While the role of the media in the war against terror has received ample attention from scholars, there is little in the literature that deals specifically with the Iraqi point of view with respect to the nature of terror or with the comparative analysis of Western and Arabic media treatment of terror. That Western and Arabic ideologies arise from divergent political, national, cultural, and religious traditions is well understood in the West. Indeed, this understanding is generally implicit and unconscious, often (...) leading to perception of Arabic culture and ideology as a monolithic whole. Lost in this division between ‘Us’ and ‘Other’ are the multitude of inner-Arabic ideological divisions. Among these is an important inner-Arabic ideological division that reflects the larger Arab–Western ideological split, a split between those in support of Saddam’s reign and the post-invasion Iraqi insurgency and those in opposition. Cultural ideologies, all-encompassing yet often unstated, are difficult to summarize and analyze through the examination of indigenous news media. The media must balance truthful accuracy and objectivity with self-preservation. They must be exceedingly sensitive to the moods and outlooks of their target audiences in order to survive politically as well as economically. This work is a comparative, descriptive analysis of Saddam’s execution as covered by Arab and Western media, making use of Van Dijk’s Socio-ideological Discourse Theory as embodied in the Theories of Semantic Macroproposition and the concept of the Ideological Square as well as the Discourse-Historical Approach of Wodak. This combination of theoretical elements constitutes a basis for comparative Arabic–English discourse analysis with a focus on socio-linguistic analysis of text and rhetoric, rather than the more common functional Systemic Linguistic analysis or grammar theory considerations. These analytical elements also enable the de-construction of news media coverage in terms of macro-microstructures, micro-semantics, and the rhetoric news discourse. Technical analysis of news article word count, lexical selection, grammar, literary style, and rhetoric provides a portal through which hidden opinion, ideology, and dogma are made visible. (shrink)

The article addresses the gendered implications of Covid-19 in the Global South by paying attention to the intersectional pre-existing inequalities that have given rise to specific risks and vulnerabilities. It explores various aspects of the pandemic-induced ‘crisis of social reproduction’ that affects women as the main caregivers as well as addressing the drastic increase of various forms of gender-based violence. Both, in addition to growing poverty and severely limited access to resources and health services, are particularly devastating in marginalized and (...) vulnerable communities in the Global South. The article looks at specific regions and countries to illustrate wider challenges faced by LGBTQ populations, ethnic minorities, domestic workers, migrants and sex workers. Against the background of these gendered intersectional challenges, the article then moves to discuss feminist initiatives and mobilizations to deal with the crisis in specific local contexts as well as nationally, regionally and transnationally. It concludes by highlighting a number of visions, tensions and dilemmas faced by feminists in the Global South that will need to be taken into consideration in terms of transnational feminist solidarities. (shrink)

The article discusses sexual violence by ISIS against women in Iraq, particularly Yezidi women, against the historical background of broader sexual and gender-based violence. It intervenes in feminist debates about how to approach and analyse sexual and wider gender-based violence in Iraq specifically and the Middle East more generally. Recognizing the significance of positionality, the article argues against dichotomous positions and for the need to look at both macrostructural configurations of power pertaining to imperialism, neoliberalism and globalization on the one (...) hand, and localized expressions of patriarchy, religious interpretations and practices and cultural norms on the other hand. Finally, the article reflects on the question of what a transnational feminist solidarity might look like in relation to sexual violence by ISIS. (shrink)

The article charts my trajectories as a feminist activist/academic seeking to research, write and talk about gender-based violence in relation to the Middle East. More specifically, I am drawing on research and activism in relation to Iraq, Turkey and Lebanon to map the discursive, political and empirical challenges and complexities linked to scholarship and activism that is grounded in both feminist and anti-racist/anti-islamophobic politics. While reflecting on my positionality, the article aims to challenge the binary of activism and academia as (...) well as Western and Middle Eastern contexts in terms of knowledge production. (shrink)

Kim Longinotto is one of the UK's leading documentary directors whose body of work explores women's lives and their struggles for autonomy and human rights in a range of international cultural contexts. Her strategies interrogate the observationalist traditions of documentary cinema and visual anthropology to produce engaged and profoundly empathetic feminist films. She works in collaborative ways with her subjects, often with other directors, to represent the contradictions and multiple layers of their lives and political and social situations. This interview (...) focuses on Longinotto's approach to representing her subjects and using the medium of documentary as a form of witnessing. (shrink)

