Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, Arrow of God and A Man of the People, the first four novels by Chinua Achebe, the contemporary Nigerian novelist, are among the most outstanding works of African postcolonial literature. As a matter of fact, each of these four novels focuses on a different colonial or postcolonial phase of history in Nigeria and through them Achebe intends to provide an authentic record of the negative and positive impacts of ‘hybridity’ on different aspects of (...) the life of native subjects. Briefly stated, Achebe is largely successful in taking advantages of variable discursive tools he structures based on the potentials of the hybrid, Igbo-English he adopts. Thus, it might be deduced that reading these four novels in line with each other, and as chains or sequels of Tetralogy, might result in providing a more vivid picture of the Nigerian (African) subjects and the identity crises emerging in them as a result of colonization. To provide an account of the matter, the present study seeks to focus on one of the discursive strategies Achebe relies on in those four novels: Igbo Naming Cosmology and Name-symbolization. (shrink)

With the advent of the 21st century, the way characters and identities interact under the influence of dominant powers has brought a new world into existence, a world dubbed by Manuel Castells as the ‘Fourth World’. Within the Castellsian theoretical matrix of the Fourth World and politics of identity, the present study seeks to investigate the true nature of the futuristic world Margaret Atwood has created in the MaddAddam trilogy. The trilogy literarily reflects a global crisis that ultimately leads to (...) dystopia and the destruction of the human race: what remains of humanity is a small group of survivors who must struggle to conserve what remains of humanity. Identity as the main determining factor in the Fourth World represents personal and public privileges, characteristics, and means of differentiating oneself from others. The Fourth World and its political peculiarities reflect contemporary powers, i.e. the power of the network society, network communication and media. Humankind, in this wheel, is just a toy in the hands of an intelligence broker. What exactly happens to human and semi-human characters in Atwood’s trilogy is the result of Fourth World structures and values, and how they shape and reconstruct identities to lead the world toward fabricated truths and values, and terminate in dystopia. (shrink)

Chinua Achebe, the contemporary Nigerian novelist, is considered as one of the prominent figures in African anti-colonial literature. What makes his works specific is the way he approaches the issues of colonization of Africa in an objective manner and through an innovative language which aims at providing a pathology; a pathological reading meant to draw on the pre-colonial and colonial history without any presumptions so as to present the readers with possible alternative African discourses in future. His first novel Things (...) Fall Apart can be taken as the best representative of such a penchant in Achebe. The present study seeks to approach Things Fall apart by reflecting on those discursive features which have provided the ground for constructing such a pathological reading and an alternative to the colonial discourse. To this end, some key terms introduced by Homi Bhabha and Mikhail Bakhtin such as ‘hybridity’, ‘otherness’ and ‘polyphony’, constitute the cornerstone of this study. Presumably, such an innovative reading of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is to lead to a better understanding of his discourse and the efforts made by him to help the African readers figure out how to piece together what once fell apart; what they can rely on for building an independent future in the so-called postcolonial era. (shrink)

Background. Ethics are rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or members of a profession. Medical research must be regulated to ensure that fundamental human rights are not breached in the quest for knowledge. Nigeria had no laws or specific guidelines to regulate health research until 2007, when a national regulatory body, the National Health Research Ethics Committee, was established. Its function is to ensure ethical conduct in research and to accredit institutional and state health research ethics committees.Objective. (...) To document the current role of HRECs in the ethical practice of health research in Nigeria, 4 years after the establishment of the NHREC.Methods. Functioning of the HRECs was evaluated via interviews of 14 members of state and institutional HRECs chosen from selected geopolitical zones of the country.Results. The HRECs surveyed had between nine and 15 members, with more males than females. Review meetings were held only occasionally owing to the competing interests of members, who receive no incentives for participation, and poor funding. Scientific and ethical reviews are conducted together by the same committee, but few members of the HRECs are trained in research ethics. Monitoring of research after approval is poor.Conclusion. Nigeria now has about 30 institutional HRECs, but their functioning is hampered by a shortage of both money and qualified individuals to serve on them. (shrink)

