitably negated his underlying suggestion and is presently occupied with a talk with the defenders of a more extensive extent of security. As indicated by Ullman (1995), If national security envelops all genuine and critical dangers to a country state and its residents, we will in the end wind up utilizing an alternate term when we wish to clarify that our subject is the dangers that may be presented by the military power of other statesâ [50]â . In a similar article, he said that the war issue in security is reasonably particular from different concerns like ecological debasement or urban savagery, which are better sorted as dangers to prosperity. The issue of characterizing national security springs from the way that the importance of security itself is uncertain. All the more significantly, on the off chance that one uses the state as the referent, as the term national security recommends, he will at that point experience the issue of who characterizes national interests or set the national security plan of the state. A few researchers characterize security or national security as the insurance and improvement of qualities that the definitive leaders regard imperative for the endurance and prosperity of the communityâ [51]â . In any case, this meaning of security conveys with it the issues that were talked about in the past area. In spite of the fact that the facts demonstrate that the system totals the interests of the individuals, to characterize security or national security along this line or characterize security from point of view of the system is unjustifiable. In the event that one concurs that the system is both a wellspring of dangers and a maker of frailty, at that point the idea must not be characterized distinctly from this viewpoint. The qualities that the definitive leaders look to ensure and improve, which are regarded fundamental for the prosperity of the network, frequently don't establish the national security or interests of the state. Henceforth, they are better named as the national security plan. National security is a condition open to the appraisal and assessment of both the system and the individuals. Regardless of whether the national security plan speaks to the states national interests is another a valid example. The meaning of national security intrigue is comparative with the one characterizing it. Then again, the national security plan can be characterized equitably and effectively deduced from the national security approaches of the administration. National Security is better characterized as the condition wherein the people groups lifestyle and establishments, their regional uprightness and sway including their prosperity are ensured and enhancedâ [52]â . This definition catches the embodiment of the state as made out of the individuals and the system. It discusses two concerns, that of the people groups intrigue (prosperity) and that of the system (power). 3.4 PILLARS OF NATIONAL SECURITY National Security lays on a few columns: social attachment and solidarity, monetary success and strength, political solidarity and steadiness. Certified security can't be accomplished if any of these columns are absentâ [53]â . The level of security, which a nation appreciates, relies at last upon the quality of the mainstays of national security. A nation can't be secure when one of its national security columns is dubious. These three mainstays of security are interrelated and commonly fortifying. In this manner, they should be manufactured at the same time. The obligation of building these columns lay on the individuals and the administration/system. The administration drives the individuals while the individuals offer help to the legislature. By relationship, the administration fills in as the gear or hardware for building the columns while the individuals fill in as the workers, who utilize the hardware in building the establishments of national security. Social Cohesion and Stability Serene and agreeable conjunction among the individuals, paying little heed to social and social contrasts, is an establishment of national securityâ [54]â . This is accomplished when individuals watch common regard for their qualities and convictions. Individuals should likewise offer participation and common help. Social attachment permits agreement building essential for successful dynamic. With social attachment, the decisions, choices, and the ensuing activities that administration attempts dependent on the worries of the individuals become viable and endure regardless of difficulties all things considered. Social union holds onto ideas, for example, moral profound accord and social cohesiveness. Financial Prosperity and Stability Financial thriving upgrades the prosperity of the individuals. Without monetary flourishing, the desires of the individuals to carry on with a conventional life can't be achieved. It is just when the nation appreciates monetary flourishing that individuals can live with poise. It is a key component in expanding national force, distinction, and impact. The turn of events and food of conciliatory and military force vigorously relies upon this. Monetary thriving holds onto ideas, for example, natural equalization and supportable developmentâ [55]â . Political Unity and Stability Political solidarity implies that there is collaboration among the various parts of government. It exists when the individuals who exercise authentic position and political force act in show toward the achievement shared objectives. At the point when the political administration is partitioned, the individuals are trapped in a scrape regarding which among the individuals who exercise genuine position and political force should they supportâ [56]â . This places the individuals in an issue where they have reservations and questions on the arrangements and activities that the legislature attempts. Open help is in this way fundamental to the legislatures accomplishment in meeting security challenges. The social, monetary, and political perspectives are changeless components of national security establishments. The traditions, customs, laws, approaches will decide their particular status and quality, and systems embraced by the administration. The three columns will be made and will work inside the setting of the common politico-lawful arranging belief system of the state. It ought to be noticed that no single column could ensure security all alone. 3.5 THE DNYAMICS OF THE FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL SECURITY The mainstays of national security are interrelated and commonly strengthening. Social attachment influences monetary flourishing and soundness. Social divisions and struggle (e.g., sectoral or ethno-phonetic clashes) could hinder the countries financial improvement exercises. For example, strategy contradictions between the legislature and the private division could in the long run influence the government assistance of the individuals and the countries salary. Monetary thriving or the degree of advancement of the countries economy and the people groups suspicion that all is well and good has a constructive relationship. Residents of created nations unquestionably have a sense of safety than those of immature nations. Monetary turn of events and thriving are maybe a definitive goal a country looks to accomplish. Financial advancement influences social cohesionâ [57]â . When there is just a little pie accessible to be isolated for the individuals, equivalent circulation will make a circumstance where every one of the beneficiaries get a little piece not adequate for his needs. Be that as it may, inconsistent dispersion wi

American Religious Movements Essay Example For Students

American Religious Movements Essay American Religious Movements Essay: Fundamentalism and Its Influence on Evangelicalism American fundamentalism and American fervency appear to go connected at the hip. Fervency and fundamentalism both pressure life dependent on the good book, atonement, and an individual relationship with God. Nobody would deny the gigantic impact that fundamentalism had on zeal or the likenesses between the two. Albeit a few history specialists would propose that zeal was experiential and partisan while fundamentalism was traditionalist and hostile to pioneer, unmistakably fundamentalism could never have made due as long as it has in the event that it couldn't adjust to advancement and exist inside a pluralist society. American Protestantism battled during the 1920s with the issues of scriptural analysis, wellsprings of expert in Christianity, and the hypothesis of development. Presbyterians and Baptists experienced parts in their categories as the occasions of this decade started to work on fundamentalism. For instance, John T. Degrees was put being investigated for the educating of advancement, which disregarded a Tennessee state rule. The developing debate among Fundamentalists and Modernists as to scriptural analysis and transformative hypotheses isn't what is significant in breaking down American Fundamentalism. What is essential to break down is, taking into account the recognized effect of these powers, why a minority of Christians reacted in one design while the lion's share responded in another(Sandeen xi). It was this part in Christianity that caused numerous individuals to accept that fundamentalism ought to have ceased to exist seventy years back. Be that as it may, fundamentalism endure and there has been an ongoing resurgence in its prevalence. Moving to the post World War II time, the outreaching alliance started to speak to the more established ages, to the Hollywood populace, and to pioneers in Washington D.C. Not long after the war, the strict clashes that tainted fundamentalism during the 1920s were not, at this point pertinent. Protestantism, in its mainline structure, had gotten significantly more fervent in its tendency and its organizations turned out to be substantially more keen on turning out to be perceived freely. Numerous history specialists concur that, what has not frequently been perceived, be that as it may, is that one of the most significant main thrusts behind the after war resurgence of religion was a framework of dynamic fundamentalists(Carpenter 223). Pentecostalism, which fundamentalism was a branch of, and Southern Baptism were two of a few different strict impacts existing after the war, however it was for the most part the fundamentalists who drove the post bellum strict restoration. The cutting edge understanding of religion is that it is consistently in decay in light of modernization. As the vast majority concur, innovation prompts secularization and secularization prompts strict detachment in specific circles. This conviction is brought about by the experience that history has instructed us. Christianity was at one time the savvy person, profound, and moral manual for the entirety of life. The congregation used to assume a basic job in practically all open issues. The secularization of confidence has constrained Christianity to contend with other ground-breaking strict and nonreligious perspectives. An investigation of the restoration of American fundamentalism is the way to understanding why this normal conviction is bogus and that, as the years progressed, religion has endure very well in a pluralistic setting. Zealous Christianity ought not be seen as a religion of relief for the individuals who can't acknowledge the prevailing humanist, pioneer, liberal, and common push of standard society(Riesebrodt 47). Rather, it ought to be viewed as a religion that can adjust to the changing standards of advancement. Protestantism utilizes fervency and fundamentalism as their method of identifying with advancement. For instance, present day society has set an accentuation on decision making and independence, while simultaneously, fervency lectures an individual strict encounter and fundamentalism stresses opportunity, for the most part from government . .udff81417c57757070d0111552d207330 , .udff81417c57757070d0111552d207330 .postImageUrl , .udff81417c57757070d0111552d207330 .focused content zone { min-stature: 80px; position: relative; } .udff81417c57757070d0111552d207330 , .udff81417c57757070d0111552d207330:hover , .udff81417c57757070d0111552d207330:visited , .udff81417c57757070d0111552d207330:active { border:0!important; } .udff81417c57757070d0111552d207330 .clearfix:after { content: ; show: table; clear: both; } .udff81417c57757070d0111552d207330 { show: square; progress: foundation shading 250ms; webkit-change: foundation shading 250ms; width: 100%; mistiness: 1; change: darkness 250ms; webkit-change: murkiness 250ms; foundation shading: #95A5A6; } .udff81417c57757070d0111552d207330:active , .udff81417c57757070d0111552d207330:hover { haziness: 1; progress: obscurity 250ms; webkit-change: murkiness 250ms; foundation shading: #2C3E50; } .udff81417c57757070d0111552d207330 .focused content zone { width: 100%; position: relative; } . udff81417c57757070d0111552d207330 .ctaText { outskirt base: 0 strong #fff; shading: #2980B9; text dimension: 16px; textual style weight: intense; edge: 0; cushioning: 0; content improvement: underline; } .udff81417c57757070d0111552d207330 .postTitle { shading: #FFFFFF; text dimension: 16px; text style weight: 600; edge: 0; cushioning: 0; width: 100%; } .udff81417c57757070d0111552d207330 .ctaButton { foundation shading: #7F8C8D!important; shading: #2980B9; fringe: none; outskirt sweep: 3px; box-shadow: none; text dimension: 14px; text style weight: striking; line-tallness: 26px; moz-outskirt range: 3px; content adjust: focus; content embellishment: none; content shadow: none; width: 80px; min-tallness: 80px; foundation: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/modules/intelly-related-posts/resources/pictures/straightforward arrow.png)no-rehash; position: total; right: 0; top: 0; } .udff81417c57757070d0111552d207330:hover .ctaButton { foundation shading: #34495E!important; } .udff81417 c57757070d0111552d207330 .focused content { show: table; stature: 80px; cushioning left: 18px; top: 0; } .udff81417c57757070d0111552d207330-content { show: table-cell; edge: 0; cushioning: 0; cushioning right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-adjust: center; width: 100%; } .udff81417c57757070d0111552d207330:after { content: ; show: square; clear: both; } READ: Fingerprints Essay As we accentuate voluntarism, evangelicals react by selecting more supporters and making organizations to guarantee the advancement of the churchs place in regular day to day existence. Zealous developments, before, have reliably adjusted to the world in which they were working. Truth be told, they have even profited by the powers of social change. The Puritan and Pietist enlightenments that occurred in the seventeenth century focused on an individual encounter of God during a period of developing education, writing, and exploratory science. The fervent developments during the Great Awakening in the eighteenth century explored different avenues regarding new structures strict affiliation and correspondence in the commercial center when the possibility of unhampered marketsfor both .