This article examines the development of a women's movement in Iraq since the invasion in 2003. It describes the types of activities and the strategies of different women activists, as well as highlighting the main divisions among them. The article also discusses the various ways in which the ongoing occupation and escalating violence in Iraq has shaped women's activism and the object of their struggles. Communal and sectarian tensions had been fostered by the previous regime as well as by the (...) political opposition in exile prior to 2003, but the systematic destruction of national institutions, such as the army and the police, by the occupation forces, has led to a flare-up of the sectarian conflict. The article concludes by evaluating women's activism in terms of its contributions to conflict on the one hand and national reconciliation on the other. (shrink)

Islamic Bioethics presents a wide variety of perspectives and debates on how Islamic societies deal with the ethical dilemmas raised by biomedicine and new technologies. The book is a "constructive dialogue" between contributors selected from a multidisciplinary group of Muslim and non-Muslim scholars from different Islamic countries. The 11 chapters illuminate the diversity and complexity of the issues discussed in Islamic bioethics and pave the way to a better understanding of Islamic bioethics and dialogue in the global bioethics community. The (...) chapters take both theoretical and practical approaches to the topic, and each covers an emerging issue in Islamic bioethics. This book will be useful for academics and professional institutions in both Islamic and non-Islamic countries, and will be instrumental in providing researchers, scholars, students, policymakers and medical professionals with access to the latest issues and debates related to Islamic bioethics. Contributors include: Tariq Ramadan, Abdallah Daar, Ali Albar, Mohsin Ebrahim, Baharouddin Azizan Alastair Campbel, Bagher Larijani, Carol Taylor, Gamal Serour, James Rusthoven, Ilhan Ilkilic, Ingrid Mattson, Hassan Chamsi-Pasha, Jonathan Crane, Hakan Ertin, Mehunisha Suleman. (shrink)

Breaking bad news (BBN) to parents whose newborn has a major disease is an ethical dilemma. In Saudi Arabia, BBN about newborns is performed according to the parental preferences that have been reported from non-Arabic/non-Islamic countries. Saudi mothers' preferences about BBN have not yet been studied. Therefore, we aimed to elicit the preferences of Saudi mothers about BBN concerning newborns. We selected a convenience sample of 402 Saudi mothers, aged 18-50 years, who had no previous experience with BBN. We selected (...) them via a simple number-randomization scheme from the premises of a level III Saudi hospital between October of 2009 and January of 2011. We used a hypothetical situation (BBN about trisomy 21) to elicit their preferences about BBN concerning newborns via a structured verbal questionnaire composed of 12 multiple-choice questions. We expressed their preferences as percentages (95% confidence interval), and we used the Kendall's W test (W) to assess the degree of agreement in preferences. The Saudi mothers preferred that BBN be conducted with both parents together (64% [60-69]), albeit with weak levels of agreement (W = 0.29). They showed moderate agreement in their preferences that BBN should be conducted early (79% [75-83], W = 0.48), in detail (81% [77-85], W = 0.52), in person (88% [85-91], W = 0.58), and in a quiet setting (86% [83-90], W = 0.53). With extremely weak agreement, they preferred to have a known person present for support during BBN (56% [51-61], W = 0.01), to have close bodily contact with their babies (66% [61-70], W = 0.10), and to have no another patients present (64% [59-68], W = 0.08). They showed moderate levels of agreement in their desires to detail, in advance, their preferences about process of BBN by giving a reversible, written informed consent that could be utilized for guidance, if needed (80% [76-84], W = 0.36). In our experience, Saudi mothers' preferences about BBN concerning newborns are varied, suggesting that a "one-size-fits-all" approach is inappropriate. A reversible, written informed consent detailing their preferences about BBN that would be kept in their medical records and utilized for guidance, if needed, may be the best solution, given this level of diversity. These findings merit further study. (shrink)

