800x600 Normal 0 21 false false false RO X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Suicide attack has become a dangerous trend in the contemporary history of some Asian societies. While it has been used by some people as a means of protest, it has been largely rejected by humanity for its severe debilitating effects. Instances of suicide attack can be found in the contexts of the Israel-Palestine conflict, September 11 attacks, Bali bombing, Sunni-Shiite disagreement, struggle of the Tamil Tigers in Sri (...) Lanka, as well as the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan by foreign powers. The recent contours of suicide attacks are basically largely related to various groups or organizations. The paper therefore examines the meaning, brief history, and the causes of suicide attack, and analyzes these within the purview of contemporary Islamic thought which is based on the textual arguments of the Qur'an and Sunnah. The paper concludes that though a tiny fraction of the whole Muslim spectrum tries to justify the suicide attack as a "weapon of the weak", the majority of the Muslim scholars has viewed it as a crime against humanity and therefore vehemently rejects this practice in any form. (shrink)

For years, scholars have claimed that suicide terrorists are not suicidal, but rather psychologically normal individuals inspired to sacrifice their lives for an ideological cause, due to a range of social and situational factors. I agree that suicide terrorists are shaped by their contexts, as we all are. However, I argue that these scholars went too far. InThe Myth of Martyrdom: What Really Drives Suicide Bombers, Rampage Shooters, and Other Self-Destructive Killers, I take the opposing view, based (...) on my in-depth analyses of suicide attackers from Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and North America; attackers who were male, female, young, old, Islamic, and Christian; attackers who carried out the most deadly and the least deadly strikes. I present evidence that in terms of their behavior and psychology, suicide terrorists are much like others who commit conventional suicides, murder-suicides, or unconventional suicides where mental health problems, personal crises, coercion, fear of an approaching enemy, or hidden self-destructive urges play a major role. I also identify critical differences between suicide terrorists and those who have genuinely sacrificed their lives for a greater good. By better understanding suicide terrorists, experts in the behavioral and brain sciences may be able to pioneer exciting new breakthroughs in security countermeasures and suicide prevention. And even more ambitiously, by examining these profound extremes of the human condition, perhaps we can more accurately grasp the power of the human survival instinct among those who are actually psychologically healthy. (shrink)

The past three years saw more suicide attacks than the last quarter century. Most of these were religiously motivated. While most Westerners have imagined a tightly coordinated transnational terrorist organization headed by Al Qaeda, it seems more likely that nations under attack face a set of largely autonomous groups and cells pursuing their own regional aims. Repeated suicide actions show that massive counterforce alone does not diminish the frequency or intensity of suicide attack. Like pounding mercury with (...) a hammer, this sort of top-heavy counterstrategy only seems to generate more dispersed and insidious forms of suicide terrorism. Even with many top Qaeda leaders now dead or in custody, the transnational Jihadist fraternity is transforming into a hydra-headed network more difficult to fight than before. Poverty and lack of education per se are not root causes of suicide terrorism. And Muslims who have expressed support for martyr actions and trust in Osama Bin Laden or the late Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin do not as a rule hate democratic freedoms or Western culture, although many despise American foreign policy, especially in the Middle East. Rising aspirations followed by dwindling expectations – especially regarding civil liberties – are critical factors in generating support for suicide terrorism. The United States, Israel, Russia and other nations on the frontline in the war on terror need to realize that military and counterinsurgency actions are tactical, not strategic responses to suicide terrorism, the most politically destabilizing and psychologically devastating form of terrorism. When these nations back oppressive and unpopular governments this only generates popular resentment and support for terrorism against those governments and their backers. To attract potential recruits away from Jihadist martyrdom – suicide terrorism's most virulent strain - and to dry up its popular support, requires addressing these grievances before a downward spiral sets in where core meaning in life is sought, and found, in religious networks that sanctify vengeance at any cost against stronger powers, even if it kills the avenger. (shrink)