This study examines the representations of male and female social actors in selected Iranian EFL (English as a Foreign Language) textbooks. It is grounded in Critical Discourse Analysis and uses van Leeuwen’s Social Actor Network Model to analyze social actor representations in the gendered discourses of compulsory heterosexuality. Findings from the analysis show that the representations endorse the discourse of compulsory heterosexuality which is an institutionalized form of social practice in Iran. Three male and three female students were interviewed to (...) find out what they think about these representations. Their responses with regard to whether they think textbooks should also include representations of other forms of sexuality were non-committal and vague. To them LGBT people are the ‘‘Other’’ practicing a form of sexuality that is not normal. Such exclusions could obscure the reality regarding the existence of such gender identities and represent the world in a particular manner. (shrink)

This article seeks to explore the different strategies the Bard uses in order to evoke sympathy in the reader for Macbeth who is so persistent in the path of evil. What strategy does Shakespeare use in order to provoke such a deep emotional response from his readers? By using paradoxes in the play, the Bard creates a world of illusion, fear and wild imagination. The paradoxical world in Macbeth startles us into marvel and fear, challenges our commonly held opinions, and (...) reshapes our thought in the process (Platt 8). As the text involves the reader in the formation of illusion and the simultaneous formation of the means whereby the illusion is punctured, “reading reflects the process by which we gain experience. Once the reader is entangled, his own preconceptions are continually overtaken so that the text becomes his present while his own ideas fade into the past. As soon as it happens, he is open to the immediate experience of the text” (Iser, The Implied Reader 290). Mesmerised by Macbeth’s powerful imagination and poetic language, the reader engages in a dialogical interaction with the play and eventually finds light in the murky world of the text. Regardless of Macbeth’s diabolical world, the reader ventures into it, shares it with him and ultimately wakes up from its dizzying stupor. In reading Macbeth, the reader leaves behind the familiar world of his experience in order to participate in the adventure the text offers him. The edifying effect of the tragedy in the end is the reward the reader reaps after eventually waking up from the nightmarish dream of the text. (shrink)

-/- Abstract: The present paper investigates the empowering force of hybridity in female diasporant in Bharati Mukherjee’s outstanding novel Jasmine. The novel depicts Jasmine’s journey of transformation from a passive, traditional girl at the mercy of fate in a village in India to an active, modern, and most importantly cross-cultural hybrid woman in America. All through the novel, her identity is transformed in line with shifts in her name from Jyoti to Jasmine to Jazzy to Jane. Accordingly, she stands in-between (...) two cultures, shuttles between identities, welds opposing identities, enters the third space and emerges as a hybrid. The present study in the light of Homi Bhabha's insights seeks to demonstrate that immigrating, experiencing displacement and in-betweenness, and being positioned in the third space pave the way for Jasmine’s becoming a hybrid and being liberated. Besides, the study is to depict by creating a hybrid character, Bharati Mukherjee, the author, alludes to her own very hybridity. -/- . (shrink)

This article explores the contradictory nature of the ghost in Hamlet and shows how Shakespeare seeks to manipulate the reader’s response in Hamlet by using contradictions and ambiguities. The article also explores the ways in which the reader responds to these contradictions and reconstructs a palpable world in the impalpable world of the text. These contradictions compel the reader to participate in the composition of the text and make him keep changing his own approach to the work with the result (...) that the more he reads the play, the deeper he finds himself entrenched in contradictions. As he fails to grasp the logic of events, the reader relates his own world to the text instead of relating the events of the text to his world and recreates his own world. Therefore, he can easily detach himself from the text and let his imagination run loose as the play proves too vague for him to comprehend. In reading Hamlet, the imagination runs wild and travels far beyond the text to an extent where the reader perceives things, which stand not within but utterly outside the text. Eventually, the reality achieved by the reader in the course of reading the play is only the reality which dwells in the innermost recesses of his mind. (shrink)

This research investigates the representations of gendered social actors within the subversionary discourse of equal educational opportunities for males and females in Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) books. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA) as the theoretical framework, the authors blend van Leeuwen’s (Texts and practices: Readings in critical discourse analysis, Routledge, London, 2003) ‘Social Actor Network Model’ and Sunderland’s (Gendered discourses, Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire, 2004) ‘Gendered Discourses Model’ in order to examine the depictions of male and female social (...) actors within this gendered discourse. The gendered discourse of equal opportunities was buttressed by such representations within a tight perspective in proportion to gender ideologies prevailing in Iran. Resorting to CDA, we can claim that resistance against such gendered discourse in Iranian EFL textbooks militates against such gender norms. These representations of male and female social actors in school books are indicative of an all-encompassing education, reinforcing that the discourse of equal opportunities is yet to be realized in the education system of Iran. (shrink)