Most Common Academic Words (Part 3 of 4)

Most Common Academic Words (Part 3 of 4) EP 25: Most Common Academic Words To Improve Your Academic Writing (Part 3/4) EP 25: Most Common Academic Words To Improve Your Academic Writing (Part 3/4) Episode 25 builds on our series of videos exploring commonly used academic words. Cath Anne provides you with 5 more words to add to your repertoire. Follow along so you can incorporate these new words into your research and writing! Looking for study tips, help with essay writing, or advice on how to be a better student? Welcome to The Homework Help Show, a weekly show where we teach, assist, and offer valuable insights for student life. From study hacks to writing tips, discussions about student mental health to step-by-step guides on academic writing and how to write a resume, weve got you covered. Want your questions answered? Write them below or join the conversation on social media using the hashtag #askHHG TRANSCRIPT: Cath Anne: [00:00:05] Hows it going guys? Its Cath Anne, weekly host of the Homework Help Show and Top Writer with Homework Help Global. This week we are continuing our video series in which we discuss common academic words to incorporate into your academic writing. Make sure to check out our other videos on the same topic for more words to incorporate into your writing. Cath Anne: [00:00:27] So, just a little overview: this series will help you to expand your academic vocabulary using the Academic Word List or the AWL. This is a list that is readily accessible on the web. This core academic vocabulary is used by writers from many different subject areas. Learning vocabulary from the AWL will help you to improve your comprehension of academic texts. It will also help you to write your assignments and impress your professors. So, feel free to come back to these videos when you need a reminder of the various words that we will discuss. One way to learn new vocabulary is to learn a new word from the list every day, but just remember it is better to learn the words in context. Then you will understand how they are used. Cath Anne: [00:01:23] Just a quick reminder before we jump in. Join me live on Instagram and Facebook live every Thursday at 7:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. We will be doing a live Q and A at that time and as well as a study session so feel free to bring your homework and any questions that you might have. We will try to help you out. Cath Anne: [00:01:43] Lets get into the content. Just a reminder that we encourage you to take notes and pause the video throughout if you need to. This will help you to better retain the information. This week we will add to our initial few lists giving you five more academic words. As we did before, in this session we will be discussing the word, the part of speech (whether its a noun, verb, or adjective), the meaning of the word. Then, of course, we will put the word into a sentence, so you can get a sense of the word in context. This is to help you to get the meaning of the word, but also to help you to retain the information and the meaning of the word. Cath Anne: [00:02:30] It will help you to memorize it and recall it more easily if you do understand it within the context of a sentence. Cath Anne: [00:02:37] So, lets get going. Cath Anne: [00:02:39] The first word this week is impact. Impact is a noun. Cath Anne: [00:02:57] It means the strong effect that someone or something has on a person or situation. So, a common question that you might be familiar with is: What is the impact? How is this situation or issue going to have an impact? So, in a sentence we might say, Greenhouse gas emissions have an impact on global warming. So, they have some kind of effect or some kind of consequence on global warming. Cath Anne: [00:03:32] The next word we have this week is indicate. Indicate is a verb. It means to point out or to show something. So, in other words we might say, Statistics Canada indicates that there is a high level of child poverty in Canada. Ill say that again, Statistic Canada indicates that there is a high level of child poverty in Canada. So, in other words the statistics point to a particular issue. Cath Anne: [00:04:29] The next word we have this week is investment. Investment is noun. This means the use of money or financial capital to receive a profit or appreciation in value. So, this is an important word to be familiar with if you are studying economics, or business, or anything like that but it can also be used in the other disciplines as well. So, for example, there are all sorts of investments we can make. For example, By spending money on university, you are making an investment in your future career options. Investment. Cath Anne: [00:05:25] Number for this week is major. It is an adjective. It describes that something is greater in size extent or importance. It is often associated with something that is negative or bad. For example, we could say, Eastern Canada experienced major flooding this spring. Which was true. Im familiar with the area and there was a lot of flooding in Eastern Canada. So, in other words this implies that the flooding was rather extreme and that it likely did some damage. It was major flooding. Cath Anne: [00:06:22] Finally, we have the word method. Method is a noun. Method is an important word to be familiar with particularly if you were doing any kind of research. Scientific research method is a technique plan or course of action, especially when there is a plan in place. A method is something you tend to think out beforehand and it is usually highly organized and specific. For example, we use the scientific method to conduct research and find out new information. The scientific method is a step by step process that we engage in to do scientific research. So, method means something that is well planned, very specific, and highly organized. Cath Anne: [00:07:26] So, that was our five words for this week. Thank you for joining me on The Homework Help Show, and I hope this episode was of benefit to you If it was, dont forget to give us a little thumbs up and subscribe to our channel. Cath Anne: [00:07:42] If you would like to gain access to any of our other content please visit us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google Plus, here on YouTube. We also have a lot of great blogs on student life on Medium and if youre more of a podcast type of person please visit us on SoundCloud, Anchor, iTunes Apple Podcasts and go to Google Play Music where you can listen to this show, on you podcasting station. Just search Homework Help Global and you will be able to find us. [00:08:17] As well just a reminder if you do have any writing or homework questions please remember to join us live on Instagram every Thursday at 7p.m. Eastern time. I will be there, and we will go over your homework with you and answer any questions that you do have. So thats it for this we thank you for joining me. Take care. Most Common Academic Words (Part 3 of 4) EP 25: Most Common Academic Words To Improve Your Academic Writing (Part 3/4) EP 25: Most Common Academic Words To Improve Your Academic Writing (Part 3/4) Episode 25 builds on our series of videos exploring commonly used academic words. Cath Anne provides you with 5 more words to add to your repertoire. Follow along so you can incorporate these new words into your research and writing! Looking for study tips, help with essay writing, or advice on how to be a better student? Welcome to The Homework Help Show, a weekly show where we teach, assist, and offer valuable insights for student life. From study hacks to writing tips, discussions about student mental health to step-by-step guides on academic writing and how to write a resume, weve got you covered. Want your questions answered? Write them below or join the conversation on social media using the hashtag #askHHG TRANSCRIPT: Cath Anne: [00:00:05] Hows it going guys? Its Cath Anne, weekly host of the Homework Help Show and Top Writer with Homework Help Global. This week we are continuing our video series in which we discuss common academic words to incorporate into your academic writing. Make sure to check out our other videos on the same topic for more words to incorporate into your writing. Cath Anne: [00:00:27] So, just a little overview: this series will help you to expand your academic vocabulary using the Academic Word List or the AWL. This is a list that is readily accessible on the web. This core academic vocabulary is used by writers from many different subject areas. Learning vocabulary from the AWL will help you to improve your comprehension of academic texts. It will also help you to write your assignments and impress your professors. So, feel free to come back to these videos when you need a reminder of the various words that we will discuss. One way to learn new vocabulary is to learn a new word from the list every day, but just remember it is better to learn the words in context. Then you will understand how they are used. Cath Anne: [00:01:23] Just a quick reminder before we jump in. Join me live on Instagram and Facebook live every Thursday at 7:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. We will be doing a live Q and A at that time and as well as a study session so feel free to bring your homework and any questions that you might have. We will try to help you out. Cath Anne: [00:01:43] Lets get into the content. Just a reminder that we encourage you to take notes and pause the video throughout if you need to. This will help you to better retain the information. This week we will add to our initial few lists giving you five more academic words. As we did before, in this session we will be discussing the word, the part of speech (whether its a noun, verb, or adjective), the meaning of the word. Then, of course, we will put the word into a sentence, so you can get a sense of the word in context. This is to help you to get the meaning of the word, but also to help you to retain the information and the meaning of the word. Cath Anne: [00:02:30] It will help you to memorize it and recall it more easily if you do understand it within the context of a sentence. Cath Anne: [00:02:37] So, lets get going. Cath Anne: [00:02:39] The first word this week is impact. Impact is a noun. Cath Anne: [00:02:57] It means the strong effect that someone or something has on a person or situation. So, a common question that you might be familiar with is: What is the impact? How is this situation or issue going to have an impact? So, in a sentence we might say, Greenhouse gas emissions have an impact on global warming. So, they have some kind of effect or some kind of consequence on global warming. Cath Anne: [00:03:32] The next word we have this week is indicate. Indicate is a verb. It means to point out or to show something. So, in other words we might say, Statistics Canada indicates that there is a high level of child poverty in Canada. Ill say that again, Statistic Canada indicates that there is a high level of child poverty in Canada. So, in other words the statistics point to a particular issue. Cath Anne: [00:04:29] The next word we have this week is investment. Investment is noun. This means the use of money or financial capital to receive a profit or appreciation in value. So, this is an important word to be familiar with if you are studying economics, or business, or anything like that but it can also be used in the other disciplines as well. So, for example, there are all sorts of investments we can make. For example, By spending money on university, you are making an investment in your future career options. Investment. Cath Anne: [00:05:25] Number for this week is major. It is an adjective. It describes that something is greater in size extent or importance. It is often associated with something that is negative or bad. For example, we could say, Eastern Canada experienced major flooding this spring. Which was true. Im familiar with the area and there was a lot of flooding in Eastern Canada. So, in other words this implies that the flooding was rather extreme and that it likely did some damage. It was major flooding. Cath Anne: [00:06:22] Finally, we have the word method. Method is a noun. Method is an important word to be familiar with particularly if you were doing any kind of research. Scientific research method is a technique plan or course of action, especially when there is a plan in place. A method is something you tend to think out beforehand and it is usually highly organized and specific. For example, we use the scientific method to conduct research and find out new information. The scientific method is a step by step process that we engage in to do scientific research. So, method means something that is well planned, very specific, and highly organized. Cath Anne: [00:07:26] So, that was our five words for this week. Thank you for joining me on The Homework Help Show, and I hope this episode was of benefit to you If it was, dont forget to give us a little thumbs up and subscribe to our channel. Cath Anne: [00:07:42] If you would like to gain access to any of our other content please visit us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google Plus, here on YouTube. We also have a lot of great blogs on student life on Medium and if youre more of a podcast type of person please visit us on SoundCloud, Anchor, iTunes Apple Podcasts and go to Google Play Music where you can listen to this show, on you podcasting station. Just search Homework Help Global and you will be able to find us. [00:08:17] As well just a reminder if you do have any writing or homework questions please remember to join us live on Instagram every Thursday at 7p.m. Eastern time. I will be there, and we will go over your homework with you and answer any questions that you do have. So thats it for this we thank you for joining me. Take care.