In the past centuries, most Muslims have encountered modern science as a Western import. To avoid being overwhelmed by the military and commercial advantages enjoyed by technologically advanced nations, Middle Eastern Muslim societies had to begin adopting modern knowledge. As westernization started to shape social structures and institutions as well as technologies, conservative Muslim responses to modern science typically became conditioned by the demands of cultural defense. Many Muslim thinkers argued that upholding the religious character of Muslim civilization meant (...) borrowing technology but rejecting the perceived materialism pervading the conceptual frameworks of modern science. This defensive approach remains prominent in present Muslim thinking about science. Almost all religiously oriented Muslim thinkers take harmony between science and Islam for granted, but in practice, conservative Muslims often express deep reservations about the naturalistic perspectives dominating modern science. Especially in the popular literature, religiously motivated distortions of science are common. Darwinian evolution is a particular target of rejection. (shrink)

v. 1. Dualism in the Archaic and Early Classical periods of Greek history -- v. 2. Dualism in the political and social history of Greece in the fifth and fourth century B.C. -- v. 3. Dualism in Greek literature and philosophy in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. -- v. 4. Dualism in the ancient Middle East -- v. 5. A cultural history of Dualism -- v. 6. Dualism in the Hellenistic world -- v. 7. Dualism in the Palestinian-Syrian (...) region during the first century A.D. until. ca. 140 -- v. 8. Gnostic dualism in Asia Minor during the first centuries A.D. (2 v.) -- v. 10. Dualism in Roman history: 1. Imperialistic dualism -- v. 11. Dualism in Roman history: 2. Dualism in interior politics and social life -- v. 12. Dualism in Roman history: 3. The Christian church in conflict with the Roman Empire and with Judaism -- v. 13. Dualism in Roman history: 4. The struggle between orthodoxy and heterodoxy in the early Christian church -- v. 14. Dualism in Roman history: 5. Enemies of the Roman Order -- v. 15. Imperialism in medieval history I : dualism in Byzantine history, 476-638 and dualism in Islam, 572-732 -- v. 16. Imperialism in medieval history II : dualism in German history I -- v. 17. Imperialism in medieval history III : dualism in German history II -- v. 18. The dualism of the Christian and Muslim worlds during the middle ages -- v. 20. Gnostic-dualistic tendencies in the history of medieval Europe -- v. 21. Dualism and non-dualism in medieval theology and philosophy. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 94 Heft: 2 Seiten: 609-611.

© The Author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] the best tradition of Max Weber’s theses on the Protestant ethic and its role in the evolution of modern capitalism Edward Schneier’s book is a daring and inspiring attempt to assess another form of religion’s impact on society. The focus here is on Islam, or, more precisely on the broad range of Islamic political thought and (...) ideals and their impact on democracy in not less than the Islamic world as a whole. Concerned by the heated debates on Islam, violence, and authoritarianism triggered by the terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001, the troubled history of the Middle East since the invasion in Iraq in 2003, and the Arab Spring in 2011, Schneier starts with the question what the resources of ‘Islamic... (shrink)

Suicide attack is the most virulent and horrifying form of terrorism in the world today. The mere rumor of an impending suicide attack can throw thousands of people into panic. This occurred during a Shi‘a procession in Iraq in late August 2005, causing hundreds of deaths. Although suicide attacks account for a minority of all terrorist acts, they are responsible for a majority of all terrorism-related casualties, and the rate of attacks is rising rapidly across the globe. (...) During 2000–2004, there were 472 suicide attacks in 22 countries, killing more than 7,000 and wounding tens of thousands. Most have been carried out by Islamist groups claiming religious motivation, also known as jihadis. Rand Corp. vice president and terrorism analyst Bruce Hoffman has found that 80 percent of suicide attacks since 1968 occurred after the September 11 attacks, with jihadis representing 31 of the 35 responsible groups. More suicide attacks occurred in 2004 than in any previous year, and 2005 has proven even more deadly, with attacks in Iraq alone averaging more than one per day, according to data gathered by the U.S. military. The July 2005 London and Sinai bombings, a second round of bombings at tourist destinations in Bali in October, coordinated hotel bombings in Jordan in November, the arrival of suicide bombings in Bangladesh in December, a record year of attacks in Afghanistan, and daily bombings in Iraq have spurred renewed interest in suicide terrorism, with recent analyses stressing the strategic logic, organizational structure, and rational calculation involved. Whereas they once primarily consisted of organized campaigns by militarily weak forces aiming to end the perceived occupation of their homeland, as argued by University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape in Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, suicide attacks today serve as banner actions for a thoroughly modern, global diaspora inspired by religion and claiming the role of vanguard for a massive, media-driven transnational political awakening. Living mostly in the diaspora and undeterred by the threat of retaliation against original home populations, jihadis, who are frequently middle-class, secularly well educated, but often “born-again” radical Islamists, including converts from Christianity, embrace apocalyptic visions for humanity's violent salvation. In Muslim countries and across western Europe, bright and idealistic Muslim youth, even more than the marginalized and dispossessed, internalize the jihadi story, illustrated on satellite television and the Internet with the ubiquitous images of social injustice and political repression with which much of the Muslim world's bulging immigrant and youth populations intimately identifies. From the suburbs of Paris to the jungles of Indonesia, I have interviewed culturally uprooted and politically restless youth who echo a stunningly simplified and decontextualized message of martyrdom for the sake of global jihad as life's noblest cause. They are increasingly as willing and even eager to die as they are to kill. The policy implications of this change in the motivation, organization, and calculation of suicide terrorism may be as novel as hitherto neglected. Many analysts continue to claim that jihadism caters to the destitute and depraved, the craven and criminal, or those who “hate freedom.” Politicians and pundits have asserted that jihadism is nihilistic and immoral, with no real program or humanity. Yet, jihadism is none of these things. Do we really understand the causes of today's suicide terrorism? Do suicide attacks stem mainly from a political cause, such as military occupation? Do they need a strong organization, such as Al Qaeda? What else could be done to turn the rising tide of martyrdom? (shrink)