The struggle for domination clearly persists in The Homecoming as it does in almost all of Pinter’s works. Because of the vague atmosphere, enigmatic characters, and dark, tragicomic dialogue and action, a single decisive meaning for the play cannot be identified. Many character analyses have been carried out on the play, frequently focusing on Ruth and her decision at the end. Moreover, critics have sought to read the play in the light of psychoanalysis, centering on the characters’ past and complexes. (...) By adding a sociopolitical dimension to purely realistic or symbolic readings, this article attempts to analyze the relationships of domination and servitude between characters at the micro-level of the family structure through Marx’s notions of fetishism in relations between individuals, and commodity fetishism as expounded by Slavoj Žižek. With the help of Žižek’s ideas on ideology, a new layer of sociopolitical signification to the relationships held between characters is added, particularly that between Ruth and the men, which is seen as a parallel to the macro-level fetishized relationships in pre-capitalist societies and commodity fetishism in a capitalist one. (shrink)

This article examines the influence of the Persian mystic poet Hafi z on western poets. Interest in Hafiz started in England in the eighteenth century with the translations of Sir William Jones. In the nineteenth century, the German translation of Baron von HammerPurgstall inspired Goethe to create his masterpiece Westöstliche Divan (West-Eastern Divan). The poetry of Hafiz evoked such passion in Goethe that he referred to him as ‘Saint Hafiz’ and ‘Celestial Friend’. Inspired by Westöstliche Divan, a number of German (...) poets including Rückert and Platen composed volumes of poetry on the model of ghazal, the popular poetic form perfected by Hafi z in Persian literature. Prominent among the German thinkers influenced and fascinated by Hafiz was Friedrich Nietzsche who repeatedly mentioned him in his works. The influence of Hafiz stretched to America in 1838 when Ralph Waldo Emerson read Goethe’s West-Eastern Divan. In Hafiz, Emerson found a man who derived pleasure in the very elements which others found mean. Under the influence of Hafiz’s Saki-nameh or the Book of Wine, he created his finest poem Bacchus which, according to Harold Bloom, set the terms for the dialectic of American poetry. (shrink)

It might sound rather convincing to assume that we owe the pleasure of reading the novel form to our elemental repository of physical perception, to our feelings. This would be true only if mere feelings could add up to something more than just emotions, to some deep understanding of the human. After all, a moment of epiphany, where we begin to realize things that dramatically disturb our normal state of mind, is not just emotional, nor indeed a simple moment. Despite (...) its root in the corporeal, a mo(ve)ment of affective realization reaches beyond the realm of the human and opens up the plane of virtual potentials. In this work, we intend to map out the points and relations of affective singularity that pervade the narrative of Toni Morrison’s Sula (1973). Also, we will discuss how these mo(ve)ments of sensation give form to Sula’s and Nel’s experiences and contribute to an affective transformation in morality and friendship. (shrink)

In Against the Day, Pynchon is obsessed with twoness, double worlds, as well as dual realities, and like Deleuze’s concept of repetition, these duplications and twinships are not merely repetition of the same, rather they allow for creativity, reinvention, and becoming. Pynchon’s duplication of fictional and spectral characters intends to critique the notion of identity as does Deleuzian concept of repetition. Not attached to the representational concept of identity as the recurrence of the same, Pynchon’s duplications decenter the transcendental concept (...) in favor of a perpetual becoming and reproduces difference and singularity. Like Deleuze, Pynchon eschews an identity that is always guaranteed, and shows that the repetition of an object or a subject is not the recurrence of the original self-identical object or person. Moreover, Iceland spar, the mystifying calcite, with its doubling effect provides the reader with a view of a world beyond the ordinary, actual world, which is quite similar to what Pynchon’s novel does per se. (shrink)

his study explores Pynchon’s mammoth novel, Against the Day, in terms of the minor practice of language as proposed by Deleuze and Guattari in their book Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature, which opens up new possibilities for literary criticism. With his idiosyncratic, intensive, and inventive practice of language, Pynchon shatters the already existing notions of appropriate and homogenizing forms of major language. The novel demystifies the language’s institutionalized system of signification and defies identifiable decipherable meaning in many ways, such as (...) covert and overt deterritorialization of language, escape from “territorial” and “representational” language, defiance of signification, neutralization of sense, asyntactical language, phantasmagorical and absurd tales, quizzical jokes, silly songs, and asubjective free indirect narration. Against the Day’s practice of language prefers the territory of asubjective insignification to subjective, symbolic, and signifying usage of language so as to dismantle the territory of representation; thus, it pushes the major language towards or even out of its limits. (shrink)