Stock Exchanges Contribute A Lot Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 9 Words: 2826 Downloads: 6 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Economics Essay Type Argumentative essay Did you like this example? Stock exchanges contribute a lot in economy no matter it represent to the develop country, under develop or the developing country. The only thing which matters is how and why they are known to be the integral part of the economy? The answer for this question is complicated, as not only the stock exchange effect economy but also the other way round; Economy can also influence the stock exchanges. The fact lies in how efficiently stock exchanges absorb these economic changes. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Stock Exchanges Contribute A Lot Finance Essay" essay for you Create order Stock exchange in simple words can be describe as A stock exchange is an entity (company) which provides trading facilities for stock brokers and traders, to trade stocks and other securities. With the introduction of economic policies and the availability of state of the art facilities in many stock exchanges, investors are finding easy access to stock markets around the world and Pakistan has no exceptions. No one can ignore the reality that stock market portrait the image of economy has increased the importance of stock exchanges. It has been observed that from past few years different governments in their tenor emphasized on strengthening the stock market, and especially the previous government. Macroeconomic variables affect economy in relation with these variations it may go up or down. Gross Domestic Product, Inflation rate, unemployment rate and interest rate they all give a picture of present and upcoming activities. Inflation is in direct relation with the economy growth which occurs because of increase in demands of public for the goods which is also called derived demand which helps recession to move up Interest rates targets are also a vital tool of monetary policy and are taken into account when dealing with variables like investment, inflation, and unemployment. High interest rate affect the economy in negative manner because profit on investment becomes less and borrowing cost increases. Interest rate also effect domestic currency which results in decrease in export. Recession goes up in country when currency deflates. When inflation increases and Gross Domestic Product decreases, it effect the firms in negative manner because firms incur losses and unable to cover their expenditure because of lower sales. The aim behind choosing this topic is to study the impacts of macroeconomic variables on returns of stocks ie KSE 100 index. This topic is selected to discover the impacts of macroeconomic variables on returns of different firms. 1.2 Research Question How the stock returns in Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) 100 index behaves when macro variables like interest rates (KIBOR) changes, Exchange rate and Inflation Rate changes? 1.3 Purpose of the study: The purpose behind this research is to inspect the affects of interest rate, Exchange rate and Inflation Rate on stock returns of the firms enlisted on Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) 100 index. 1.4 Research Methodology: 1.4.1 Data Collection: This study is based on secondary data so the data which: Brochures and Magazines. Annual Reports Manuals. Internet Website. Articles essays. As Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) 100 index as our area of consideration, as top hundred companies of Pakistan are listed in KSE 100 index. This research includes data from KSE100 index, Interest rate (KIBOR rates), Exchange rate and Inflation Rate of 7 years on monthly basis. The period ranges from June, 2005 to August, 2012. 1.4.2 Methodology: To explore the affects of macroeconomic factors specially inflation, Gross Domestic Product, Interest rate and Exchange rate on stock returns of firms from KSE 100 index. Secondary data is been used in this research. A Multiple Cross sectional Model is used in this study. 1.5 Variables of the Study: From the topic under study, we will find the effect of KIBOR on return on stocks, so: Interest rate (KIBOR), Exchange rate and Inflation Rate. as Independent Variable. KSE 100 index as Dependant Variable. 1.6 Research Hypothesis: Hi: Stock returns (KSE 100 index) are affected by Interest rate, Exchange rate and Inflation Rate. H0: Stock returns (KSE 100 index) are not affected by Interest rate, Exchange rate and Inflation Rate. 1.7 Limitation of the Study The limitations of this research are: Lack of expertise in the field of research. Lack of time is one of the major limitations in our study. Availability of the information required. Financial Constrains. Chapter 2 Literature Review It has been observed and understood that macroeconomic variables like interest rates and money supply contributes a lot in the movement of stock prices and it has been widely accepted phenomenon but pragmatic studies for the verification of these theories originally started in 1980s. The reports of different literature also connote that there should be wide range of data to examine the effects of interest rates on stock returns because the higher the frequency of data to be examined the more valid the research becomes. A study conducted on Jakarta stock exchange by Gupta, et al. (2000) examined the relationship between interest rate, exchange rate and stock prices this study was conducted for a time span of five years (1993-1997) which was further divided in to three sub periods from the periods under consideration the results came out to be random as their was irregular relationship between stock prices and interest rate and weak unidirectional relationship between exchange rate and stock price the overall evidence failed to establish any consistent relationship between any of the economic variables under study. According to Chaudhuri and Koo (2001), they examined that which factor have more significant affect on stock returns in selected countrys stock markets and they found that stock return volatility is affected by independent variables. In Thailand, Malaysia and South Korea stock returns are highly affected by government expenditure therefore investors have to consider about government expenditures. The finding of their research shows that Asian stock markets depend commonly on each other. According to Novak (2001), he found out that if beta is combined with interest rate then there is a strong effect on stock returns. Earlier researches have shown that there is a strong effect of interest rate and exchange rate on stock returns which play a vital role in determining the share prices in financial firms. According to Apergis Eleftheriou ( 2002), There are many studies which shows that there is negative effect of interest rate and stock prices i.e. when interest rate increase the stock listed in stock exchanges decreases and vice versa but there are also many scholars which addresses this issue other way round, that the interest rate have a positive impact of stocks. In theory, the stock prices and interest rates are very much interrelated to each other which is the primarily choice for the investors to make their portfolio. There is a negative relation between interest rates and stock prices which means that investor predicates that if there is increase in interest rate, stock price will decrease and vice versa. This relation is already proven by Paul Mallik (2003),Nasseh Strauss(2004),McMillan(2005)and Jayaraman Puah( 2007). According to Chong and Koh (2003), the effects of interest rates can also be demarcated upon stock prices and its return which is supported by the efficient market hypothesis which sugg ests that there are always profit maximizing investors in market, and for competing with each other they tries to ensure that all the relevant information related to changes in macro economic variables are reflected in current stock prices. This is important for investors because it restrict them from earning abnormal profit by the help of calculated future stock market movements According to Nishat and Shaheen (2004), by testing the relation among KSE index and interest rate, and other factors by using quarterly data from 1973 2004 and applied the VECM(Vector error correction model). In this study they observed that five factors are connected and two interactions in the long run is present between the selected forces. They also analyzed that GDP has positive effect on stock prices but the affects of inflation on value of stock is negative in Pakistan. In a research, Maysami et al (2004) observed that the mostly industrialized countries macroeconomic variables like industrial production, interest rate and exchange rate have immense influence of on stock market Having this as a basis many researchers are now turning their attention to study the similar relationships in developing countries especially countries known as growth engine of Asia. Furthermore an investigation shows that policy makers must be really careful when trying to stabilize the economy by editing in macroeconomic variables because by trying to correct the inflation or unemployment they might not knowingly depress stock market, and curtail capital formation which itself would contribute to slow down of the economy. In this study VECHM was used to estimate the co integration vectors. The study conclude that due to co integrating relationship between macroeconomic variables and stock prices, the overall behavior of stock market may be predicted and the policy makers may redesign economic policy if their desire of affecting the stock prices has not been achieved. They also suggested that so me indices are affected by all macroeconomic variables while others are affected by selected macroeconomic variables. In Wong, Khan and Du (2005), conducted a study on long run as well as short run relationships between the major stock indices of Singapore and united states and also considered some macro economic variables such as money supply, and interest rates by means of time series analysis. The overall economy affect interest rate and prices and ultimately influence stock prices.They found that before 1997 Asian financial crises, the Singapore stock market where cointegrated with interest rate and money supply and this trend was vanished after the crises, they also use the granger causality test to study the systematic casual relationships. According to Erdem et al (2005), they examined the effect of economic variables on Istanbul stock exchange. The method they used was exponential generalized E-GARCH in modern terms. They used the model to find unvaried volatility spil lovers for economic variables. They concluded their research by finding a strong unidirectional volatility spillover from interest rate, inflation to all stock price indexes. They further elaborate that there is a negative volatility spillover between inflation and stock exchanges, but they found a positive spillover between interest rate and stock exchanges indexes. They also pointed out that there exists a volatility spillover in emerging markets. According to Cifter et al. (2008), they performed a study to examine the impact of changes in interest rates on stock returns in turkey by using wavelet analysis with granger casualty test the result of the study showed that the effect of interest rate on stock price is negative and using this empirical result the Turkish stock returns can be forecasted. According to LÃ ©on ( 2008), the work on Effect of interest rate volatility on stock returns and volatility used Two GRACH models in their study, one comprising of without interes t rate and second includes interest rates in conditional means and variables. The results of this study show that interest rates have a significant impact and predictive power on stock returns in Korea, and a weak predictive power for volatility. This study also stress on policy implication for investors. It suggested that Investors may adjust their investment through taking monetary policies as a mean and paying attention on it. According to Vardar et al. (2008), presented a study on Istanbul stock exchange and investigated the impact of interest rate and exchange rate on different sectors. The study shows that the arrivals of interest and exchange rate information significantly affect indices in Istanbul stock exchange which ultimately affect the stock prices. The investor is always concerned about the expected profit over the time horizon. This expectation can be calculated by interest rates existing in the current market. The expected returns have significant effects on real returns so once an investor has expected the return he should also take into account the volatilities in the interest market and then decide in their capital market. Further the study also elaborate that the returns in stock investment should be related to interest variations because the higher the holdings are in capital market, the higher the effects on it. This study was tested by using wavelet analysis with Granger causality tests for the complexity of capital market and nonlinearities in stock returns According to Alam, and Salah, Uddin (2009), In 15 developed and underdeveloped countries they examined the impact of fluctuation in interest rate on share prices and monthly data was used from Jan 1988 to Mar 2003. They identified that in both developed and underdeveloped countries the resulting affects on share prices by the interest rate is mixed. In Japan the relation between stocks prices and interest rate is positive while in Malaysia share prices and the interest rate is not associated and stock prices of South Africa, Bangladesh, Colombia and Italy are inversely related with interest rate. They founded that except Philippine in all selected countries the relation between share prices and fluctuation in interest rate is inverse According to Hussainey Le Khanh Ngoc, (2009),a study conducted in Vietnam to analyze the impact of macroeconomic variable on Vietnam stock exchange elaborates with the help of methodology introduced by Nasseh and Strauss (2000) found that macroeconomic indicators(foreign and domestic) has an impact on stock prices of Vietnam. The findings of this study included that the industrial production has a positive effect on Vietnamese stock prices, as long as interest rate is concern long and short term interest rate not affecting the stock prices in the same direction. According to Alam Ghazi (2009), they investigated that the result varies from country to country; to find the inefficiency of market they used time series and panel regressions. After this testing they found that interest rate and share prices for many countries were negatively correlated more over fluctuation in interest rate and share prices is also negatively correlated for six countries. By these findings one can say that interest rate is the key variable for many countries and if the interest rate is controlled in these countries, stock exchange can be benefited as people will start investing in share market, and companies will start extensional investments. It is determined by different authors and researchers that return on stocks are affected by many variables like Supply and demand, firm size and profitability, dividend per share etc. Chapter 3 Methodology 3.1 Sources of data: As the research is secondary in nature so the data is gathered from different websites.KSE 100 index data is taken from Karachi Stock Exchange website and KIBOR rates is taken from State Bank of Pakistan website. 