“Knowledge” in Islam, Muslim culture and philosophy is considered as the key to understanding Muslim civilization, the formation of which took place in interaction with the cultures of peoples of the eastern and western parts of the former Roman Empire. The Byzantine theology and philosophy were of great importance for the points of contact and mutual enrichment of Muslim and Christian cultures in the Middle Ages, influencing the formation of Christian orthodox doctrine and the worldview of the ethnically (...) diverse peoples of the Byzantine oikumene. The phenomenon of “knowledge” in Muslim culture is presented in the article in connection with some contexts of Byzantine culture. “Knowledge”, as well as the categorical space of Muslim culture as a whole, on the one hand, allows us to understand the spirit of Islam as a phenomenon of religion, culture and civilization, and on the other hand, to determine the role and significance of this space in the formation and development of the main directions of Arab-Muslim philosophy formed in the “golden era” of Islam. The article considers the spiritual attitude to the “search for knowledge” in Islam: in the Koran and the Sunnah. Particular attention is paid to the concept of “knowledge” in the Arab-Muslim culture, while it is noted that written culture, book knowledge and education in general were the property of not only a narrow circle of rulers and religious figures in the Arab Caliphate. Within the framework of the categorical space of the Arab Muslim culture and philosophy, it should be borne in mind that the categories of “knowledge” (‘ilm) and “action” ('amal) constitute an inseparable unity within the framework of the Arab Muslim spiritual tradition in the context of the relationship between “theoretical” and “practical” mind. The role of “knowledge” and “action” within the framework of the Arab Muslim philosophical tradition is considered on the example of the teachings of al-Ghazali, who had a huge impact on the development of philosophy both in the Arab East and the European West. Being a key figure in the spiritual history of Islam and Muslim civilization, al-Ghazali considered knowledge not just as a value, but also as a virtue. An ardent champion of the role of reason, he connected theoretical reason with the understanding of spiritual realities that give us various systems of knowledge called sciences. The area of competence of practical reason, which should be based on the theoretical, al-Ghazali associated with human behavior. Practical reason directs human actions based on the will, based on and guided by a moral ideal. Al-Ghazali’s teachings are considered in notions and terms formed and developed in the Middle Ages within the Arab-Muslim culture and reflecting some meanings of such historical type of philosophical culture as the Greek-Byzantine classical Patristics. Al-Ghazali and the Byzantine Church Fathers shared a philosophical and theological understanding of man in his relation to the Creator and the phenomenon of “knowledge”. (shrink)

This volume combines rigorous empirical and theoretical analyses with political engagement to look beyond reductive short-hands that ignore the historical evolution and varieties of Islamic doctrine and that deny the complexities of Muslim societies' encounters with modernity itself. Are Islam and democracy compatible? Can we shed the language of 'Islam vs. the West' for new political imaginaries? The authors analyze struggles over political legitimacy since the Arab Spring and the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS in their historical and political (...) complexity across the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. Distinguishing multiculturalism from interculturalism and understanding multiple modernities, philosophers in the volume tease out the complexities of civilizational encounters. The volume also shows how the Paris massacres or the Danish caricature controversy do not remain confined to Europe but influence struggles and confrontations within Muslim societies. Gender and Islam are addressed from a comparative perspective bringing into conversation not only the experience of different Muslim countries with Islamic law but also by analysing Jewish family law. (shrink)