This paper investigates the interaction of gender, disability and education in rural Iran, which is a relatively unexplored field of research. The responses of 10 female students with disabilities from Isfahan indicated that the obstacles they faced included marginalization, difficulties in getting from home to school, difficulties within the school building itself, and discrimination by teachers, classmates and school authorities. The data collected for the study contain a wide range of conservative gendered discourses, and show how traditional gender beliefs interact (...) with disability to aggravate the problems faced in education by young women with disabilities. It is hoped that the findings will raise awareness among policy-makers of the many formidable obstacles that make it difficult for young women with disabilities to achieve their full potential in education. (shrink)

Most readings of Tayib Salih’s Season of Migration to the North have focused on Mustafa Saeed and the nameless narrator, both male characters, and they have largely avoided a politically radical reading of the novel. This article attempts to present the female character, Hosna, as the revolutionary par excellence, following Lacan and Slavoj Žižek’s reading of Antigone. Th rough Žižek’s distinction between the act and action, this article argues that Hosna’s deed at the end of the novel, murder and suicide, (...) is not just an action out of hopelessness but rather an act that aims to make a new social order possible. We will try to connect Žižek’s distinction between act and action to Benjamin’s distinction between divine violence and mythic violence and Lacan’s idea of “Th ing-directed desire” (Marc De Kesel 245). By doing so, this article aims to put the extreme violence of Hosna in a new light and argues against the readings that simply ignore her act as an extreme form of violence and fail to see it in a broader framework of philosophical and sociological understanding. (shrink)

A 21st Century English Translation of the Magnificent Quran by Shakespearean scholar Ali Salami, Ph.D. The Magnificent Qur'an is a timeless holy scripture sacred to the religion of Islam.

This collection of essays offers a panoramic plethora of responses to Shakespeare by both Western and Eastern critics, indicating that the Bard crosses all nationalities and deserves to be defined as a global writer, which is why he is easily appreciated, manipulated, translated, adapted, and interpreted by everyone everywhere. Divided into three parts, this volume deals with a wide range of issues on culture and multiculturalism, and hammers home the idea that the works of Shakespeare can be not only universally (...) understood, but also fully integrated into other cultures. (shrink)

Black youths experience poor mental health especially due to anti‐Black racism. Research related to Black youths have been conducted on Black youths with little or no participation or engagement rather than with Black youths. This paper presents information from a dialogue on decolonizing nursing research. I draw on interviews and conversation cafes with around 120 Black youths in Canada to identify strategies for decolonizing research with Black youths. First, I reflect on my relations with the Indigenous land in which the (...) study was conducted as well as my positionality as a Black woman. In this paper, I discuss how community based participatory action research can integrate capacity building component, amplify youth's voices and capitalize on the agency of youths as fruitful actors. I also reflect on the opportunities and benefits of decolonizing nursing research. (shrink)

The contributions to this book examine various facets of the work of Shakespeare from an Eastern perspective. As such, Fundamental Shakespeare sheds fresh light on, and offers new insights to, a wide range of topics including politics, psychology and discourse. Divided into three separate categories, this volume brings to the fore long-standing, but under-explored areas of Shakespeare studies.

Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian novelist, is one of the outstanding figures in modern African literature whose works can be taken as early attempts in literature to move toward de-colonization. Achebe provides an alternative discourse which can depict not only an authentic picture of the native African life with all its complexity, but also dynamic native characters in such a context: real-life black characters with humane existential conflicts who can contemplate on what has been affecting their African pre-colonial identity. What makes (...) Achebe’s novels different from other novels is the way he relies on the notions of ‘Otherness’ and ‘hybridity’ in constructing his alternative non-Eurocentric discourse. This book studies four novels by Chinua Achebe i.e. Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, Arrow of God, and A Man of People, so as to investigate how he has constructed his alternative discourse; a discourse which has been successful in providing a room where the colonized are given voices to speak and the reader has a chance to understand better their world and what they have confronted because of colonization. Since each novel focuses on a different colonial or postcolonial phase in Nigeria and Achebe has made use of different discursive strategies in each of them, it can be claimed that taking them as a tetralogy and studying them together can result in providing a vivid picture of Achebe’s discourse and what his novels seek to mirror about the Nigerian hybrid identity and the colonized man’s struggles in the way of dealing with ‘otherness’ and difference. (shrink)