3.2 Variables: Four variables are used in the research, we will find the effect of Interest rates, Exchange rate and Inflation Rate on return on stocks (KSE 100 Index), so: 3.2.1. Interest rate (KIBOR rates), Exchange rate and Inflation Rate as Independent Variable. 3.2.2 KSE 100 index as Dependant Variable. 3.2.1. Interest Rates (KIBOR): KIBOR means Karachi interbank offer rates which are defined as lending/borrowing rates quoted by the banks. The banks under this arrangement quote these rates at specified time i.e. 11.30 AM at Reuters. Currently 20 banks are member of KIBOR club and by excluding 4 upper and 4 lower extremes, rates are averaged out that are quoted for both ends ie offer as well bid. The quote rates available in KIBOR ranges from one week to 3 years. KIBOR is used as a benchmark for corporate lending rates. 3.2.2 KSE 100 Index: Karachi Stock exchange 100 index is stock index acting as a standard to compare prices on Karachi Stock exchange over a period of time. The company with highest market capitalization is selected. In this index high market capitalization from each sector is also included. The index was launched in Nov.1991 with base point of 100 points. By 2001, it had grown to 1770 points and reached 12,285 in Feb 2007.A day before ie 26 December 2007,former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, it was on record high ever 14,814 points. During Global Crisis 2008 it decreased to 9,187 points. It reached to record highest level on November 7, 2012 which is 16,218 points which is now taken as emerging market in Asia. 3.2.3 Exchange Rate: Exchange rate is the value of one currency in terms of another currency. Exchange rate may positively or negatively affect stock return depending on the economy of the country. 3.2.4 Inflation Rate: Inflation is increase in prices of goods and services due to which people will buy smaller amount of goods with the same amount of money. Inflation negatively affects stock returns because profits of the firms decreases with increase in price of goods due to increased costs. 3.3 Model of the Research: To check the effects of macroeconomics variables on Stock Returns we use a Multiple Cross-sectional Regression Model. Where, R= KSE 100 Index. ITR= Interest Rate (KIBOR). IFR= Inflation Rate. ER= Exchange Rate. 3.5 Data Period: This research includes data from KSE100 index, Interest rate (KIBOR rates), Exchange rate and Inflation Rate of 7 years on monthly basis. The period ranges from June, 2005 to August, 2012. 3.5 Research hypothesis: H1: Stock returns (KSE 100 index) are affected by Interest rate, Exchange rate and Inflation Rate. H0: Stock returns (KSE 100 index) are not affected by Interest rate, Exchange rate and Inflation Rate. 3.6 Theoretical framework The theoretical framework of the study consist of dependent variable and independent variable KSE 100 Index Exchange Rates Inflation Rates Interest Rates (KIBOR Rates)

A Brief Note On The Civil Rights Movement - 1429 Words

Introduction The Civil Rights Movement ended in 1968, ending segregation between whites and blacks. People back then saw it as the ending of racism in America. The majority of the population would say today that racism is still a problem whether it is racist remarks being said, police brutality towards other races, bullying because of one s race, and many other examples. Racism today is not only with an issue with blacks but all races in America are impacted by racism. This should be a thing of the past, but this is still a problem and there is a reason for it. Everybody has racist judgements but what helps fuel the racism is the media. As Joss Whedon (goodreads n.d.) quotes; â€Å"The news isn’t there to tell you what happened. It’s there to tell you what it wants you to hear or what it thinks you want to hear.† The news is able to choose what will be shown and on every news report there is something that has to do with race. The media has blown stories out of proportion causing people to believe that racism is a horrific problem. Everyone has some form of racism in them, the news helps to ignite that racism inside the person whether it is fear or hatred. How The Media Lies Everyone has seen the news before and believes what they say. Why would they lie to us? As Jordan Bailey (2013) says that the news is very biased and will over exaggerate so that they will have viewers. An example to how the media has lied to us is that Obamacare is bad for our economy. The media canShow MoreRelatedA Brief Note On The Civil Rights Movement1745 Words   |  7 Pagesof our histories are movements that came about to change the way certain people were being treated. What caused the Civil Rights Movement to slow and splinter in the mid-to-late 1960s? 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Arabic Literature Free Essays

Arabic literature Main article:  Arabic literature Main article:  Literature of Morocco Ibn Tufail  (Abubacer) and  Ibn al-Nafis  were pioneers of the  philosophical novel. Ibn Tufail wrote the first fictional Arabic  novel  Hayy ibn Yaqdhan  (Philosophus Autodidactus) as a response to  al-Ghazali’s  The Incoherence of the Philosophers, and then Ibn al-Nafis also wrote a novel  Theologus Autodidactus  as a response to Ibn Tufail’s  Philosophus Autodidactus. Both of these narratives had  protagonists(Hayy in  Philosophus Autodidactus  and Kamil in  Theologus Autodidactus) who were  autodidactic  feral children  living in seclusion on adesert island, both being the earliest examples of a desert island story. We will write a custom essay sample on Arabic Literature or any similar topic only for you Order Now However, while Hayy lives alone with animals on the desert island for the rest of the story in  Philosophus Autodidactus, the story of Kamil extends beyond the desert island setting in  Theologus Autodidactus, developing into the earliest known  coming of age  plot and eventually becoming the first example of a  science fictionnovel. 17][18] Theologus Autodidactus, written by the  Arabian  polymath  Ibn al-Nafis  (1213–1288), is the first example of a science fiction novel. It deals with various science fiction elements such as  spontaneous generation,  futurology, the  end of the world and doomsday,resurrection, and the  afterlife. Rather than giving supernatural or mythological explanations for these events, Ibn al-Nafis attempted to explain these plot elements using the  scientific knowledge  of  biology,  astronomy,  cosmology  and  geology  known in his time. His main purpose behind this science fiction work was to explain  Islamic  religious teachings in terms of  science  and  philosophy  through the use of fiction. [19] A  Latin  translation of Ibn Tufail’s work,  Philosophus Autodidactus, first appeared in 1671, prepared by  Edward Pococke  the Younger, followed by an English translation by  Simon Ockley  in 1708, as well as  German  and  Dutch  translations. These translations later inspired  Daniel Defoe  to write  Robinson Crusoe, regarded as the  first novel in English. 20][21][22][23]  Philosophus Autodidactus  also inspired  Robert Boyle  to write his own philosophical novel set on an island,  The Aspiring Naturalist. [24]  The story also anticipatedRousseau’s  Emile: or, On Education  in some ways, and is also similar to  Mowgli’s story in  Rudyard Kipling’s  The Jungle Book  as well as  Tarzan’s story, in that a baby is aband oned but taken care of and fed by a mother  wolf. [citation needed] Among other innovations in Arabic literature was  Ibn Khaldun’s perspective on chronicling past events—by fully rejecting supernatural explanations, Khaldun essentially invented the scientific or sociological approach to history. citation needed] Islam [100 A. D. to 1500] 1. God’s revelations were first received around 610 by the prophet Muhammad, whose followers later collected them into the Koran, which became the basis for a new religion and community known today as Islam. 2. Though most of the pre-Islamic literature of Arabia was written in verse, prose became a popular vehicle for the dissemination of religious learning. 3. As its title â€Å"the Recitation† suggests, the Koran was made to be heard and recited; because it is literally the word of God, Muslims do not accept the Koran in translation from Arabic. . Although Persian literature borrowed from Arabic literary styles, it also created and enhanced new poetic styles, including the  ruba’i  (quatrain),  ghazal  (erotic lyric), and  masnavi  (narrative poem). 5. More widely known than any other work in Arabic, the  Thousand and One Nights  is generally excluded from the canon of classical Arabic literature due to its extravagant and improbable fabrications in prose, a form that was expected to be more serious and substantial than verse. Thousand and One Nights Myths and Legends of the World |  2001 |  Copyright Thousand and One Nights Thousand and One Nights,  also called  The Arabian Nights’ Entertainment  or simply  The Arabian Nights,  is a sprawling, centuries-old collection of tales. In the English-speaking world, it is the best-known work of Arabic stories. The framework of the collection is that a king named Shahriyar, distrustful of women, had the habit of taking a new wife every night and killing her the next day. A resourceful young woman named Shahrazad had a plan to end the deadly tradition. After marrying the king, she told him a story on their wedding night with the promise to finish it the next day. He let her live, and she repeated the trick. So captivating were her stories that Shahriyar spared her life again and again in order to hear the rest of the narrative. The origins of  Thousand and One Nights  are unknown. The oldest bit of Arabic text dates from the 800s; the first lengthy text was written in the 1400s. None of the early Arabic-language texts contains exactly the same stories. Scholars have identified Persian, Baghdadian, and Egyptian elements in the work, which seems to have developed over the years as an ever-changing collection of fairy tales, romances, fables, poems, legends about heroes, and humorous stories. The stories that are best known in the English-speaking world—those of Sinbad the Sailor, Aladdin and his Magic Lamp, and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves—do not appear in all editions of  Thousand and One Nights. Thousand and One Nights The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. |  2012 |  Copyright Thousand and One Nights or Arabian Nights, series of anonymous stories in Arabic, considered as an entity to be among the classics of world literature. The cohesive plot device concerns the efforts of Scheherezade, or Sheherazade, to keep her husband, King Shahryar (or Schriyar), from killing her by entertaining him with a tale a night for 1,001 nights. The best known of these stories are those of Ali Baba, Sinbad the Sailor, and Aladdin. Although many of the stories are set in India, their origins are unknown and have been the subject of intensive scholarly investigation. The corpus began to be collected about the year 1000. At first the title was merely indicative of a large number of stories; later editors dutifully provided editions with the requisite 1,001 tales. The present form of  Thousand and One Nights  is thought to be native to Persia or one of the Arabic-speaking countries, but includes stories from a number of different countries and no doubt reflects diverse source material. The first European edition was a free translation by Abbe Antoine Galland into French (1704–17). Most subsequent French, German, and English versions lean heavily upon Galland. Among the English translations include the expurgated edition of E. W. Lane (1840), with excellent and copious notes; the unexpurgated edition by Sir Richard Burton in 16 volumes (1885–88); that of John Payne in 9 volumes (1882–84); Powys Mathers’s translation from the French text of J. C. Mardrus (rev. ed. , 4 vol. , 1937); and that of Husain Haddawy (2 vol. , 1990, 1995). Note: This file is also available as a  Word document. Acknowledgements: Al-Muntazir Madrasah, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. IMPORTANCE OF THE HOLY QUR’AAN The first lesson to be learned by all students is about the importance of the Holy Qur’aan. The Qur’aan is the Book of Allah  subhaanahu wa ta‘aalaa. Every word in the Qur’aan has come from Allah. That is why we say that it is a Holy Book. The words in the Qur’aan were sent by Allah to Prophet Muhammad  sallal-laahu ‘alayhi wa-aalihi wa sallam. The Prophet (s) received the words of Allah through angel Jibra’eel. This Qur’aan is a Holy Book that was not written by anyone but sent by Allah to Prophet Muhammad (s) through Jibra’eel. 1. It is the most truthful speech: Prophet Muhammad (s) regularly read the words of Allah to Muslims around him. These Muslims were very pleased and excited to receive the words of Allah. Prophet Muhammad (s) said:  The most truthful speech, the most eloquent advice, and the greatest stories are in the Book of Allah. The Muslims listened carefully to what the Prophet read, memorized the sentences and passages of the Qur’aan, recited them regularly and followed the teachings of the Qur’aan. In order to preserve the words of Allah the Prophet appointed special people known as â€Å"Scribes of the Qur’aan† to write down the words of Allah. 