DEVELOPING AN ISLAMIC PERSONALITY Essays - Tafsir, Joseph, Yusuf

DEVELOPING AN ISLAMIC PERSONALITY Essays - Tafsir, Joseph, Yusuf DEVELOPING AN ISLAMIC PERSONALITY Background I have been giving this assignment since 2010. Over 1,3 00 students have done this assignment so far. 75% of my students like this assignment, the rest don't. Most students tell me that as a consequence of doing this assignment, their relationship with Allah ) ) improves and they are better able to handle stress. Here is what I would like to stress: In your life, you will have to deal with a lot of stress. You will face many problems. By asking you to do this assignment, I want to show you a systematic process to improve their imaan . That boost of imaan will give you the extra spiritual strength to handle difficult situations in your life, inshaa Allah . Maybe you will not use this process after the semester is over, but in one or two years (or five years), when you face unexpected difficulty, you will remember this assignment and use the same process to find the spiritual strength to deal with these problems in a positive way. Developing imaan is a process Allah ) ) has promised in the Qur'an that if we call on Him, He will always respond. In the hadith, it is clear that if we try to get closer to Him by a little bit, He will get closer to us by a lot. There are two ways of looking at hidayah Hidayah is an event -it "falls" like miracle from the sky. No doubt, this happens sometimes because Allah ) ) does what He wants. Hidayah is a process -by learning a little bit more about Islam every week, we gradually come closer to Him. Since 2010, my experience has convinced me that Muslims can systematically get closer to Allah ) ) by surfing the Internet and watching YouTube.com What do you need to do? This is an individual assignment. Once a week, you watch one Islamic video of a reasonable length (i.e. more than 15 minutes) . YOU CAN CHOOSE THE TOPIC. However, here are the following guidelines Choose an English speaker who is known to be following the position of Ahl Sunnah wa Jamaah Write a one page report where you a) describe the content and b) discuss your opinion about the content. Write a report every week At lest half the talks must be tafseer of the Qur'an At the end of the semester, submit all the reports with a conclusion. In this conclusion, discuss whether or not you feel that doing this assignment strengthened your imaan or if there was no difference. My Advice Since 2010, I have had over 1,000 students do this assignment. I have tried various experiments. In some classes, I have asked them to only listen to "regular" talks. In other classes, I have asked them to only listen to " tafsee r". I have found no difference. What seems to make a difference is, Most students have one (or more) important question about Islam. Finding the answer to that burning question is often critical for them Most students know surprisingly little about surahs that they recite regularly-like surah al fatihah, surah al ikhlaas, surah al kafiroon The quality of the speakers are very important- people like Nouman Ali Khan, Suhaib Webb, Bilal Philips are always popular. Personally, I am rediscovering old names like Yasir Qadhi and Hamza Yusuf. Try to listen to different people about the same topic- every speaker talk about the same topic in a different way. Sometimes, getting a diversity of opinions over one topic gives you a better understanding of that topic How to read a book Sometimes, there are videos that just make you think. One of the videos on Youtube is "How to read your book" by Hamza Yusuf. This seems very important for all UIA student. A story Over the years, I have had many reactions from students. One student told me that before doing this assignment, he used to drink alcohol and he didn't pray. Now he had changed. I was happy for him but I was quite embarrassed that he told me about his previous sins. I didn't need to know. I had one student slip a note

Frances Perkins, First Woman in a Presidential Cabinet

Frances Perkins, First Woman in a Presidential Cabinet Frances Perkins (April 10, 1880 - May 14, 1965) became  the first woman to serve in a presidents cabinet when she was appointed the Secretary of Labor by  Franklin D. Roosevelt. She played a prominent public role throughout Roosevelts 12-year presidency and was instrumental in shaping New Deal policies and major pieces of legislation such as the Social Security Act. Early Life and Education Fannie Coralie Perkins (she would later adopt the first name Frances) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on April 10, 1880. Her family could trace its roots back to settlers in the 1620s. When she was a child, Perkins father moved the family to Worcester, Massachusetts, where he operated a store that sold stationery. Her parents had little formal education, but her father, in particular, read widely and had educated himself about history and the law. Perkins attended Worcester Classical High School, graduating in 1898. At some point in her teen years, she read How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis, the reformer and pioneering photojournalist. Perkins would later cite the book as an inspiration for her lifes work. She was accepted to Mount Holyoke College, though she was fearful of its rigorous standards. She had not considered herself to be very bright, but after working hard to pass a challenging chemistry class, she gained self-confidence. As a senior at Mount Holyoke,  Perkins took a course on American economic history. A field trip to local factories and mills was a requirement of the course. Witnessing firsthand the poor working conditions had a profound effect on Perkins. She realized that workers were being exploited by dangerous conditions, and came to see how injured workers could find themselves forced into a life of poverty. Before leaving college, Perkins helped found a chapter of the National Consumers League. The organization sought to improve working conditions by urging consumers not to purchase products manufactured in unsafe conditions.   