No matter if you are broken-hearted or happy in life and no matter where you are, the lessons taught in this book offer a unique taste of contentment, solace and joy. Slivers of Life pieces together the puzzle of felicity, in a simple yet magnetic manner.

Born in 1315, Shamseddin Mohammad, known as Hafiz, grew up in the city of Shiraz where he studied the Qur’anic sciences. In his youth he learned the Quran rigorously and assumed the epithet ‘Hafiz’ which means the one who knows the Quran by heart. Also known as the ‘Tongue of the Hidden’ and the ‘Interpreter of Secrets’, Hafiz utilizes grand religious ideas and mingles them with Sufistic teachings, thereby creating a kind of poetry which baffles interpretation. The poetry of Hafiz (...) has intoxicated and continues to intoxicate many in the world. The exhilarating effect of his poetry was also known to the poet himself. In one of his poems, he says that the angels are memorizing his poems in heaven and that Venus is enraptured and that Christ rjoices in his songs: “What marvel that in heaven are sung/ The dulcet words by HAFIZ strung?/Or that, by Venus’s air entranced,/Messiah in his sphere has danced?” As Friedrich Nietzsche has said of Hafiz: “Bist aller Trunkenen Trunkenheit/ wozu, wozu dir-Wein? (the intoxication of all intoication you are/what need do you have to ask for wine?)”. (shrink)

Despite the fact that there is unmet demand for nurses in health services around the world, some nurses migrate to destination countries to work as domestic workers. According to the literature, these nurses experience contradictions in class mobility and are at increased risk of exploitation and abuse. This article presents a critical discussion of the migration of nurses as domestic workers using the concept of ‘global care chain’. Although several scholars have used the concept of global care chains to illustrate (...) south to north migration of domestic workers and nurses, there is a paucity of literature on the migration of nurses to destination countries as domestic workers. The migration of nurses to destination countries as domestic workers involves the extraction of reproductive and skilled care labor without adequate compensatory mechanisms to such skilled nurses. Using the case of the Canadian Live‐in Caregiver Program, the study illustrates how the global movement of internationally educated nurses as migrant domestic workers reinforces inequities that are structured along the power gradient of gender, class, race, nationality, and ethnicity, especially within an era of global nursing shortage. (shrink)

With the realization of the promised global village, media, particularly online newspapers, play a significant role in delivering news to the world. However, such means of news circulation can propagate different ideologies in line with the dominant power. This, coupled with the emergence of so-called Islamic terrorist groups, has turned the focus largely on Islam and Muslims. This study attempts to shed light on the image of Islam being portrayed in Western societies through a Critical Discourse Analysis approach. To this (...) end, a number of headlines about Islam or Muslims have been randomly culled from three leading newspapers in Western print media namely The Guardian, The Independent and The New York Times. This study utilizes “ideological square” notion of Van Dijk characterized by “positive presentation” of selves and “negative presentation” of others alongside his socio-cognitive approach. Moreover, this study will take the linguistic discourses introduced by Van Leeuwen regarding “representing social actors and social practices” into consideration. The findings can be employed to unravel the mystery behind the concept of “Islamophobia” in Western societies. Besides, it can reveal how specific lexical items, as well as grammatical structures are being employed by Western media to distort the notion of impartiality. (shrink)

The sixteenth-century Cossacks became the favourite topic of Ukrainian authors of the nineteenth century who dealt with national and individual identity issues. Nikolai Gogol, the celebrated Russian author who had Ukrainian origin and was born in a Cossack village, wrote the epic romance of Taras Bulba, which narrated the story of Cossacks and their struggle for preserving their independence. While the work has been previously studied under the light of postcolonial theoretical framework, using the concepts developed by Homi Bhabha to (...) scrutinize the situation and the destiny of the two main hybrid characters, Taras Bulba’s sons, takes a step further and reveals the deeply ingrained anxiety and ambivalence in the Cossack mentality. The article focuses on the two main hybrid characters who choose divergent paths upon encountering the conflict brought to them by the imperial power. (shrink)