2. It is in original language: Prophet Muhammad (s) was an Arab and the majority of people in Mecca and Medina spoke Arabic. Therefore the Qur’aan was sent in Arabic. Arabic is written from right to left. It is better to learn to read the Qur’aan in its original language. Therefore, we will put efforts to learn Qur’aan written in Arabic instead of simply reading its translation in other languages. . The Holy Qur’aan contains Allah’s message to all people. It tells people how to act correctly. It guides us to a correct way of life in this world. The Book of Allah also talks about life after death. It tells us that Allah has prepared Paradise for good people and Hell for bad people. The Qur’aan encourages the worship of only one God Who creates and provides for them. The Book forbids people from evil and condemns those who do wrong. It contains stories of the past Prophets and the examples of bad and good people. People are advised in the Qur’aan to be good to others and respect them. It teaches people to live in peace and harmony. 4. Qur’aan brings happiness in this world and the Hereafter. Following the Qur’aan brings happiness in this world and the world after death. The Prophet (s) said:If you desire the life of the fortunate, the death of a martyr, the salvation on the Day of Regret and the shade on the Day of Extreme Heat, then you should study the Qur’aan because it is the word of the Merciful, a sanctuary from Shaytaan and a causes the tilting of the Balance. In another Hadith we read that the Prophet (s) has said:  The recitor of the Qur’an will be spared from the calamities of the Hereafter. 5. It is the only Divine book that has remained unchanged. Allah sent the Qur’aan to His Prophet. A book sent by Allah to people is known as a Divine Book or a Heavenly Book. Other Divine Books were also sent to previous prophets. These are: Suhoof to Prophet Ibraheem  Ã¢â‚¬Ëœalayhis salaam; Zaboor to Prophet Dawood  Ã¢â‚¬Ëœalayhis salaam;  Tawraah to Prophet Moosaa  Ã¢â‚¬Ëœalayhis salaam; and  Injeel to Prophet ‘Eisaa  Ã¢â‚¬Ëœalayhis salaam. The difference between the Qur’aan and past revealed books is that the Qur’aan is the only Divine Book that has remained unaltered. The Qur’aan we have with us contains exactly the same message that was sent to Prophet Muhammad by Allah through Jibra’eel. 6. Our supplications get answered  if we were to pray after reading the Holy Qur’aan. The Prophet (s) said:  One who starts the Qur’an and finishes it, Allah will grant him one answered supplication. It also helps in strengthening our faith. Imam Ali (a) said:  Ã‚  Reciting the Qur’an plants the eed of faith. 7. The Qur’aan is the best companion. It can be of great help when a child or adult is feeling lonely. Imam Ali Zaynul ‘Aabideen (a) said:  If all who live between the East and West perish, I will have no fear as long as I have the Qur’an with me. 8. Students get wise  when they start reading the Qur’aan in their childhood. Prophet Muhammad (s ) said:  Whoever reads the Qur’an before becoming Baaligh, has indeed been given wisdom as a child. The Holy Book is the best intellectual treasure a student can have. Prophet Muhammad (s) said:  The Qur’an is a wealth with which there is no poverty, and without which there is no wealth. On the other hand not caring to read and study the Qur’aan is a great loss. Prophet Muhammad (s) said:  Surely the person in whose heart lacks the trace of the Qur’an is like a ruined house. 9. Muslims read the Qur’aan to understand the true teachings of Islam. Prophet Muhammad (s) left the Holy Book and the Ahlul Bayt (a) as the most important legacy for Muslims after him. He said:  I leave tow weighty things among you: The Book of Allah and my family – the Ahlul Bayt. Indeed these two will never separate until they reach me near the pool of Kawthar. 10. All Muslims recite some Soorahs in their prayers. However, it is good to memorize more Soorahs and read them in Salaat. Imam Muhammad Al-Baaqir (a) said:  Whoever recites the Qur’aan while standing in his prayer, Allah will bestow on him a hundred blessings for every letter; and whoever recites it while sitting in his prayer, Allah will reward him fifty blessings for every letter; and whoever recites it outside of his prayer, Allah will grant him ten blessings for every letter. 1. The Qur’aan is a cure to mental and spiritual diseases: Imam Hasan al-‘Askaree (a) said:  The Messenger of Allah (s) said: I advice you to the Qur’aan since it is the beneficial cure, the blessed medicine, the protection (‘Isma) for he who holds fast to it, and the salvation for he who follows it. Neither does it cause crookedness so that it departs (from the truth) nor does it deviate so that it causes trouble. Its marvels do not come to end and the vastness of refutations does not wear it. RESPECT AND RIGHTS OF THE HOLY QUR’AAN Now that we know that the Holy Qur’aan is not an ordinary book, but a Divine Book sent by Allah for the guidance of all people, we must show respect to it. Here are some of the points we need to remember. 1. A part of the Qur’aan carries the same respect as the entire Qur’aan. Allah says:  When the Qur’aan is recited, listen to  it (7:204). We know that when recitation takes place it is always of a part of the Qur’aan. Even then Allah uses the word Qur’aan for the part that is being recited. Therefore, if you have a Siparah, a binder or a booklet that contains Soorahs and passages from the Qur’aan, you treat it like a Qur’aan. . The Qur’aan should always be carried with proper care. When your Madrasah bag contains the Qur’aan, or a part of it, take extra care of the bag. Keep the bag slowly on the desk or floor instead of letting it fall on its own. Use both hands to remove the Qur’aan from your bag, kis s the cover of the Qur’aan, place it slowly on a desk (or on a wooden carrier specially built for holding the Qur’aan) and open the pages gently. 3. When the Qur’aan is being recited, listen to it and be attentive (7:204). If you are busy with something else then at least do not disturb the recitation by talking, for example, or making noise. There is reward for listening to the Qur’aan. Imam Ali Zaynul ‘Aabideen (a) said:  Whoever listens to a letter of the book of Allah, the Glorious and Almighty, without even reading it, Allah will write down for him one good deed, forgive a sin, and raise him a degree. It was the practice of unbelievers in Mecca to make a lot of noise so that others could not listen to the Qur’aan (41:26). Do not be like them and instead lend your ears to the Qur’aan and give it respect. We often wish that God would talk to us. One way to achieve this is by reading the Qur’aan. Prophet Muhammad (s): said:  Lo! Whoever has longing for Allah should listen to the word of Allah! Also, if you wish to talk to God then do Tilaawa. Prophet Muhammad (s) said:  Whenever one of you would like to talk to his Lord, he should read the Qur’an. 4. The Qur’aan should be recited regularly. It is disrespect to keep the Holy Qur’aan unread. Prophet Muhammad (s) said:  Brighten your homes with reciting Qur’aan; do not turn them into graves. Surely the house in which a lot of recitation takes place enjoys many blessings and the members benefit from it. Such a household shines for the inhabitants of Heaven as stars shine to the inhabitants of the earth. On the Day of Judgment the Prophet will complain to Allah about some Muslims who had abandoned the Qur’aan (25:30). Another Hadith of the Prophet (s) says:  Indeed hearts rust in the same way irons rust. He was asked: â€Å"What will polish the hearts? † The Prophet answered:  Reading the Qur’an. The more Qur’aan we read the better it is. We should discipline ourselves to read a good portion of Qur’aan daily. Imam Ali (a) said:  He who recites 100 verses daily from the Book in the order it is in, Allah writes for him the reward equal to all the good actions of every one on this earth. Shaytaan would like us not to read, understand and study the Qur’aan. Let us fight him with all our strength and faith. Imam Ja‘far As-Saadiq (a) said:  Ã‚  There is nothing more unpleasant to Shaytaan than to see a man reading the Qur’an to gain insight. 5. Children should get familiarized with the Qur’aan early in their lives. Imam as-Saadiq (AS) said:  He who recites Qur’aan while he is young, Qur’aan mixes with his flesh and his blood, and Allah places him amongst the blessed and the chosen righteous. On the Day of Judgment, Qur’aan shall become his defender and  [pray for him a handsome reward. 6. It is the right and respect of the Qur’aan that it should be followed. Imam Ja‘far Saadiq (a) said:  Ã‚  Lo! One, who learns the Qur’aan, teaches it and practices according to it, I will guide and lead him to Paradise. 7. It is also the right and respect of the Qur’aan that those who have the knowledge o f the Qur’aan should teach it to others. This is among the noblest acts. Prophet Muhammad (s) said:  The best of you is he who learns the Qur’an and teaches it. 8. Take the interpretations of the Qur’aan from the Holy Prophet (s) and the Imams from his family, i. e. the Ahlul Bayt (a). Imam Hasan al-‘Askaree quoting Prophet Muhammad said:  Recite it (i. e. the Qur’aan) as Allah gives you ten rewards for each letter that you recite from it. Then the Imam (a) said:  Do you know who really holds fast to it and reaches to such honor and reward? He is the person who takes Qur’aan and its interpretation from us Ahlul-Bayt (a) or from the deputies that we send to our followers, and takes its (interpretation) neither from the opinions of those who argue (on the speech of Allah) nor form the analogy  of  those who compare (different parts of the speech of Allah). . Once you have completed reading your lesson or referring to the Qur’aan then close it gently instead of leaving it open. 2. Do not put another book or any weight above the Qur’aan. The Holy Book should always be kept on the top in a pile of books. 3. It is Haraam (forbidden) to make Najaasaat (impure things like blood and urine) touch the Qur’aan. In the event wher e the Qur’aan becomes Najis, for instance if it falls in Najis water, it is Waajib (obligatory) to purify it (make it Taahir). 4. Old and worn out copies of the Qur’aan should be disposed in safe places. This includes sending them for recycling, burying them in the earth or casting in rivers. *  Ã‚  *  Ã‚  *  Ã‚  * * MANNERS OF RECITING THE HOLY QUR’AAN By now we know that the Qur’aan is a special book and deserves respect. Now let us look at some of the manners of reciting the Qur’aan. It is the right of the Tilaawa (recitation of the Qur’aan) that we follow the rules when reciting the Qur’aan. 1. Perform Wudhoo before you prepare to read the Qur’aan. Allah says:  None can touch it (the Qur’aan) save the purified ones  (56:79). Once Imam Ja‘far As-Saadiq (a) asked his son Ismaa‘eel to read the Qur’aan. The latter said that he was not in Wudhoo. The Imam said in that case he could recite it but should not touch the writings of the Qur’aan. Therefore, it is advisable to  use a stick or pen to point to the words  or sentences of the Qur’aan you are reading if you are not in Wudhoo. 2. Read Du‘aa before Tilaawa. Reading of the Du‘aa helps to keep our focus and reminds us of what we need to take from the Holy Book. Ma‘soomeen (a) have recommended a number of Du‘aas. The Du‘aa taught by Imam Ja‘far As-Saadiq (a) appears in this booklet with Qur’aan lessons. 3. Always say  A‘oodhubillaahi minash shaytaanir rajeem  ( ) when you begin reading the Qur’aan. It means: I seek refuge in Allah from the cursed Shaytaan. This is what Allah instructs us to do in Aayah 16:98. 4. Next say  Bismillaahir rahmaanir raheem  ( )  The meaning of this phrase is: In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. Whenever Imam Moosaa Al-Kaazim (a) wished to mak e a point to Haroon Rasheed using Aayaat from the Qur’aan, the Imam would begin with  A‘oodhubillaah . . . followed by  Bismillaah . . . 5. Sit facing Qiblaah when reciting the Qur’aan. Please note that this is the best direction to face. However where it may be difficult or impossible to face Qiblaah when reading the Qur’aan (for example if your desk is facing another direction) then it is all right not to face the Qiblaah. 