Career Beginnings After graduation from Mount Holyoke in 1902, Perkins took teaching jobs in Massachusetts and lived with her family in Worcester. At one point, she rebelled against her familys wishes and traveled to New York City to visit an agency which dealt with helping the poor. She insisted on getting a job interview, but wasnt hired. The director of the organization thought she was naive and presumed that Perkins would be overwhelmed working among the urban poor. After two unhappy years in Massachusetts after college, Perkins applied and was hired for a teaching job at Ferry Academy, a girls boarding school  in Chicago. Once settled in the city, she began visiting Hull House, a settlement house founded and led by noted social reformer Jane Addams. Perkins changed her name from Fannie to Frances and devoted all the time she could to her work at Hull House. After three years in Illinois, Perkins took a job in Philadelphia for an organization that researched social conditions faced by young women and African Americans working in the citys factories. Then, in 1909, Perkins earned a scholarship to attend graduate school at Columbia University in New York City. In 1910, she completed her masters thesis: an investigation of undernourished children attending a school in Hells Kitchen. While completing her thesis, she began working for the New York office of the Consumers League and became active in campaigns to improve working conditions for the citys poor. Political Awakening On March 25, 1911, a Saturday afternoon, Perkins was attending a tea at a friends apartment on Washington Square in New Yorks Greenwich Village. The sounds of a terrible commotion reached the apartment, and Perkins raced a few blocks to the Asch Building on Washington Place. A fire had broken out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, a clothing sweatshop that employed mostly young immigrant women. Doors kept locked to prevent workers from taking a break trapped the victims on the 11th floor, where ladders of the fire department couldnt reach them. Frances Perkins, in the crowd on a nearby sidewalk, witnessed the horrible spectacle of young women falling to their deaths to escape the flames. The conditions in the factory cost 145 lives. Most of the victims were young working class and immigrant women. The New York State Factory Investigation Commission was formed within months of the tragedy. Frances Perkins was hired as an investigator for the commission, and she was soon leading inspections of factories and reporting on safety and health conditions. The job was aligned with her career goal, and it brought her into a working relationship with Al Smith, a New York City assemblyman who served as the vice-chair of the commission. Smith would later become governor of New York and eventually the Democratic nominee for president in 1928. Political Focus In 1913, Perkins married Paul Caldwell Wilson, who worked in the office of the mayor of New York City. She kept her last name, partly because she was often giving speeches advocating better conditions for workers and she didnt want to risk that her husband would be embarrassed. She had a child that died in 1915, but a year later gave birth to a healthy baby  girl. Perkins assumed she would ease away from her work life and devote herself to being a wife and mother,  perhaps volunteering for various causes. Perkins plan to withdraw from public service changed for two reasons. First, her husband began to suffer bouts of mental illness, and she felt compelled to stay employed. Second, Al Smith, who had become a friend, was elected governor of New York in 1918. It seemed to Smith that women would soon get the vote, and it was a good time to hire a woman for a substantial role in the state government. Smith appointed Perkins to the industrial commission of the New York State Department of Labor.   While working for Smith, Perkins became friends with Eleanor Roosevelt, and her husband, Franklin D. Roosevelt. As Roosevelt was recuperating after contracting polio, Perkins helped him keep in touch with labor leaders and began to advise him on the issues. Appointed by Roosevelt After Roosevelt was elected governor of New York, he appointed Perkins to head the New York State Department of Labor. Perkins was actually the second woman to be in a New York governors cabinet (in Al Smiths administration, Florence Knapp had served briefly as secretary of state). The New York Times noted that Perkins was being promoted by Roosevelt as he believed she had made a very fine record in her post in the state government. During Roosevelts term as governor, Perkins became nationally known as an authority on laws and regulations governing labor and business. When an economic boom ended and the  Great Depression began in late 1929, less than a year into Roosevelts term as governor, Perkins faced a startling new reality.  She immediately began making plans for the future. She took actions to deal with the impact of the Depression in New York State, and she and Roosevelt essentially prepared for how they could take action on a national stage. After Roosevelt was elected president in 1932, he appointed Perkins to be the nations secretary of labor, and she became the first woman to serve in a presidents cabinet.   Role in The New Deal Roosevelt took office on March 4, 1933, stating Americans had nothing to fear but fear itself. The Roosevelt administration immediately went into action to battle the effects of the Great Depression. Perkins led the effort to institute unemployment insurance. She also pushed for higher wages for workers as a measure to stimulate the economy. One of her first major actions was to oversee the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps, which became known as the CCC. The organization took young unemployed men and put them to work on conservation projects throughout the nation. Frances Perkins  greatest achievement is generally considered her work devising the plan that became the Social Security Act. There was great opposition in the country to the idea of social insurance, but the act successfully passed  through Congress and was signed into law by Roosevelt in 1935. Decades later, in 1962, Perkins gave a speech titled The Roots of Social Security in which she detailed the struggle: Once you get the ear of a politician, you get something real. The highbrows can talk forever and nothing