While humans are the best of creations and God’s caliphs on Earth, such a status is always hard to achieve and necessitates many efforts and too much practice. This world also has a two-way path, one terminating in the lowest of the low and the other culminating in the highest of the high. It means that one way leads to misfortune and misery and the other to happiness and perfection. To attain happiness, accountability can be of utmost importance. Besides, the (...) purpose of human creation is closeness to God by preferring the right path, which is not often possible unless they speak the truth and make the best use of the enlightening teachings of the revelation to spot the bad and good, becoming aware of their own duties and responsibilities and ultimately putting them into effect. This research aimed to investigate the mediating role of values in the relationship between accountability and trust among Muslim managers and employees in Islamic organisations, using a descriptive method through a field study. The statistical population included 2500 senior Muslim managers and employees of Iraqi government organisations, selected via simple random sampling. In this research, structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis was recruited for data analysis in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and Analysis of a Moment Structures (AMOS). The study results demonstrated that accountability in Muslim managers and employees has a significant positive effect on trust (p = 0.45) and values (p = 0.81). Moreover, the findings revealed that values have a positive effect on reinforcing trust in Islamic organisations (p = 0.54), and above all bolster the relationship between accountability in managers and employees and organisational trust (p = 0.43).Contribution: The accountability of managers and employees can have a positive effect on individuals’ performance in organisations. In general, psychological pressures in organisations result in organisational transformation and then maintain values through trust-building. Such changes can be subsequently operationalized and have a profound impact on people’s behaviour by affecting work order and keeping them always growing, agile and diligent, in order to reach a new level of performance. (shrink)

Individuals’ beliefs, as well as their spiritual orientations (SOs), can affect the quality of their work life cycle. Given that a large portion of people’s lives are spent in organisations, it is crucial to consider the factors affecting quality of work life (QWL) among employees. Against this background, the present study investigated the effects of the Islam-based SOs on the QWL in Muslim employees working for Iraqi municipalities in 2022. For this purpose, an applied research design was adopted, using field (...) studies of the correlational type for data collection. In total, 1345 staff of Iraqi municipalities were selected by simple random sampling in 2022, and two standardised questionnaires were utilised to collect the data. The content validity method was further recruited to determine the validity of the questionnaires, and the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was used to measure the reliability. To analyse the data, descriptive tests, including frequency, mean and standard deviation (SD), along with inferential statistics, namely one-sample t-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and independent-samples t-test, were implemented using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software package. The correlation coefficients accordingly showed a rising trend in the QWL among these employees following the growth in their SOs. Moreover, there was a significant relationship between the components of SOs, namely spiritual beliefs, sense of spirituality, spiritual self-actualisation and spiritual practices, and the QWL of the Muslim employees.Contribution: This study revealed that the increase in the Islam-based SOs and its components led to an increase in the QWL of Iraqi Muslim employees. (shrink)

The human being is the most wonderful creation of God and the highest sign of his infinite power. Humanity is capable of achieving all divine perfections. God created them to reach the position of God’s closeness and God’s successor on Earth, and this path will not be realised except by the correct education. A human is a divine being who has settled in this earthly world, and correct education is the only way to achieve that sacred truth. Divine prophets have (...) come to prepare the Earth for this great transformation in human existence and guide them to the light of divine teachings. There is no doubt that if human beings are not educated according to divine standards, they will remain at the level of animality. The Holy Qur’an, as the most precious Islamic divine book, presents the best way of education based on the knowledge of the truth of humanity and their needs. In addition, it is appropriate to discuss the role of behavioural gentleness in the education of people, and in this regard, the Qur’anic verses have been reviewed carefully. Therefore, the aim of this manuscript is to study the Islamic teachings in education with an emphasis on behavioural gentleness.Contribution: If curriculum planners and educators in general pay attention to Qur’anic teachings in education and base their curriculum and educational programs on Qur’anic teachings and according to characteristics and abilities and appropriateness of methods, and if the contents are paid attention to and educational programs are produced based on the will and authority of the educators, we will definitely witness progress and development in educational systems on the one hand and development and progress in all levels of life. (shrink)

