ABU RAYHAN AL-BIRUNI’S STUDY OF OTHER RELIGIONS: A CASE ON HINDUISM

Studying other religions is a legacy left by medieval Muslim scholars. As a Muslim scholar, al-Biruni’s Kitab al-Hind was a unique contribution to the study of Hinduism. This study explores al-Biruni’s approaches to studying Hinduism, culture, and civilisation by reviewing related manuscripts and literature. Al-Biruni studied the Hindu scripture in its original language. He investigated Hindu theology and philosophy, their caste system in the society, law and ethics, rituals, and festivals. In Kitab al-Hind, an entire chapter was dedicated to Hindu scriptures which included Veda and Puranas. Concerning religious beliefs and divinity, there were various perceptions between the educated and uneducated people. Murti puja was a form of worship to express love and devotion towards God. However, the educated classes considered that idols were no more than intermediaries, and the idol-worshippers were being deluded from the actual worship of God. The Hindu caste system was established upon religious foundations where every caste used to have their mode of living and daily routine. Furthermore, Hindu rules, guidelines, and religious laws were developed by divine sages called Rishis, who provided laws of murder and theft, punishment of adultery, treatment for prisoners, and inheritance law. Al-Biruni took an objective, in-depth, scientific and authentic approach in presenting Hinduism, which made his work accepted by both Muslim and nonMuslim religious scholars. It is hoped that this paper would offer new perspectives to Muslim scholars on studying other religions, which may consequently enhance religious harmony in a multireligious society.   Keywords: Al-Biruni, Hinduism, religion, comparative religion, Muslim scholar. Cite as: Al Masud, A., & Abdullah, M. F. (2021). Abu Rayhan Al-Biruni’s study of other religions: A case on Hinduism.  Journal of Nusantara Studies, 6(2), 116-132. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol6iss2pp116-13

Value Stream Analysis of Dried Fish’s Supply Chain in Bangladesh

Drying of marine fish is very common in the entire coastal areas of Bangladesh and these dried fishes have demand both in domestic and international markets though the people involved early in the production chain (fishing and drying) add relatively high value and make little profit. In the current supply chain, producers have no influence over supply chain management, rather they are strongly managed and monopolized by giant traders, brokers, dealers, wholesalers and thereby, erodes profitability and preference of primary producers. We conducted a study mainly in Kuakata and Dhaka to examine the supply chain of dried fish between these two areas. Basically this Kuakata is famous for producing dried fish in Bangladesh. Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh, as well as center of different business areas. We have used value stream mapping to analyze the supply chain of dried fish in Bangladesh. In our survey we have tried to identify different supply chain intermediaries and surviving problems in dried fish’s supply chain. At the final stage of our article we have projected our findings and mentioned some possible solutions. Keywords: Supply Chain Management, Value Stream Mapping and Value Stream Analysis, Dried fish, Banglades

A Novel Design and Implementation of 8-3 Encoder Using Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) Technology

In recent years Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) has been considered one of the emerging nano-technology for future generation digital circuits and systems. QCA technology is a promising alternative to Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology. Thus, QCA offers a novel electronics paradigm for information processing and communication system. It has attractive features such as faster speed, higher scale integration, higher switching frequency, smaller size and low power consumption compared to the transistor based technology. It is projected as a promising nanotechnology for future Integrated Circuits (ICs). A quantum dot cellular automaton complex gate is composed from simple 3-input majority gate. In this paper, a 8-3 encoder circuit is proposed based on QCA logic gates: the 4-input Majority Voter (MV) OR gate. This 7-input gate can be configured into many useful gate structures such as a 4-input AND gate, a 4-input OR gate, 2-input AND and 2-input OR gates, 2-input complex gates, multi-input complex gates. The proposed circuit has a promising future in the area of nano-computing information processing system and can be stimulated with higher digital applications in QCA

PCA-based dimensionality reduction for face recognition

In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive study on dimensionality reduction (DR) techniques and discuss the mostly used statistical DR technique called principal component analysis (PCA) in detail with a view to addressing the classical face recognition problem. Therefore, we, more devotedly, propose a solution to either a typical face or individual face recognition based on the principal components, which are constructed using PCA on the face images. We simulate the proposed solution with several training and test sets of manually captured face images and also with the popular Olivetti Research Laboratory (ORL) and Yale face databases. The performance measure of the proposed face recognizer signifies its superiority

Corporate Social Responsibility Practices in Garments sector of Bangladesh, A Study of Multinational Garments, CSR view in Dhaka EPZ

This study has been conducted to explore the real scenario of present CSR practices by multinational companies of Bangladesh. Here we have assembled information from a renowned multinational company Hop lun (BD) as well as different secondary sources. After examining literature review and Hop lun (BD)’s information we can say that, today’s CSR practices is not spread properly. Some of organization trying their best, but in the most of cases organization are not aware about that. Without proper take care of society none of the business organization can’t go through their operation for long run. That’s why Hop Lun (BD) believes in CSR. And they are trying to do something for the further development of employee as well as stakeholders. We believe that social awareness can change the situation of Bangladesh. Government initiative and corporate organizations positive thinking can brand revolution positively in CSR. Keywords: CSR, Business, Banglades