It can be said that Westerners have always seen Muslims and Islam as an obstacle to their own existence. They constantly see themselves as superior and try to belittle those who are not like them. The prejudice created by this point of view has prevented them from seeing Islamic civilization. Although many scientists and thinkers have tried to evaluate this accumulation by being influenced by Islamic thought, governments and people have always viewed the issue as such an opposition. This hatred (...) increased even more when Muslims began to conquer the countries of Western (Christian) societies through conquests. The aim of the "Orientalism Research Centers", which was established with the support of the Vienna Church Council, was to make this struggle more systematic by recognizing the Easterners/Muslims instead of understanding them in all their aspects and through the weak sides they could find. Thus, Westerners wanted to place in the Muslim mind The notion they were superior in every field, that Muslims had always been reactionary and that they had to be corrected. In the modern era, the idea that religion is contrary to science and progress and is the source of all conflicts has prevailed in the West. For this reason, it is aimed to create a human and society free from religion and religious.. In the modern era, a secular society experiment was made, people could not be happy. When it comes to the post-modern period, people, whose spiritual and belief aspects were neglected, showed a tendency to turn to religion again with the longing for this. Western governments, politicians and global capitals have resorted to all kinds of remedies to prevent this tendency towards Islam. The construction of Islamophobia has been a concrete proof of this pursuit. The fact that the perpetrators of the September 11 events in the USA and the terrorist attacks in many other western states which is following them, consist of Muslims, has been the pillar of the construction of “Islamophobia” in the West. Capital appetites of global capitals and ancient hostilities have opened the door to direct intervention in Muslim countries with “Islamophobia”. Thanks to Islamophobia, this intervention has been accepted as legitimate in both Western and many Eastern societies. In this study, it is focused on how the “Islamophobia” built into a pragmatic tool is transformed. It has been emphasized that Islamophobia is a legitimate basis for the West to control the energy and oil resources of the Middle East, which has whetted the appetite of the USA. At this point, it has been seen that the West and the USA have achieved their goals to a large extent. However, it was emphasized that in the intervened societies, problems such as poverty, terrorist incidents, ethnic and sectarian divisions, and the masses being forced to migrate could not be solved in the recent past. In this study, an analysis has been made by dealing with a qualitative method, why Westerners behave like this and what they aim with it. (shrink)

Patronage and Poetry in the Islamic World: Social Mobility and Status in the Medieval Middle East and Central Asia. By Jocelyn Shariet. Library of Middle East History, vol. 24. London: I. B. Tauris, 2011. Pp. x + 326. £62.50, $105.

From the annals and historical chronicles it is known that the inhabitants of Ukraine first became acquainted with Islamic culture in the times of Kievan Rus. Diplomats, travelers and traders from the Middle and Middle East and Bulgaria were often visited by Kyiv, which at that time was the capital of the great power. They left historical chronicles, which tell about the lives and customs of Kievan Rus. It was at this time that the first Muslims appeared (...) in Kiev. (shrink)

Is suicide wrong, profoundly morally wrong? Almost always wrong, but excusable in a few cases? Sometimes morally permissible? Imprudent, but not wrong? Is it sick, a matter of mental illness? Is it a private matter or a largely social one? Could it sometimes be right, or a "noble duty," or even a fundamental human right? Whether it is called "suicide" or not, what role may a person play in the end of his or her own life? This collection (...) of primary sources--the principal texts of ethical interest from major writers in western and nonwestern cultures, from the principal religious traditions, and from oral cultures where observer reports of traditional practices are available, spanning Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Oceania, the Arctic, and North and South America--facilitates exploration of many controversial practical issues: physician-assisted suicide or aid-in-dying; suicide in social or political protest; self-sacrifice and martyrdom; suicides of honor or loyalty; religious and ritual practices that lead to death, including sati or widow-burning, hara-kiri, and sallekhana, or fasting unto death; and suicide bombings, kamikaze missions, jihad, and other tactical and military suicides. This collection has no interest in taking sides in controversies about the ethics of suicide; rather, rather, it serves to expand the character of these debates, by showing them to be multi-dimensional, a complex and vital part of human ethical thought. (shrink)