The Holy Qur’an relates believers’ pure emotions to brotherhood. From the perspective of Islam, it has been also affirmed that two people have the same thoughts and opinions in one centre point of love in brotherhood, so fraternal feelings are not merely limited to kinship and consanguinity. In this line, the Holy Qur’an states that we have come to make you brothers with each other; not a brotherhood from parents, but an Islamic one, which is highly appreciated in the Islamic (...) society. In addition, a believing brother can never be filled when his fellow believer is hungry, and he cannot be clothed while the other is with nothing on. Islam further considers all Muslims as one family and calls everyone brothers and sisters or siblings. The true Muslims of any race and tribe as well as any language and age thus have a deep sense of brotherhood with each other, even if one lives in the Eastern parts of the world and the other in the West. In sum, this article aimed to investigate the role of religious teachings in strengthening believers’ brotherhood in the Islamic society. For this purpose, firstly, the definition of religious brotherhood was provided; secondly, religious brotherhood has been described based on the Holy Qur’an.Contribution: This article helped gain a new insight into the role of Islamic teachings in strengthening religious brotherhood in the Islamic society. Besides, the indicators of religious brotherhood were extracted and then enlightened according to the Ayat (viz. verses) from the Holy Qur’an. (shrink)

Described as a gem in Islam, intellect can lead all individual and social behaviours towards balance, appeal and godliness. Given the utmost importance of protecting intellect in this divine religion, everything from eating and drinking to reading, listening and entertainment is thus considered haram [ viz. remains prohibited] if it makes threats to the health of mind and soul. In general, narcotics and substance abuse in all forms can have crushing and all-encompassing effects, that is, inflict heavy blows on the (...) body, soul, mind, willpower and religion in a person and consequently destroy life in the family and society. The continuation of life as well as the stability and survival of this holy institution accordingly depends on many factors, including addiction tendency (AT) and sexual dysfunction (SD). It is also obvious that the balance and optimal use of sexual instinct on the accepted path of religion will be the key to the family health and strength. Altogether, the role of AT and SD on intention to divorce (ITD) in Indonesian Muslim couples ( n = 450) was investigated in 2022 in this study, wherein one partner had previously attended addiction treatment centres over the last 6 months. The study results ultimately demonstrated that AT could induce SD and consequently raise ITD among Muslim couples. Contribution: The study results confirmed the harmful impacts of AT on SD among Muslim couples, which could increase their ITD. In view of this, it was suggested to promote religious teachings in the family to benefit from their positive effects. (shrink)

Government is a rational necessity for mankind because a society without government leads to chaos. Government regulates the affairs of the individual and the community, implements the limits, and ensures the dignity and independence of the human society. Thinking in the main goals of the divine prophets, it is clear that achieving great goals such as liberating people from the domination and captivity of foreigners, comprehensive human education, reviving human values, establishing justice, bringing people to excellence and growth, etc., requires (...) formation. In this context, transparency is a key attribute, which can bring much power to the expected level as an effective mechanism for protecting citizens’ political, economic, social and cultural rights. This concept is thus a valuable solution in the fight against sinister phenomena, such as political and economic corruptions, which are ranked as the biggest challenges facing any society. Even though transparency is nowadays deemed an emerging concept, its roots can be traced back to Islamic teachings, mainly during the short reign of Imam Ali, (peace be upon him [PBUH]). As a central figure, Imam Ali considered transparency as essential, and shared his views on governance and practical methods with the people and all audiences based on complete honesty and openness. As per Alavi thoughts, some criteria and indicators, both structural and behavioural, are involved in order to ensure the public good and meet the interests of all by providing the prerequisites for the realisation of transparency, at odds with the predominant ideas that transparency in governance, like many concepts in the political and governance-related spheres, has a western origin. Contribution: The concept of transparency, with a proven history in global experiences, accordingly holds a special place in the literature of Islamic governments. Given the importance of this topic, the present study with an emphasis on transparency aims to examine Islamic teachings on governance in Islamic societies, and reflect on governance transparency components in such societies, relying on expert opinions. (shrink)