happens. People smile benignly  on them and let it go. But once the politician gets an idea, he deals in getting things done. In addition to her work shaping  legislation, Perkins was at the center of labor disputes. In an era when the labor movement was approaching its peak of power, and strikes were often in the news, Perkins became extremely active in her role as labor secretary. Impeachment Threat In 1939,  conservative members of Congress,  including Martin Dies, the leader  of the  House Committee on Un-American Activities, launched a crusade against her. She  had prevented the speedy deportation of an Australian-born leader of the West Coast longshoremans union, Harry Bridges. He had been accused of being a communist. By extension, Perkins was accused of communist sympathies. Members of Congress moved to impeach Perkins in January 1939, and hearings were held to decide whether impeachment charges were warranted. Ultimately, Perkins career withstood the challenge, but it was a painful episode. (While the tactic of deporting labor leaders had been used before, evidence against Bridges fell apart during a trial and he remained in the United States.) Outbreak of World War II On December 7, 1941, Perkins was in New York City when she was told to return to Washington immediately. She attended a cabinet meeting that night at which Roosevelt told his administration about the severity of the attack on Pearl Harbor.   At the beginning of World War II, American industry was transitioning from producing consumer goods to the material of war. Perkins continued as secretary of labor, but her role was not as prominent as it had been previously. Some of her major goals, such as a national health insurance program, were abandoned. Roosevelt felt he could no longer spend political capital on domestic programs. Perkins, exhausted by her long tenure in the administration, and feeling that any  further goals were unattainable, planned to leave the administration by 1944. But Roosevelt asked her to stay after the election of 1944. When he won a fourth term, she continued on at the Labor Department. On April 12, 1945, a Sunday afternoon, Perkins was at home  in Washington when she  received an urgent call to go to the White House. Upon arrival, she was informed of President Roosevelts death. She became determined to leave government, but continued in a transition period and stayed in the Truman administration for a few months, until July 1945. Later Career and Legacy President Harry Truman later asked Perkins  to return to government. She took a post as one of three civil service commissioners overseeing the federal workforce. She continued in that job until the end of the Truman administration. Following her long career in government, Perkins remained active. She taught at Cornell University, and often spoke about government and labor topics. In 1946, she published a book, The Roosevelt I Knew, which was a generally positive memoir of working with the late president. However, she never published a full account of her own life. In the spring of 1965, at age  85, her health began to fail. She died on May 14, 1965 in New York City. Notable political figures, including President Lyndon Johnson, issued tributes to her and to her work that helped bring America back from the depths of the Great Depression. France Perkins Fast Facts Full Name:  Fannie Coralie PerkinsKnown As:  Frances PerkinsKnown For: First woman in a presidents cabinet; major figure in the  passage of Social Security; trusted and valued adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.Born:  April 10,1880 in  Boston, Massachusetts.Died: May 14,1965 in New York, New YorkSpouses Name: Paul Caldwell WilsonChilds Name: Susana Perkins Wilson Sources Frances Perkins. Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed., vol. 12, Gale, 2004, pp. 221-222. Gale Virtual Reference Library.Perkins, Frances. Great Depression and the New Deal Reference Library, edited by Allison McNeill, et al., vol. 2: Biographies, UXL, 2003, pp. 156-167. Gale Virtual Reference Library.Perkins, Frances. American Decades, edited by Judith S. Baughman, et al., vol. 5: 1940-1949, Gale, 2001. Gale Virtual Reference Library.Downey, Kirstin. The Woman Behind the New Deal. Doubleday, 2009.

Proctor & Gamble Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Proctor & Gamble - Case Study Example Both top and bottom line products suitable for these counties should be developed more by P & G. The company should think about merger and acquisition strategies to create new business in these countries. P&G has 300 plus brands sold in more than 180 countries at the moment. Even though majority of these brands are performing well, some of them are performing below par. The company has 22 billion-dollar brands and 19 half-billion-dollar brands (P & G Media kit, p.4). 70 to 80 brands account for 90 percent of P&G sales and 95 percent of its profit (Monk). In other words, around 100 brands perform insignificantly for P & G. P & G believes that the time and efforts given for the sustainment of these underperforming brands can be better utilized for the development of better performing brands. In my opinion, P & G’s strategy will be successful since the closure or the restructuring of underperforming brands would help the company to allocate more resources to the better performing brands and thereby monopolize concerned markets. Therefore, investors need not worry too much about the brand restructuring strategies of P& G. A.G. Lafley is the Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Procter & Gamble. It is believed that Lafley was rehired mainly because of the inefficiency of Robert McDonald, the predecessor of Lafley. Under the leadership of McDonald, the company failed to win in emerging markets because of its poor organizational structure, marketing problems, and bloated overhead (Nisen). Lafley on the other hand is believed to be an expert in increasing company value through various strategies. His leadership style is highly motivating and his business principles are highly effective in modern day market. His book â€Å"playing to win† helps organizational leaders to learn some important lessons about the importance of every day actions, and strategies built