This article compares the rhetorical strategies employed by American and French scientists in the research article introductions published by both research teams during the so-called ‘AIDS War’. The controversy concerned priority rights for the discovery of the AIDS virus. Using Swales’s CARS model as a comparative template, the results indicated that while the Americans proceeded with a deductive, bold and highly elaborated pattern of rhetorical presentation, the French opted for an inductive, more nuanced and unelaborated rhetoric which prioritized the communication (...) of scientific content at the expense of the writers’ attitude and personal perspective. The observed variations can be accounted for on the basis of perceptions of what constitutes appropriate academic style during the debate, audience design, power relationships and the sociopolitics of knowledge production in American and French scientific cultures. The article concludes by exploring the implications of these results for the use of English in the resolution of global research problems across the intercultural continuum. (shrink)

Mu‘tezilî kelâmcıların ortaya attıkları ahlâk nazariyesi Ortaçağ İslâm dünyasında önemli bir yer işgal eder. Bundan dolayı, bu makale bilgi-değer münasebeti sorununa ayrılmıştır. Eş‘arî kelâmcıların aksine, Mu‘tezilîler, bilgi-değer münasebetinden yola çıkmak suretiyle, din gönderilsin ya da gönderilmesin, iyi, kötü ve zorunlu gibi bazı objektif değer terimlerinin akıl kanalıyla bilinebilirliği tezini öne sürmüşlerdir. Mu‘tezilîler, ahlâkî değerler alanında nesnelciliği savunurlar, ancak onların savunduğu ve zorunluluğunu bütünüyle Tanrı’dan alan bu türden bir nesnelcilik anlayışını, deyim yerindeyse, “ilâhî nesnelcilik” diye nitelendirmek mümkündür. Onlarca, değerler daha başlangıçta (...) hem nesneler âlemine hem de insan anlığına sadece Tanrı tarafından yerleştirilmiştir. Mu‘tezilîlere göre, hem akıl hem de nakil iyi ve kötü gibi değer kavramlarını bilme hususunda iki asıl kaynaktır. İşte bu nedenledir ki, Mu‘tezilîlerin savunduğu akıl “kısmî akılcılık”olarak kabul edilebilir. Sonuç itibariyle, Mu‘tezilîlerin ahlâk sisteminde, insanoğlu daha başlangıçta onu yaratırken Tanrı’nın kendisine bahşetmiş olduğu yetkin aklını kullanmak suretiyle erdemli ve ahlâki bir yaşam tarzı sürdürebilir. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper combines insights from Deictic Space Theory and Conceptual Metaphor Theory to analyze the Tunisian President’s inaugural speech following his victory in the October 2019 elections. Detailed critical discourse analysis of the deictic exponents and the metaphorical image schemas employed in the text showed a Manichean opposition between the pure/good people versus the corrupt/evil ‘elites’, nostalgia to a pristine revolutionary moment, a pan-Arab discourse which anchors the Israeli-Palestinian conflict close to the local geography and a radical form of (...) populism, which grounds sovereignty within a transcendent theocratic cosmology. It is suggested that the upsurge of populism in Tunisian politics could be explained by the disenchantment with the deficient and rather ‘fake’ Islamo-nationalist consensus politics, the inappropriate neoliberal policies imposed by fund-raising bodies like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank as well as the fragmentation, if not total erosion, of viable public spaces for rational deliberation and decision-making processes as a result of the ‘digital era.’. (shrink)