Justice has a high status in Islamic societies, and as one of the most important human ideals, has long been the focus of thinkers and researchers. In fact, when the citizens do not understand the presence of justice in the behaviour of the officials of their society, their trust in the current procedures, and consequently the public participation will be affected. Considering the importance of the subject, the present study has been conducted with the aim of investigating the effect of (...) perception of justice on citizens’ trust and participation in the creation of a democratic Islamic society. The statistical population of this research included 3578 Indonesian Muslim citizens in 2022, and the research questionnaires were distributed among them. Data analyses were done using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and Linear Structural Relations (LISREL) statistical software. The results of statistical analyses indicated that the perception of Islamic justice does not have a significant effect on the participation of Muslims in creating a democratic Islamic society. In addition, the perception of Islamic justice has a positive effect on the trust in officials of the Islamic society. Moreover, trust in the officials of the Islamic society positively affects the citizens’ participation in creating a democratic Islamic society.Contribution: According to the results of this research, it is necessary for the officials of the Islamic society to use all their efforts in creating a justice-oriented Islamic society in order to create trust among the citizens, and to involve Muslims in development decisions and to establish democratic Islamic society. (shrink)

Editorial expression of concern: The editor and publisher express a note of concern regarding this article ‘ ‘Islamic Culture’ textbook content and religious needs of literacy students’, by Mohsen Dibaei Saber, Soolmaz Nourabadi, Ammar Abdel Amir Al-Salami, Harikumar Pallathadka, Sarvar Inatullaevich Nazarkosimov, Hoang Viet Linh, Forqan Ali Hussein Al-Khafaji, Iskandar Muda. An investigation is underway regarding the authorship of this article.

Researchers in several academic fields have indicated an increase in academic authorship disputes and the utilization of unethical authorship practices over the past few decades. This trend has been attributed to a variety of factors such as vague authorship guidelines, power disparities between researchers, dissimilar disciplinary and/or journal practices, and a lack of guidance for emerging scholars. As a rapidly emerging academic field, sport management (and its connected sub-fields) maintains the propensity for unclear procedures due to the various departments, schools, (...) and colleges the field calls home (e.g., kinesiology, sport science, education, business), as well as the wide variety of journals that the field’s scholarship resides in. This situation is similar to many emerging or expanding fields as they navigate the university landscape of more established disciplines and fields. Utilizing a three-round Delphi survey method, the current research examined expert opinion on authorship practices in sport management scholarship. Through a combination of open-ended, response, and Likert-type questions, the expert survey attempted to identify areas of consensus and non-consensus in an effort to determine the current status of publication practices in the field, as well as ascertain areas of need for future study and improvement. (shrink)

With the dawn of the day of the Battle of Salamis in ch. 83 of Book 8, Herodotus heightens the tone of his language. An unfortunate result of his more elaborately worked writing has been failure to understand his words, and hence much misplaced editorial intervention. In particular, the words at 8.83.1, προηγρενε εῢ Χοντα μν κ πντων Θεμιστοκλης, have regularly been mistranslated. Powell even wanted to rewrite the Greek here to read: γρευε μν πρó πντων Θεμιστοκλης . Few (...) would wish to follow such a drastic and arbitrary alteration of the transmitted text, but the conjectural emendation highlights the difficulty of understanding Herodotus' words at this point. (shrink)

With the dawn of the day of the Battle of Salamis in ch. 83 of Book 8, Herodotus heightens the tone of his language. An unfortunate result of his more elaborately worked writing has been failure to understand his words, and hence much misplaced editorial intervention. In particular, the words at 8.83.1, προηγρενε εῢ Χοντα μν κ πντων Θεμιστοκλης, have regularly been mistranslated. Powell even wanted to rewrite the Greek here to read: γρευε μν πρó πντων Θεμιστοκλης. Few would (...) wish to follow such a drastic and arbitrary alteration of the transmitted text, but the conjectural emendation highlights the difficulty of understanding Herodotus' words at this point. (shrink)

There was a time, in the late 1970s and 1980s, when great feats were expected of recombinant DNA biotechnology, some verging on the miraculous. According to both business enthusiasts and sober analysts like the U.S. Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, the new techniques of gene splicing would not only lift the drug industry out of its deep scientific and economic rut (characterized by long-declining introduction rates of genuinely novel medicines), but rejuvenate the American manufacturing sector (Chase 1979; Chemical Week 1987; (...) OTA 1984). Once freed by policy interventions to promote academic-industry collaboration, such as the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act, lifesaving drugs locked up in ivory towers would .. (shrink)