6. Recite the Qur’aan with Tarteel  as instructed by Allah in Aayah 73:4. This means that we should recite the Qur’aan in a good voice with rhythm instead of plain reading. 7. Recite the Qur’aan slowly  Allah said to the Prophet  do not move your tongue with it (Qur’aan) to make haste therein  (75:16). The aayaat of the Qur’aan should be recited in slow tones with each word being pronounced clearly. The Prophet (s) advised Muslims not be concerned about finishing a Soorah when reciting the Qur’aan. 8. Be Humble when reciting the Qur’aan. The Prophet (s) says that the best recitor is he who is humble when reciting the Qur’aan and realizes his own insignificance. Some people exhibit their insignificance and the awe of talking to Allah through weeping. This is a good sign. Prophet Muhammad (s) said:Eyes that weep when reciting the Qur’an will be shining with delight on the Day of Resurrection. 9. Try to understand the recitation. Holy Qur’aan is a book of Guidance (2:2). It is necessary for us to understand the message Allah sent all people through Prophet Muhammad (s). 10. Read from the Qur’aan by looking at the writings instead of reciting from your memory. In a Hadith from one of our Imams it is said that mere looking at the writings of the Qur’aan carries reward. 11. Interact with the Qur’aan. Imam Ja‘far As-Saadiq (a) says that it is important to react to the aayaat of the Qur’aan when reciting it. When we come across aayaat on Paradise, Mercy and Grace of Allah, Good Outcome in the hereafter, we should hope for these in our hearts. On the other hand if we are reading aayaat that warn us about the punishment, fire, Hell, etc. we should pray to be saved from these. 12. Open your heart and mind to the Qur’aan and ponder over what you read. Allah often invites us to think and ponder over the contents of the Qur’aan. In 47:24 Allah says:  Do they not then think deeply in the Qur’aan, or are their hearts locked up? 13. Perform Sajdah where required to do so  In the entire Qur’aan there are 15 places where performing of Sajdah is required. At 4 places it is Waajib (obligatory) to do Sajdah if we were to read or listen to these sections of the Qur’aan. For the rest of the places it is Mustahab (recommended) to do Sajdah. 14. Say  Sadqallaahul ‘Aliyyul ‘Azeem  ( ) every time you end a recitation of the Qur’aan. The meaning of this phrase is: Allah, the Sublime, the Great, is truthful in what He has said 15. Read one of the Du‘aas after Tilaawa. The Ma‘soomeen have taught a number of Du‘aas, from these two have been included with Qur’aan lessons. In these Du‘aas, amongst other things, we pray to the Almighty to enlighten us through the Qur’aan and make us follow the teachings of the Qur’aan. THE HOLY QURAN: Islam appeared in the form of a book: the Quran. Muslims, consider the Quran (sometimes spelled â€Å"Koran†) to be the Word of God as transmitted by the Angel Gabriel, in the Arabic language, through the Prophet Muhammad. The Muslim view, moreover, is that the Quran supersedes earlier revelations; it is regarded as their summation and completion. It is the final revelation, as Muhammad is regarded as the final prophet – ‘the Seal of the Prophets. † In a very real sense the Quran is the mentor of millions of Muslims, Arab and non-Arab alike; it shapes their everyday life, anchors them to a unique system of law, and inspires them by its guiding principles. Written in noble language, this Holy Text has done more than move multitudes to tears and ecstasy; it has also, for almost fourteen hundred years, illuminated the lives of Muslims with its eloquent message of uncompromising monotheism, human dignity, righteous living, individual responsibility, and social justice. For countless millions, consequently, it has been the single most important force in guiding their religious, social, and cultural lives. Indeed, the Quran is the cornerstone on which the edifice of Islamic civilization has been built. The text of the Quran was delivered orally by the Prophet Muhammad to his followers as it was revealed to him. The first verses were revealed to him in or about 610, and the last revelation dates from the last year of his life, 632. His followers at first committed the Quran to memory and then, as instructed by him, to writing. Although the entire contents of the Quran, the placement of its verses, and the arrangement of its chapters date back to the Prophet, as long as he lived he continued to receive revelations. Consequently, the Holy Text could only be collected as a single corpus – â€Å"between the two covers† – after the death of Muhammad. This is exactly what happened. After the battle of al-Yamamah in 633, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, later to become the second caliph, suggested to Abu Bakr, the first caliph, that because of the grievous loss of life in that battle, there was a very real danger of losing the Quran, enshrined as it was in the memories of the faithful and in uncollated fragments. Abu Bakr recognized the danger and entrusted the task of gathering the revelations to Zayd ibn Thabit, who as the chief scribe of the Prophet was the person to whom Muhammad frequently dictated the revelations in his lifetime. With great difficulty, the task was carried out and the first complete manuscript compiled from â€Å"bits of parchment, thin white stones – ostracae – leafless palm branches, and the memories of men. Later, during the time of ‘Uthman, the third caliph, a final, authorized text was prepared and completed in 651, and this has remained the text in use ever since. The contents of the Quran differ in substance and arrangement from the Old and New Testaments. Instead of presenting a straight historical narrative, as do the Gospels and the historical books of the Old Testament, the Quran treats, in allusive style, spiritual and practical as well as historical matters. The Quran is divided into 114 surahs, or chapters, and the surahs are conventionally assigned to two broad categories: those revealed at Mecca and those revealed at Medina. The surahs revealed at Mecca – at the beginning of Muhammad’s mission – tend to be short and to stress, in highly moving language, the eternal themes of the unity of God, the necessity of faith, the punishment of those who stray from the right path, and the Last Judgment, when all man’s actions and beliefs will be judged. The surahs revealed at Medina are longer, often deal in detail with specific legal, social, or political situations, and sometimes can only be properly understood with a full knowledge of the circumstances in which they were revealed All the surahs are divided into ayahs or verses and, for purposes of pedagogy and recitation, the Quran as a whole is divided into thirty parts, which in turn are divided into short divisions of nearly equal length, to facilitate study and memorization. The surahs hemselves are of varying length, ranging from the longest, Surah 2, with 282 verses, to the shortest, Surahs 103, 108, and 110, each of which has only three. With some exceptions the surahs are arranged in the Quran in descending order of length, with the longest at the beginning and the shortest at the end. The major exception to this arrangement is the opening surah, â€Å"al-Fatihah,† which contains seven verses and which serves as an introduction to the entire revelation: In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds; The Merciful, the Compassionate; Master of the Day of Judgment; Thee only do we worship, and Thee alone we ask for help. Guide us in the straight path, The path of those whom Thou hast favored; not the path of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray. Non-Muslims are often struck by the range of styles found in the Quran. Passages of impassioned beauty are no less common than vigorous narratives. The sublime â€Å"Verse of the Throne† is perhaps one of the most famous: God – There is no god but He,   The Living. the Everlasting; Slumber seizes Him not, neither sleep; To Him belongs all that is In the heavens and the earth; Who is there that can intercede with Him Save by His leave? He knows what lies before them And what is after them, Nor do they encompass anything of His knowledge Except such as He wills; His Throne extends over the heavens and earth; The preserving of them wearies Him not; He is the Most High, the All-Glorious. Muslims regard the Quran as untranslatable; the language in which it was revealed – Arabic – is inseparable from its message and Muslims everywhere, o matter what their native tongue, must learn Arabic to read the Sacred Book and to perform their worship. The Quran of course is available in many languages, but these versions are regarded as interpretations rather than translations – partly because the Arabic language, extraordinarily concise and allusive, is impossible to translate in a mechanical, word-for-word way. The inimitability of the Quran has crystalli zed in the Muslim view of i’jaz or â€Å"impossibility,† which holds that the style of the Quran, being divine, cannot be imitated: any attempt to do so is doomed to failure. It must also be remembered that the Quran was originally transmitted orally to the faithful and that the Holy Text is not meant to be read only in silence. From the earliest days it has always been recited aloud or, more accurately, chanted. As a result, several traditional means of chanting, or intoning, the Quran were found side by side. These methods carefully preserved the elaborate science of reciting the Quran – with all its intonations and its cadence and punctuation. As the exact pronunciation was important – and learning it took years – special schools were founded to be sure that no error would creep in as the traditional chanting methods were handed down. It is largely owing to the existence of these traditional methods of recitation that the text of the Quran was preserved without error. As the script in which the Quran was first written down indicated only the consonantal skeleton of the words, oral recitation was an essential element in the transmission of the text. Because the circumstances of each revelation were thought necessary to correct interpretation, the community, early in the history of Islam, concluded that it was imperative to gather as many traditions as possible about the life and actions of the Prophet so that the Quran might be more fully understood. These traditions not only provided the historical context for many of the surahs – thus contributing to their more exact explication – but also contained a wide variety of subsidiary information on the practice, life, and legal rulings of the Prophet and his companions. This material became the basis for what is called the sunnah, or â€Å"practice† of the Prophet – the deeds, utterances, and taqrir (unspoken approval) of Muhammad. Together with the Quran, the sunnah, as embodied in the canonical collections of traditions, the hadith, became the basis for the shari’ah, the sacred law of Islam. Unlike Western legal systems, the shari’ah makes no distinction between religious and civil matters; it is the codification of God’s Law, and it concerns itself with every aspect of social, political, economic, and religious life. Islamic law is thus different from any other legal system; it differs from canon law in that it is not administered by a church hierarchy; in Islam there is nothing that corresponds to a â€Å"church† in the Christian sense. Instead, there is the ummah – the community of the believers – whose cohesion is guaranteed by the sacred law. Every action of the pious Muslim, therefore, is determined by the Quran, by precedents set by the Prophet, and by the practice of the early community of Islam as enshrined in the shari’ah. No description, however, can fully capture the overwhelming importance of the Quran to Muslims. Objectively, it is the central fact of the Islamic faith, the Word of God, the final and complete revelation, the foundation and framework of Islamic law, and the source of Islamic thought, language, and action. It is the essence of Islam. Yet it is, in the deeply personal terms of a Muslim, something more as well. In innumerable, almost indescribable ways, it is also the central fact of Muslim life. To a degree almost incomprehensible in the West it shapes and colors broadly, specifically, and totally the thoughts, emotions, and values of the devout Muslim’s life from birth to death. ARABIC LITERATURE: The Quran, the primary document of the Islamic faith, is the first Arabic book. Its style, at once vigorous, allusive, and concise, deeply influenced later compositions in Arabic, as it continues to color the mode of expression of native speakers of Arabic, Christian as well as Muslim, both in writing and in conversation. The Quran also largely determined the course of Arabic literature. The earliest Arabic prose came into being not from literary motives, but to serve religious and practical needs, above all the need to fully understand the Islamic revelation and the circumstances of the first Muslim community in the Hijaz. The sayings and actions of the Prophet and his Companions were collected and preserved, at first by memory and then by writing, to be finally collected and arranged by such men as al-Bukhari and Muslim in the ninth century. This material, the hadith, not only provided the basic texts from which Islamic law was elaborated, but also formed the raw material for historians of the early Muslim community. Since each hadith, or â€Å"saying,† is a first-person narrative, usually by an eyewitness of the event described, they