Im Fokus der Untersuchungen von Fethi Meskini steht die Frage nach Identität und ihren Bedeutungen und Ausdrucksformen vor, während und nach der Revolution. Er behandelt zunächst die Frage, in welchem Sinne und für wen die jüngsten Revolutionen in Tunesien und Ägypten eine »Überraschung« darstellen. Vor diesem Hintergrund setzt er sich kritisch mit den Strukturen des autoritären Staates auseinander und behandelt dabei das Problem der »Eliten«. Er zeigt darüber hinaus, wie die Revolution aus einer produktiven Unzufriedenheit und entgegen einem eingeübten (...) öffentlichen Schweigen unter der Diktatur entstanden ist und inwiefern sie als ein mikrohistorischer Prozess, der zu einer unabwendbaren positiven Verärgerung wird, zu erfassen sei. Er weist ebenfalls auf die wichtigen Kennzeichen und innovativen Ausdrucksformen des Protests der neuen Revolutionen hin. Dabei betont er, dass die Revolutionen vor allem in Tunesien und Ägypten jenseits der unterschiedlichen politischen und religiösen Identitätsentwürfe »lebenswichtig« seien. Sie lösen sich somit von einer autoritären Politik der Identität, wobei die Frage nach der Postrevolution bzw. nach der Demokratie mit bestimmten Schwierigkeiten behaftet bleibt. (shrink)

This study investigates the discursive construction of the idea of tunisianité in a sample of 41 articles published in the national press in the wake of the Arab Spring. Using analytical categories developed within the discourse-historical approach, the analysis indicates three general, strongly secularist, representations of tunisianité. One of these, which can be called essentialist, claims an unmistakable ethnolinguistic connection to a glorified pre-Arabo-Islamic classicism which goes back to the foundation of Carthage. A second and a more dominant one construes (...) tunisianité in assimilationist terms, that is, Tunisia as a ‘melting pot’ lumping different Eastern and Western ethnolinguistic and cultural traditions. A third emerging, but a marginalized trend in the data, grounds tunisianité within the Enlightenment/revolutionary ideals of Democracy, Dignity and Freedom and warns against its possible disintegration because of its vulnerability to the upheavals of terrorism, corporatism, populism and socioeconomic insecurity. While the third representation is laudable from the perspective of the Revolutionary demands, the dominant nationalist identity discourse remains backward-looking, reactionary and strongly preoccupied with a perceived political invasion by the Islamist-Arabist Other. It is argued that the dominant model of identity politics and the political economy associated with it are incompatible with Tunisians’ aspirations for socioeconomic development and social justice. (shrink)

Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ‘Arabī (d. 638/1240) is regarded as one of the foremost mystical thinkers in Islam. This paper explores the ways in which he and his followers distinguish between the reality of Muḥammad (_al-ḥaqīqa al-Muḥammadiyya_) or the light of Muḥammad (_al-nūr al-Muḥammadī_), as the metaphysical reality of Muḥammad, and his metahistorical manifestation as Muḥammad Ibn ‘Abd Allāh. In his metaphysical reality, Muḥammad is the manifestation of the _qur’ān_, which ‘brings together’ the divine and His creation. Muḥammad’s metaphysical reality, as (...) the primary recipient of the divine outpouring, enables further differentiations of the divine to emerge in the form of the universe, and establishes his connection to the divine. Yet the Qur’an is also temporal in terms of being an historical act of revelation. Likewise, Muḥammad Ibn ‘Abd Allāh, in terms of his physical reality, was temporally circumscribed. It is in these ways, argues Ibn ‘Arabī and his acolytes, that Muḥammad, as reality and personality, brings together the divine and the temporal, in the same manner as the _qur’ān_/Qur’an respectively. (shrink)

In _Knowing God_, Ismail Lala investigates the nature of God and whether we can truly know Him according to the influential mystic, Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn ʿArabī, and his disciple, ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Qāshānī.