Environmental and Institutional Impacts of Tidal River Management: A Case Study on Pakhimara Tidal Basin in Southwestern Bangladesh

People in southwestern Bangladesh have been facing the waterlogging problem and protesting on the impacts for the nature for a long time. In the 1960s, the government introduced polders, embankments and cross dams to overcome the destructive scenario. Due to the failure of government initiatives, the local people of the coastal area cut into the polder so that the sediment deposited within the beel known as Tidal River Management (TRM). Then, TRM was applied several times in different catchments. The study was carried out from December 2018 to November 2019 to assess the positive and negative environmental and institutional impacts of TRM on Pakhimara beel in Tala Upazila (Sub-district), Satkhira District, by using the Sustainability Index of Tidal River Management (SITRM) framework. Sustainability Indices of TRM were designed to provide information on social, environmental and institutional gains. The environmental and institutional impacts were assessed by conducting household survey and Key Informant Interviews (KIIs). Agricultural impacts on crop, poultry, fisheries and vegetation, were also analyzed by comparing GIS map and agricultural production data (before and after TRM). This study investigated that Pakhimara beel was freed from waterlogging during the with-TRM event by 3,200 ha and the reduction of waterlogging increased agricultural land by 1,500 ha in 2018, compared to 2014. This study argued that only 54% of marginal farmers received crop compensation whereas 85% of crop production decreased due to TRM. For promoting sustainable TRM in the studied area, compensation should be guaranteed for all impacted parties, especially marginal farmers and the creation of employment opportunities, and settlement should be ensured

Enhancement of Web Security Against External Attack

The security of web-based services is currently playing a vital role for the software industry. In recent years, many technologies and standards have emerged in order to handle the security issues related to web services. This paper shows techniques to enhance the security of web services, and some of the recent challenges and recommendations of a proposed model to secure web services. It shows the security process of a real life web application, which includes; HTML5 forms, login security, and a single signon solution. This paper also aim to discuss the ten (10) most common web security vulnerabilities and how to prevent the web application from three (3) of the vulnerabilities. Amongst them are; SQL Injection, Cross Site Scripting and Broken Authentication, and Session Management

Contemporary Responses to The Criticism of Islamic Banks in Malaysia

The rapid growth of Islamic banks has become a focus of all investors and consumers. Malaysia has put in a lot of effort to develop and gather acceptance from all citizens of the country for Islamic banking. Hence, throughout the sector’s expansion, there have been several critics, such asshariah scholars, investors, and consumers. For instance; a lack of shariah experts in both economics and shariah itself, interest rates as benchmark, similarities with conventional banks etc. As the Malaysian Islamic banking system is growing and expanding, as are its critics. Therefore, the main purpose of this study to provide adequate arguments on the contemporary criticisms and challenges being faced by Islamic banks in Malaysia. This study has adopted a qualitative approach; conducting semi-structured interviews and observations. The findings recognised shariah compliancy, interest rates as a benchmark, and a lack of shariah scholars are the most pertinent current issues for Islamic banks in Malaysia. Through the supports of scholars, policy makers, and consumers, these issues can be resolved over time with Islamic finance literacy. The outcome of this study may benefit policy makers, investors, Muslim consumers, as well as stakeholders of Islamic banking and finance

Identifying Service Quality Attributes and Measuring Customer Satisfaction of Dhaka-Pabna Route Public Bus Service

Dhaka is the capital city of Bangladesh. A notable number of people have to go to and return from Dhaka every day. Most of the people use bus service. The situation of Dhaka-Pabna route bus service is not exception of this. Gradually the number of customer as well as service provider is increasing in this route. As a result, the service providers are facing competition to attract and retain customer. Measuring customer satisfaction is very important in attracting and retaining customer. This study was intended to identify service quality attributes in the long route public bus transit service and measure the customer satisfaction by surveying a number of 250 respondents. Finding shows that, overall 13% customers are very satisfied, 48% customers are somewhat satisfied, 32% customers are somewhat dissatisfied and 7% customers are very dissatisfied. Some recommendations are also provided to attract and retain customer

Performance Optimization of Solar Photovoltaic System using Parabolic Trough and Fresnel Mirror Solar Concentrator

An attempt has been taken to design parabolic trough and Fresnel mirror solar concentrator with the purpose of optimizing the output power of a photovoltaic system for both bright sunny day and cloudy day by using a 72-cell 5W photovoltaic solar panel. The PV system's efficiency has been analyzed in terms of output voltage, current, and power of the solar panel. Accordingly to our expectation, we observed that on a bright sunny day, the output power improvement of the solar panel is 26.81% for the parabolic trough and 17.89% for the Fresnel mirror concentrator. On a cloudy day, both concentrators improve output power by 22.3% and 14.1%, respectively. In terms of power optimization of a photovoltaic system, the following has been discerned: a solar photovoltaic concentrator system with a parabolic trough is much more effective than one with a Fresnel mirror