have an immediacy and freshness that has come down unimpaired through the centuries. The personalities of the narrators – Abu Bakr, Umar, Aishah, and a host of others are just as vivid as the events described, for the style of each hadith is very personal. The hadith also determined the characteristic form of such works as Ibn Ishaq’s Life of the Messenger of God, originally written in the middle of the eighth century. In this book, hadith dealing with the life of the Prophet are arranged in chronological order, and the comments of the author are kept to a minimum. Events are seen through the eyes of the people who witnessed them; three or four versions of the same event are often given, and in each case the â€Å"chain of transmission† of the hadith is given, so that the reader may judge its authenticity. During Umayyad times, a number of historians wrote monographs on specific historical, legal, and religious questions, and in each case these authors seem to have adhered to the hadith method of composition. Although few of the works of these writers have survived in their entirety, enough has been preserved by later incorporation in such vast works as the Annals of al-Tabari to give us an idea not only of their method of composition, but also of their wide-ranging interests. The practice of prefacing a chain of authorities to each hadith led to the compilation of vast biographical dictionaries, like the Book of Classes of the early ninth century author Ibn Said, which includes a biography of the Prophet and a great deal of information on notable personalities in Mecca and Medina during his lifetime. Works such as this allowed readers to identify and judge the veracity of transmitters of hadith; later, the content of biographical dictionaries was broadened to include poets, writers, eminent reciters of the Quran, scientists, and the like. These biographical dictionaries are often lively reading, and are a mine of information about social and political circumstances in the Islamic world. The spread of Islam naturally found chroniclers, such as al-Waqidi, who wrote in the late eighth and early ninth centuries, and al-Baladhuri, who composed his well known Book of the Conquests in the ninth century. These books, like the hadith, were written for practical motives. Al-Waqidi was interested in establishing the exact chronology of the spread of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula and adjoining areas, while al-Baladhuri was interested in legal and tax problems connected with the settlement of new lands. Their books nevertheless are classics of their kind and, aside from containing much interesting information, they have passages of great descriptive power. By the ninth century, the method of compiling history from hadith and carefully citing the authorities for each tradition – a process which had resulted in books of unwieldy length – was abandoned by some authors, like al-Dinawari and al-Ya’qubi, who omitted the chains of transmitters and combined hadith to produce a narrative. The result was greater readability and smaller compass, at the sacrifice of richness and complexity. The works of al-Dinawari and al-Ya’qubi, unlike those of their predecessors, aimed to entertain as well as instruct; they are â€Å"literary† productions. This form of light history reached its apogee in the tenth century in al-Mas’udi’s brilliant and entertaining Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems, a comprehensive encyclopedia of history, geography, and literature. The literary productions of these men would not, however, have been possible without the careful collections of historical hadith made by their predecessors. Just as the writing of history began from practical rather than literary motives, so the collection and preservation of Arabic poetry was undertaken by scholars with, at first, little interest in its artistic merit. The linguists and exegetes of Kufa and Basra began collecting this poetry in the eighth century because of the light it threw on unusual expressions and grammatical structures in the Quran and the hadith. Editions and commentaries were prepared of the poems of ‘Antarah, Imru al-Qays, and many others, and thus the works of the early poets were preserved for later generations. The Quran a part, poetry has always been considered the highest expression of literary art among the Arabs. Long before the coming of Islam, Bedouin poets had perfected the forms of panegyric, satire, and elegy. Their poetry obeys strict conventions, both in form and content, which indicates that it must have had a long period of development before it was finally committed to writing by scholars. The principal form used by the desert poets was the qasidah or ode, a poem of variable length rhyming in the last syllable of each line. The qasidah begins with a description of the abandoned encampment of the poet’s beloved and goes on to an account of his anguish at her absence and his consuming love for her. The poet then describes an arduous journey across the desert nd ends the qasidah with an appeal to the generosity of his host. Although the subject matter is almost invariable, the language is very complex and of great precision. In the Hijaz during the first century of Islam, contemporary with the first hadith scholars, a group of poets broke with the past and introduced new forms and subjects. Men like ‘Umar ibn Abi Rabi’ah wrote realistic and urbane verse, and a school of poetry which expressed the themes of Platonic love grew up around the poet Jamil ibn Muiammar, better known as Jamil al-‘Udhri. The lives and works of these poets of the Umayyad period are preserved in the entertaining tenth-century anthology by Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani, the Book of Songs. The Umayyad court in Damascus patronized poets and musicians. It was also the scene of the development of the type of Arabic literature called adab. Adab is usually translated as â€Å"belles-lettres,† which is slightly misleading. This literature, at least in its inception, was created to serve the practical end of educating the growing class of government ministers in the Arabic language, manners and deportment, history, and statecraft. Works in Sanskrit, Pahlavi, Greek, and Syriac began to find their way into Arabic at this time. ‘Abd al-Hamid ibn Yahya al-Katib, an Umayyad official, and the creator of this genre, defined its aims as follows: â€Å"Cultivate the Arabic language so that you may speak correctly; develop a handsome script which will add luster to your writings; learn the poetry of the Arabs by heart; familiarize yourself with unusual ideas and expressions; read the history of the Arabs and the Persians, and remember their great deeds. ‘Abd Allah ibn al-Muqaffa’, a contemporary of ‘Abd al-Ham id ibn Yahya, translated the history of the ancient kings of Persia into Arabic, as well as Kalilah wa-Dimnah, an Indian book of advice for princes cast in the form of animal fables. His works are the earliest surviving examples of Arabic art prose and are still used as models in schools throughout the Middle East. By the ninth century, Arabic literature had entered its classical age. The various genres had been defined – adab, history, Quranic exegesis, geography, biography, poetry, satire, and many more. Al-Jahiz was perhaps the greatest stylist of the age, and one of the most original personalities. He wrote more than two hundred books, on every conceivable subject; he was critical, rational, and always amusing. His Book of Animals is the earliest Arabic treatise on zoology and contains very modern-sounding discussions of such things as animal mimetism and biological adaptation. He wrote one of the earliest and best treatises on rhetoric and a large number of amusing essays. By the time of his death at the age of ninety-six he had shown that Arabic prose was capable of handling any subject with ease. The most gifted of al-Jahiz’s contemporaries was probably Ibn Qutaybah, also a writer of encyclopedic learning and an excellent stylist. His Book of Knowledge, a history of the world beginning with the creation, is the earliest work of its kind and later had many imitators. The tenth century witnessed the creation of a new form in Arabic literature, the maqamat. This was the title of a work by al-Hamadhani, called Badi’ al-Zaman, â€Å"The Wonder of the Age. His Maqamat (â€Å"Sessions†) is a series of episodes written in rhymed prose concerning the life of Abu al-Fath al-Iskandari, a sort of confidence trickster, who takes on a different personality in each story and always succeeds in bilking his victims. These stories are witty and packed with action, and were immediately popular. Al-Hamadhani was imitated by al-Hariri a hundred year s later. Al-Hariri was a linguistic virtuoso, and his Maqamat is filled with obscure words, alliteration, puns, and wild metaphors. He too was extremely popular, and many learned commentaries were written on his Maqamat. This purely Arab form can most closely be compared with the Spanish picaresque novels, which it may have influenced. Rhymed prose, which had come to be used even in government documents, was employed by Abu al-‘Ala al-Ma’arri in his Message of Forgiveness, one of the best known of Arabic prose works. Al-Ma’arri lived in the eleventh century, leading an ascetic life in his native Syrian village. Blind from the age of four, he possessed a prodigious memory and great intellectual curiosity and skepticism. The Message of Forgiveness is cast in the form of a journey to paradise; the narrator there interrogates the scholars and poets of the past regarding their lives and works, receiving surprising and often ironic responses. The book is an extended critique of literature and philology, and represents a high point of classical Arabic culture. One of the other great figures of late classical literature was the poet al-Mutanabbi, whose skill in handling the complex meters of Arabic poetry was probably unsurpassed. His verbal brilliance has always been admired by Arab critics, although it is difficult for those whose native tongue is not Arabic to appreciate it fully. The period between the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols in 1258 and the nineteenth century is generally held to be a period of literary as well as political decline for the Arabs. It is true that during these five hundred years Arabic writers were more preoccupied with the preservation of their literary heritage than with the development of new forms and ideas. This is the age of encyclopedias, commentaries, and lexicons. Faced with the massive destruction of books by the invasions of Genghis Khan and Hulagu and later of Tamerlane, scholars compiled digests and abridgments of works that had survived in order to ensure their continued existence. There were also some original works, however. Ibn Battutah, the greatest traveler of the Middle Ages, lived in the fourteenth century, and his Travel provide a fascinating picture of the Muslim world, from the islands of the Indian Ocean to Timbuktu. Ibn Khaldun, like Ibn Battutah a native of North Africa, lived in the later fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. His Prolegomena is a work of brilliance and originality; the author analyzes human society in terms of general sociological laws and gives a lucid account of the factors that contribute to the rise and decline of civilizations. Ibn Khaldun’s style is innovative, simple, and very personal, and perfectly suited to the expression of his often difficult ideas. This post classical period also saw the composition of popular romances, such as the Romance of ‘Antar, based on the life of the famous pre-Islamic poet; the Romance of the Bani Hilal, a cycle of stories and poems based on the migration of an Arabian tribe to North Africa in the eleventh century; and many more. These romances could be heard recited in coffee shops from Aleppoto Marrakesh until very recently. The most famous popular work of all, The Thousand and One Nights, assumed its present form during the fifteenth century. A revival of Arabic literature began in the nineteenth century, and coincided with the first efforts of Arabic speaking nations to assert their independence of Ottoman rule. Napoleon, during his brief occupation of Egypt in the late eighteenth century, introduced a printing press with fonts of Arabic type, and Muhammad ‘Ali, ruler of Egypt from 1805 to 1848, initiated a series of projects to modernize Egypt. He encouraged the use of Arabic in schools and government institutions, and established a printing press. Selected Egyptian students were sent to study in France, and on their return assigned to undertake translations of Western technical manuals on agriculture, engineering, mathematics, and military tactics. These works, together with many of the classics of Arabic literature, were printed at the government press at Bulaq and had a profound impact on intellectuals in the Arab East. Another factor in the literary revival was the swift growth of journalism in Lebanon and Egypt. Starting in the late 1850s, newspapers were soon available through the Middle East. By 1900 well over a hundred and fifty newspapers and journals were being published. These journals had a great influence on the development and modernization of the written Arabic language; their stress on substance rather than style did much to simplify Arabic prose and bring it within the comprehension of everyone. One of the first leaders of the Arabic literary renaissance was the Lebanese writer and scholar Butrus al-Bustani, whose dictionary and encyclopedia awakened great interest in the problems of expressing modern Western