Corruption is a widespread global problem that has far reachingnegative consequences on all spheres of life. Muslim-majority countriesare most often ranked as ‘highly corrupt’ by the Transparency InternationalCorruption Perceptions Indexes. Yet the majority of studies about corruptionare predominantly undertaken from a Western perspective. A review of theavailable literature would suggest that it is hard to find a piece of work thatconsiders the problem of corruption from all its theoretical aspects from anIslamic perspective or is exclusively dedicated to examining it from (...) to theperspective of the Qur’ān, Sunnah, or indeed both together. To fill this gap, thispaper is a thematic examination of the problem of corruption according to themain sources of Islam; i.e. the Qur’ān and Sunnah, through which an attemptis made to investigate the main theoretical facets in relation to understandingand tackling corruption. (shrink)

This study is the first part of an attempt to settle a vigorous debate among historians of medieval philosophy by harnessing the resources of analytic philosophy. The debate is about whether Avicenna's epistemology is rationalist or empirical. To settle the debate, I first articulate in this article the three core theses of rationalism and one core thesis of empiricism. Then, I probe Avicenna's epistemology in his major works according to the first core thesis of rationalism (the intuition thesis). In the (...) end, I find Avicenna committed to this thesis in at least one substantive way, namely, in his claim to intuit the intelligible forms or essences. This suffices to count Avicenna as rationalist. In a subsequent article, I shall probe Avicenna's epistemology according to the other two core theses of rationalism, presenting further evidence that he was a rationalist, not an empiricist. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn postcolonial countries the bilingual/bicultural elite played an undeniable role in the propagation of a modernist ideology about the nation and national identity. In Tunisia and in the wake of the so-called Arab Spring, this ideology has been seriously challenged by opposing discourses. Focusing on newspaper articles published by Tunisian Francophones, this article investigates the discursive strategies employed by this group to defend this ideology and its emergent national identity. Analysis is based on an inventory of the referential/predicational strategies developed (...) within the Discourse Historical Approach to represent Self-Other identities [Reisigl, M., & Wodak, R.. Discourse and Discrimination. London: Routledge]. Findings indicated a staunch defense of a de-ethninicized, de-racialized, multilingual and secular Tunisia. Attributes of Arabism/islamism are consistently problematized; they are primitivized, religionized, de-intellectualized and negatively ideologized. By contrast, elements of Frenchness are championed on the basis of the modernist ideology they are thought to uphold. Frenchness is predicated on a continuum of Enlightenment, historicity, aesthetics,, religious reformism and economic progress. This triumphalist rhetoric is, however, undermined by a discourse of language endangerment whereby the Francophiles deplore the possible loss of French in Tunisia. It is argued that while Frenchness will survive as part of Tunisian national identity and discourse tradition due to its strong anchoring in many domains, it seems that this Frenchified modernist identity politics has been transformed into a version which disavows its politicized, contingent and debatable nature. (shrink)

This essay juxtaposes the death of the moral god in Christian Europe (Nietzsche) with the demise of al-millah or the theologico-political community in Islam. This comparative engagement allows for a local (Arab Muslim) and universal rethinking of, inter alia, faith, freedom, and transcendence beyond terrorism and methodological atheism.

ABSTRACT The connection between the unity of God and the multiplicity seen in the universe represents the central concern for the Sufi thinker, Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī (d. 638/1240). It deeply affected the thought of the Southeast Asian mystic, Ḥamza Fanṣūrī (d. 1590?), and his alleged disciple, Shams al-Dīn al-Sumatra’ī (d. 1630). Traces of this idea, through its popularisation in the poems of Fanṣūrī, exert a powerful influence on the Indonesian intellectual topography to this day. This article investigates the concept (...) of unity and multiplicity, of the One expressed as the many in the phenomenal world, in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (Ringstones of Wisdom). Through a close textual reading of the chapters of Ādam (Adam) and Ibrāhīm (Abraham) and their various commentaries by the most influential followers of Ibn ‘Arabī, it concludes that the representation of ‘oneness of being’ (waḥdat al-wujūd), which was extensively taught by Fanṣūrī in Aceh, as an erasure of the God-Man divide, is untenable. (shrink)