This article examines the nature and reproduction of ‘institutional idiocy’, seen as a form of collective cognitive incapacity generated by cultural conditions. It shows idiocy to be active in numerous paths, wearing different clothes and taking dissimilar forms, spreading to the extent that it dominates communities. An empirically driven framework is established for idiocy-dominated communities – communities with access to futile education and fruitless technology. It demonstrates how idiocy-dominated communities disguise and protect their shared idiocy and handle non-idiotic minorities. It (...) explains that idiocy-intense communities are not necessarily chaotic and arbitrarily organised, entailing ‘formulas of life’, ‘identity politics’ and ‘schools of thought’. It describes that a whole community can thoroughly adapt to life without critical thinking, living in an illusion. Whereas previous works have scrutinised individual idiocy, this research goes beyond this to inspect institutional idiocy by presenting idiocy as a system (and ‘ideology’) that constitutes the foundation of groups. While such notions as technocracy and epistocracy detail the domination of cognitive maturity, this article goes in another direction by recording the domination of cognitive immaturity (idiocracy). It avoids thinking about idiocy binarily (idiocy versus intelligence), viewing it as a question of not intellect but behaviour, culture and ‘being-with’. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the ethical behaviour of Muslim IT professionals in an attempt to stop many unethical practices such as software piracy, software intellectual property violations and general software development.Design/methodology/approachThis study examines the computer ethical principles presented in the Association for Computing Machinery code of conduct from an Islamic point of view through studying some relevant verses of The Holy Quran and Hadiths of Prophet Mohammed. An evaluation of the benefits of this newly proposed Islamic (...) computer code of ethics is presented by surveying how IT students, IT professionals and software house owners would adhere to it. The evaluation was carried out by teaching different groups of participants aspects of the ACM code of conduct and the proposed Islamic computer ethics code and then surveying their opinions by a questionnaire.FindingsThe study demonstrates that teaching computer ethics in general, and computer ethics from an Islamic point of view in particular, clearly contributes to ethical behaviour of Muslim IT professionals with regards to software development issues.Research limitations/implicationsIt is not possible to put participants through real life scenarios and practically observe how they would react to different ethical situations. The empirical research thus relies on what participants said they would do.Practical implicationsThe newly developed Islamic code of computer ethics and its proposed implementation method can be utilised by organisations for their benefit.Originality/valueThe study is the first to address the issue of computer ethics and Islam for IT professionals. This paper presents a first Islamic computer code of ethics and presents a methodology for applying it. It also reports a study undertaken in Bahrain of how attitudes might be influenced by teaching computer ethics in general, and computer ethics from an Islamic point of view in particular. (shrink)

al-kitāb 1. al-Nasq al-ʻilmī lil-manẓūr al-ẓāhirī lil-ʻulūm al-ijtimāʻīyah -- al-kitāb 2. [Taṭbīqāt al-nasq al-ʻilmī lil-manẓūr al-ẓāhirī fī majāl al-ʻulūm al-ijtimāʻīyah].

Ethical considerations, especially those religiously driven, play a significant role in shaping business conduct and priorities. Profit levels and earnings constitute an integral part of business considerations and are relevant and closely linked to prevailing ethics. In this paper, Islamic prescriptions on profit maximization are introduced. Islamic business ethics are outlined as well. It is suggested that while Islamic teaching treats profits as reward for engaging in vital activities necessary for serving societal interests, profit maximization is not sanctioned and therefore (...) should not be the goal of ethically guided business ventures. (shrink)

al-juzʼ 1. al-Manṭiq al-istiqrārī -- al-juzʼ 2. al-Mushkilāt al-maʻrifīyah -- al-juzʼ 3. al-Manṭiq al-riyāḍī.

Falsafat wa-ḥayāt Abī Hāshim al-Jubbāʼī wa-madrasatuh -- al-Tawallud ʻinda al-Muʻtazilah.

Ghazzālī, 1058-1111; political thoughts.

al-Juzʼ al-awwal. Dirāsāt fī al-manṭiq wa-falsafat al-ʻulūm -- al-juzʼ al-thānī. Dirāsāt fī al-manhaj wa-al-ʻilm al-ʻArabī.

This article examines the role of Islamic ethics in the marketing field. It presents Islamic contributions to the field by referencing original sources and concepts that are often not easily available to researchers and practitioners alike. In foundational texts, Islamic ethics have their own marketing practice prescriptions, practices that are driven by a discipline which shuns any dichotomy between organizational and societal interests. The paper underscores the role of marketers in improving the well-being of individuals and the community and presents (...) a framework for analyzing the link between Islamic ethics and societal welfare vis-a-vis marketing. Several marketing issues are identified and the contributions of Islamic teachings are presented. This paper, too, identifies emerging ethical dilemmas and the necessity to tackle them in a way that strengthens the role of marketing in societal affairs and ensures morally driven conduct. (shrink)