ideas in the Arabic language. His nephew Sulayman translated Homer’s Iliad into Arabic, thus making one of the first expressions of Western literature accessible to the Arabic-reading public. Other writers, such as the Egyptian Mustafa al-Manfaluti, adapted French romantic novels to the tastes of the Arab public, as well as writing elegant essays on a variety of themes. The historical novel, in the hands of Jurji Zaydan, proved immensely popular, perhaps because of the intense interest Arabs have always had in their past, and because of the novelty of a new form. But the first Arabic novel that can rank with European productions is Muhammad Husayn Haykal’s Zaynab, set in Egypt and dealing with local problems. Perhaps the greatest figure in modern Arabic literature is Taha Husayn. Blind from an early age, Taha Husayn wrote movingly of his life and beloved Egypt in his autobiography, al-Ayyam, â€Å"The Days. † Taha Husayn was a graduate of both al-Azhar and the Sorbonne, and his voluminous writings on Arabic literature contributed a new critique of this vast subject. The novel was not the only new form introduced to the Arabic-reading public. The drama, first in the form of translations of Western work, then of original compositions, was pioneered by Ahmad Shawqi and came to maturity in the hands of Tawfiq al-Hakim. Tawfiq al-Hakim’s long career and devotion to the theater did much to make this one of the liveliest arts of the Middle East. The history of modern Arabic poetry, with its many schools and contending styles, is almost impossible to summarize. Traditional forms and subjects were challenged by ‘Abbas Mahmud al-‘Aqqad, Mahmud Shukri, and Ibrahim al-Mazini, who strove to introduce nineteenth-century European themes and techniques into Arabic, not always with success. Lebanese poets were in the forefront of modernist verse, and one of them, Gibran Kahlil Gibran, proved very popular in the West. Poets are now experimenting with both old and new techniques, although discussions of form have given way to concern for content. The exodus of Palestinians from their native land has become a favorite theme, often movingly handled. In Saudi Arabia, it was not until well into the twentieth century that literary movements in neighboring lands made themselves felt. Poetry, of course, has been cultivated in Arabia since the pre-Islamic period, and it has lately been influenced by new forms and subjects. Hasan al-Qurashi, Tahir Zamakhshari, Hasan Faqi, and Mahrum (the pen name of Amir ‘Abd Allah al-Faysal) have won renown for their poetry throughout the Arab world. Hasan Faqi’s poetry is introspective and philosophical, while the verse of the three others is lyrical and romantic. Ghazi al-Gosaibi is distinguished by a fresh, fecund imagination that expresses itself in both Arabic and English verse. Two novels by the late Hamid al-Damanhuri have been well received. They are Thaman al-Tadhiyah, â€Å"The Price of Sacrifice,† and Wa-Marrat al-Ayyam, â€Å"And the Days Went By. † With the rapid increase in education and communications, presses are now beginning to publish more and more works by writers, and it can certainly be expected that the great social changes that are taking place will eventually be reflected in equally far-reaching developments in the Arabic literature. Introduction â€Å"Read in the Name of your Lord†. [1] These were the first few words of the Qur’an revealed to the   Prophet Muhammad over 1400 years ago. Muhammad, who was known to have been in retreat and   meditation in a cave outside Mecca [2], had received the first few words of a book that would have a   tremendous impact on the world of Arabic liter ature. [3] Not being known to have composed any piece   of poetry and not having any special rhetorical gifts, [4] Muhammed had just received the beginning of a   book that would deal with matters of belief, legislation, international law, olitics, ritual, spirituality, and   economics [5] in an ‘entirely new literary form’. Armstrong states, â€Å"It is as though Muhammad had created an entirely new literary form†¦Without this experience of the   Koran, it is extremely unlikely that Islam would have taken root. † [6] This unique literary form was the cause of the dramatic intellectual revival of desert Arabs [7], and after   thirteen years of the first revelation, it became the only reference for a new state in Medina. [8] This new   form of speech, the Qur’an, became the sole source of the new civilisation’s political, philosophical,   and spiritual outlook. It is well known amongst Muslim and Non-Muslim scholars that the Qur’anic discourse cannot be   described as any of the known forms of Arabic speech; namely Poetry and Prose. [9] Taha Husayn, [10] a prominent Egyptian Litterateur, during the course of a public lecture summarised   how the Qur’an achieves this unique form: â€Å"But you know that the Qur’an is not prose and that it is not verse either. It is rather Qur’an, and it cannot   be called by any other name but this. It is not verse, and that is clear; for it does not bind itself to the   bonds of verse. And it is not prose, for it is bound by bonds peculiar to itself, not found elsewhere;   some of the binds are related to the endings of its verses and some to that musical sound which is all   its own. It is therefore neither verse nor prose, but it is â€Å"a Book whose verses have been perfected the   expounded, from One Who is Wise, All-Aware. † We cannot therefore say its prose, and its text itself is   not verse. It has been one of a kind, and nothing like it has ever preceded or followed it. † [11] Any expression of the Arabic language falls into the literary forms of Prose and Poetry. There are other   ‘sub’ forms that fall into the above categories. Kahin, which is a form of rhymed prose, is one of these   ‘sub’ forms; but all literary forms can be described as prose and poetry. Poetry Arabic Poetry is a form of metrical speech with a rhyme. [12] The rhyme in Arabic poetry is achieved by   every line of the poem ending upon a specific letter. [13] The metrical aspect of Arabic poetry is due to   its rhythmical divisions, these divisions are called ‘al-Bihar’, literally meaning ‘The Seas’ in Arabic. This term has been used to describe the rhythmical divisions as a result of the way the poem moves   according to its rhythm. In Arabic poetry there are sixteen rhythmical patterns, which all of Arabic poetry adheres too or is   loosely based upon; 1. at-Tawil 2. al-Bassit 3. al-Wafir 4. al-Kamil 5. ar-Rajs 6. al-Khafif 7. al-Hazaj 8. al-Muttakarib 9. al-Munsarih 10. al-Muktatab 11. al-Muktadarak 12. al-Madid 13. al-Mujtath 14. al-Ramel 15. al-Khabab 16. as-Saria’ Each one of the al-Bihar have a unique rhythmical division. [14] The al-Bihar were first codified in the   8th century by al-Khalil bin Ahmad and have changed little since. The al-Bihar are based on the length   of syllables. A short syllable is a consonant followed by a short vowel. A long syllable is a vowelled   letter followed by either an unvowelled consonant or a long vowel. A nunation sign at the end of a word   also makes the final syllable long. In Arabic poetry each line is divided into two halves. Below are basic scansions of the metres commonly found in Arabic poetry, showing long (—) and   short (^) syllables. They represent pairs of half-lines and should be read from left to right. The patterns   are not rigidly followed: two short syllables may be substituted for a long one. Tawil — — | ^ — — | ^ — — | ^ — — | ^ — — | ^ — — | ^ — — | ^ — — | Kamil ^ ^ — ^ — | ^ ^ — ^ — | ^ ^ — ^ — | ^ ^ — ^ — | ^ ^ — ^ — | ^ ^ — ^ — | Wafir ^ — ^ ^ — | ^ — ^ ^ — | ^ â€⠀ — | ^ — ^ ^ — | ^ — ^ ^ — | ^ — — | Rajaz — — ^ — | — — ^ — | — — ^ — | — — ^ — | — — ^ — | — — ^ — | Hazaj ^ — — — | ^ — — — | ^ — — — | ^ — — — | Basit — — ^ — | — ^ — | — — ^ — | — ^ — | — — ^ — | — ^ — | — — ^ — | — ^ — | Khafif — ^ — — | — — ^ — | — ^ — — | — ^ — — | — — ^ — | — ^ — — | Sari’ — — ^ — | — — ^ — | — ^ — | — — ^ — | — — ^ — | — ^ â€⠀ | [For more details on the al-Bihar please see  www. theinimitablequran. om/TheRhythmicalPatterns. html ] An example of an Arabic poem, is the ancient Arabian poem called ‘Abu-l-‘Ata of Sind’: Of thee did I dream, while spears between us were quivering And sooth, of our blood full drop had drunken the tawny shafts! I know not, by heaven I swear, and true is the word I say This pang, is it love sickness, or wrought by a spell from thee. If it be a spell, then grant me grace of my love-longing If other the sickness be, then none is the guilt of thine. [15] This poem, in the original Arabic, falls into the rhythmical pattern of Tawil, one of the al-Bihar shown   above. 16] A literary analysis on any Arabic Poem will conclude that it adheres too or is based upon   the rhythmical patterns. This is supported by Louis Cheikho who collected pre-Islamic and Islamic   poetry and concluded that all of the poems conformed and were based upon the al-Bihar. [17] Pros e Arabic Prose can be called non-metrical speech, meaning it does not have a rhythmical pattern like   poetry mentioned above. Arabic prose can be further divided into two categories; Saj’ which is rhymed   prose and Mursal which is straight prose or what some may call ‘normal speech’. [18] An apt description of Saj’ is, in the words of Von Deffer: A literary form with some emphasis on rhythm and rhyme, but distinct from poetry. Saj’ is not really as   sophisticated as poetry, but has been employed by Arab poets, and is the best known of the pre- Islamic Arab prosodies. It is distinct from poetry in its lack of metre, i. e. it has not consistent rhythmical   pattern, and it shares with poetry the element of rhyme, though in many cases some what irregularly   employed. † [19] Mursal can be defined as a literary form that goes on and is not divided, but is continued straight   throughout without any divisions, either of rhyme or of a nything else. 20] Mursal is meant as a way of   expression close to the everyday spoken language, examples can be seen in speeches and prayers   intended to encourage or motivate the masses. The Qur’ans Literary Form The Qur’anic discourse cannot be described as any of the known literary forms. The most predominant   opinion is that it doesn’t adhere to any of the rules known to poetry and prose. Another opinion is that   the Qur’an combines metrical and non-metrical composition to create its own literary form. Some   scholars disagree with the above opinions and claim that the Qur’an is a form of rhymed prose, saj’. This opinion has arisen mainly due to the similarities of pre-Islamic prose and early Meccan chapters   of the Qur’an. However, the scholars who carry this opinion do not contend that the Qur’an is unique by   its use of literary and stylistic elements that render it inimitable. This unique use of literary elements   has not been found in any Arabic Prose, past or present. Below is an explanation, with reference to the main opinions above, on how the Qur’an achieves its   unique inimitable form. Non-compliance to the Rules of Prose or Poetry The Qur’anic literary form differs as it does not fit in to any of the literary categories explained above,   [21] it is not like the prose of Saj’ or Mursal and it doesn’t fit into any of the al-Bihar. This can be seen by   the following example: Wad Duha wal laili idha saja Ma waddaka Rabbuka wa maa qala Wa lal akhiraatu khairul laka minal oola Wa la sawfa ya teeka Rabbuka fa tarda†¦ By the morning hours and by the night most still Your Lord has neither forsaken you nor hates you And indeed the hereafter is better for you than the present And verily your Lord will give you so that you shall be well pleased†¦ [22] The examination of the whole chapter with reference to the above literary forms indicates that it is not   Saj’ or Mursal as this verse has an internal rhythm, whereas Saj’ does not have a consistent rhythm   and Mursal has no rhythm or rhyme. Also it cannot be described as poetry; the totality of this chapter, or   any other chapter for that matter, does not adhere to any of the al-Bihar. Unique Fusion of Metrical and non-Metrical Speech Some parts of the Qur’an follow the rules of poetry, that is, some verses can be described as one of   the al-Bihar. 23] When the totality of a Qur’anic Chapter, that contains some these verses is analysed,   it is not possible to distinguish its literary form. â€Å"The Qur’an is not verse, but it is rhythmic. The rhythm of some verses resemble the regularity of saj’ †¦But it was recognized by Quraysh critics to belong to neither one nor the other category. † [24] The Qur’an ach ieves this unique literary form by intermingling metrical and non-Metrical speech in   such a way that the difference can not be perceived. [25] This intermingling of metrical and non- metrical composition is present throughout the whole of the Qur’an. The following examples illustrate   this, â€Å"But the righteous will be in Gardens with Springs – ‘Enter in Peace and Safety! ’ – and We shall   remove any bitterness from their hearts: [they will be like] brothers, sitting on couches, face to face. No   weariness will ever touch them there, nor will they ever be expelled. [Prophet] tell My servants that I am   the Forgiving, the Merciful, but My torment is the truly painful one. Tell them too about Abraham’s   guests: when they came to him and said â€Å"Peace,† he said, ‘We are afraid of you’† [26] When reading the original Arabic of the above verse the reader moves from metric composition to   prose with out experiencing the slightest change of style or mode. [27] The same mingling of metrical   and non-metrical composition How to cite Arabic Literature, Essay examples