Terminal kidney patients are faced with lower quality of life, restricted diets and higher morbidity and mortality rates while waiting for deceased donor kidney transplantation. Fortunately, living kidney donation has proven to be a better treatment alternative (e.g. in terms of waiting time and graft survival rates). We observed an inequality in the number of living kidney transplantations performed between the non-European and the European patients in our center. Such inequality has been also observed elsewhere in this field and it (...) has been suggested that this inequality relates to, among other things, attitude differences towards donation based on religious beliefs. In this qualitative research we investigated whether religion might indeed (partly) be the explanation of the inequalities in living donor kidney transplants (LDKT) among non-European patients. Fifty patients participated in focus group discussions and in-depth interviews. The interviews were conducted following the focus group method and analyzed in line with Grounded Theory. The qualitative data analyses were performed in Atlas.ti. We found that religion is not perceived as an obstacle to living donation and that religion actually promotes helping and saving the life of a person. Issues such as integrity of the body were not seen as barriers to LDKT. We observed also that there are still uncertainties and a lack of awareness about the position of religion regarding living organ donation within communities, confusion due to varying interpretations of Holy Scriptures and misconceptions regarding the process of donation. Faith leaders play an important educational role and their opinion is influential. This study has identified modifiable factors which may contribute to the ethnic disparity in our living donation program. We argue that we need to strive for more clarity and awareness regarding the stance of religion on the issue of living donation in the local community. Faith leaders could be key figures in increasing awareness and alleviating uncertainty regarding living donation and transplantation. (shrink)

: Contemporary Muslim societies suffer from numerous endemicproblems such as corruption, poverty, and gender inequality. In addressingthese problems, scholars tend to consider sociological models, and overlookthe potential of Islamic ethical perspectives. The Islamic sources, particularlythe Qur’an provide pertinent insights on ethics that should be foremost in theminds of those seeking to alleviate social problems in Muslim communities.Essential writings on ethics, particularly Tahdhib al-Akhlāq by Ibn Miskawayh,The Moral World of the Qur’an by Draz, and The Ethico-Religious Conceptsin the Qur’an by Izutsu (...) are major works in this field. This paper elucidates themeaning of Islamic ethics, with an overview from the Qur’an and the viewsof prominent scholars. It then analyses the current major problems in Muslimmajoritycountries and their ethical roots to emphasize the significance of Islamicethics as a source of remedy. This is an interdisciplinary qualitative study,which uses the thematic commentary on Qur’an and ḥemedy methodologies,integrating the methods of sociology and ethics. (shrink)

The night journey (isrā’) and ascension (mi‘rāj) represent arguably the most significant and unique events in the life of Prophet Muḥammad. However, the influential Sufi thinker Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī (d. 638/1240) argues that the Prophet had thirty-four night journeys of which only one was physical. This physical night journey, and the ascension that took place with it, was the one in which he was given the five daily prayers. Ibn ‘Arabī thus employs the secondary night journeys and ascensions of (...) Prophet Muḥammad to delineate a point of emulation between the Prophet’s spiritual experience and those of his nation. Muslims can also have their own ascensions, but their journeys cannot be physical, and, analogously, cannot have autonomous legislative authority. They can, nevertheless, cause a change in their perception that allows them to see the world as it truly is: a manifestation of the divine Names. (shrink)

Moses Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, ed. Rabbi Eliyahu Touger, 18 vols.

Kadim bir dil olan Arapça, İslamiyet’in gelişiyle birlikte kutsal bir kitap olan Kur’an-ı Kerim’in dili olmuş, günümüze kadar varlığını ve önemini korumuştur. Anadili Arapça olmayanlara bu dilin öğretilmesi için farklı coğrafya ve farklı dönemlerde medreselerde veya devletin resmi eğitim kurumlarında Arapça dersleri verilmiştir. Verilen Arapça eğitimlerinde nahiv ve sarf temelli bir eğitim uygulanmıştır. Gramere dayalı bu dil eğitimi İlahiyat veya İslami İlimler fakültelerinde verilen eğitimlerle daha ileri bir seviyeye taşınmaya çalışılmıştır. İlahiyat veya İslami İlimler fakültelerinde verilen Arapça eğitimleri temelde dört (...) beceriyi kazandırma odaklı hazırlanmıştır. Ancak gramer odaklı verilmeye çalışılan Arapça eğitimlerinde hedeflenen başarı elde edilememektedir. Bu araştırmanın konusu, İlahiyat veya İslami İlimler fakültelerinde okutulan Arapça hazırlık eğitiminin değerlendirilmesi ve bu eğitimin kalitesinin arttırılması için yapılması gerekenlerdir. Bu doğrultuda bu çalışmada Bitlis Eren Üniversitesi İslami İlimler Fakültesi %30 Zorunlu Arapça Hazırlık Sınıflarının 2018-2019 Eğitim ve Öğretim Yılında aldıkları Arapça eğitimi model alınmıştır. Hazırlık Sınıflarında Arapça eğitimi alan 90 öğrenciye 33 sorudan oluşan anket uygulanmıştır. Anket sonuçları değerlendirilmiş ve verilen Arapça eğitiminin kalitesi ortaya konulmuştur. Elde edilen sonuçlardan hareketle, verilen eğitimde eksik ve hatalı durumlar tespit edilerek, eğitimin daha kaliteli bir düzeye ulaştırılması için önerilerde bulunulmuştur. Giriş bölümünde İlahiyat veya İslami İlimler fakültelerindeki Arapça eğitimi hakkında bilgiler verilmiştir. Sonrasında çalışmanın amacı, önemi, sınırlılıkları, problemi ve örneklem ortaya konulmuştur. Fakültede uygulanan Arapça hazırlık eğitimi hakkında bilgiler verilmiş ve uygulanan anket çalışmaya eklenmiştir. Son olarak bulgular ve yorumlar verilerek çalışma sonuç ve öneriler ile sonlandırılmıştır. (shrink)

This study explores the ways in which trust deficit undermines anti-corruption initiatives in a context with systemic corruption. Anti-corruption measures as panacea to systemic corruption are not new, but their effectiveness is debatable. Whilst understanding the causal relationship between corruption and trust remains germane to fighting corruption, a growing number of recent studies advocate better context sensitivity in developing anti-corruption initiatives. Consistent with this, we unpack the perceptions of a significant section of the population in which corruption is rampant to (...) identify factors that could enhance trust in the effectiveness of anti-corruption measures. Using commentaries from Nigerian Netizens on two critical corruption incidents that are significant to corporations, we uncover poignant narratives of perception of incompetence, dishonesty and confusion that undermine the anti-corruption measures in the context. We argue that donors, international organisations and businesses must encourage and support beneficiaries’ governments to secure and sustain trust in the anti-corruption initiatives as a condition for better results. (shrink)

This study aims to investigate the experiences and problems of foreign nationals in Turkey, concerning microaggressions. Thus, it was aimed to find out which types of microaggressions -and at what frequency- are experienced by people who come to Turkey for different reasons like education, pursuit of a better life or escaping from war. The study was conducted in five different cities of Turkey. Students from primary school to university, teachers, parents and doctors took part in the study. The participants were (...) asked the single question “Do you ever experience deliberate or undeliberate insults, whether verbal or behavioral, targeting your ethnic identity and diversity in Turkey?” The results of the study show that microaggression is a very serious problem in Turkey. It can be gathered from the findings that Turkish people are not as tolerant to foreign people as they used to be. Behaviors that make people of foreign origin feel like second-class citizens and alienated take place quite often. Foreigners are usually connected with negative occurrences and they are reminded that they are not welcome in this country. These people are also accused of causing many misfortunes in the country. The study also exhibits that foreign nationals suffer greatly from prejudices about their cultures and they become the target of explicit and direct insults particularly regarding their race. (shrink)

Messianism is an integral component of Abrahamic faiths. Yet the emergence of the Messiah is counterbalanced by the Antichrist. Apocalyptic visions of the future in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam...

The coronavirus has brought unprecedented shifts to our world. Fracturing social arrangements, yet evincing also long-time weaknesses therein, the pandemic beckons from us now new forms of organizi...