I read Robert Card's recent paper entitled ‘Is there no alternative? Conscientious objection by medical students’ with great interest.1 That Muslim students in America are able to conscientiously object to the cross-gender consultation is somewhat startling. I have just left the Middle East, where I worked as a medical educator for five-and-a-half years , and, to the best of my knowledge, even in the conservative, gender-segregated traditional Muslim culture of the United Arab Emirates, not once did a male (...) or female student refuse to examine a patient of the opposite sex.Several issues, many of which have been described by Padela and del Pozo,2 should be taken into consideration in relation to Muslim students’ conscientious objection to the cross-gender consultation on religious grounds. Although Islam prohibits touching or physical contact by the opposite gender, unless appropriate , in some circumstances, the ‘prohibited becomes permissible’.3 Medicine is one such circumstance. Islam does not …. (shrink)

One of the common refrains in commentary about the Islamic Middle East, especially since September 11, is that Islam needs a Reformation. The assumption is that modernist, tolerant, reformist Muslims are to the fundamentalists as the Protestants of the Christian Reformation were to the medieval Catholic Church. This is very nearly the exact opposite of the truth. The Islamists are reacting against the Enlightenment modernism of the West, which they see as a threat to Islamic culture; but their (...) call for a return to an imagined purer state of Islamic society is analogous to the Protestant goal of freeing Christianity from the worldly compromises and the scholasticism of the Church. Islam does not need a Reformation. The problem is that it’s having one now. What it needs is an Enlightenment. (shrink)

Indonesia has the biggest Muslim population globally, and one of the Islamic beliefs among people of this nation is tarekat, which is sometimes considered as a heretic. Therefore, this article aims to analyse the meaning of diction tarekat according to the Qur’an and its implications for the Buginese community, one of the oldest ethnicities in Indonesia. This is a conceptual and empirical research with the purposive sampling method used to determine the informants from several tarekat leaders and congregations. Data were (...) collected through documentation, observation and interviews and analysed using Miles and Huberman’s qualitative analysis technique. This process consists of data reduction, display and drawing conclusions. The study results showed that, firstly, the word tarekat in the Qur’an indicates the meaning of inner journey and the methods and ways of thinking, acting and behaving. Secondly, to the Buginese community, it implies a spiritual path to a higher level of appreciation towards their God. Thirdly, the meaning of the diction tarekat in the Qur’an has implications for its understanding, which can be seen in the practice of dhikr, spiritual behaviour and the way of life of those implementing these heretics. Contribution: This article enriched the religious belief among Muslims, which scholars rarely uncover. Adherents of Islam in Indonesia have a social and political responsibility regarding religious tolerance within and outside other religions. This proves that Muslims contribute to world peace in Middle-East and South-Eastern Asia. (shrink)

The book evaluates on-going ethical conversations to learn how emotional communication is received, teachings internalized, and a religious world-view brought to life. Exploring how religious values saturate people's consciousness to induce subtle shifts in moral and ethical sensibilities, this book is about people's practices that illuminate how Islam is lived. Based on fieldwork conducted in Ankara between 2010-2016, the study enquires into people's ethical, religious, and moral motivations, through the use of the ethnographic method and "thick description". Conversations and interviews (...) with officials, community leaders, students, entrepreneurs, professionals, and blue-collar workers, were subjected to close scrutiny to foreground societal change and churning. To capture perspectives absent or deliberately overlooked in mainstream public discourse and scholarship, fieldwork was conducted in locations ranging from homes, offices, university dorms, and the shrines of saints. In listening closely to how people talk about their religious practices, the book addresses the question of how Islamic subjectivities are being forged in Turkey. The study unveils how people are pushed to re-think old practices and attitudes in the process of reinterpreting Islam in the light of contemporary concerns. Filling a gap in the literature where micro-level, grounded analyses of culture and society are relatively rare, the book is a key resource for readers interested in anthropology of religion and gender, ethnography, Turkey and the Middle East. (shrink)

While much current research on political Islam revolves around militant Islamism, the genesis of this ideology remains little understood. A System of Life is a pioneering examination of the earliest attempt at a systematic outline of Islamist ideology, namely that proposed in the 1930s and early 1940s by the renowned Indo-Muslim intellectual Sayyid Abu'l-A'la Mawdudi. Hartung reconstructs his thought in the light of the competing ideologies at play at the time, especially his claim to recast Islam as an all-comprehensive, self-contained (...) and inner-worldly system of life. His analysis is embedded in an understanding of the history of ideas that assumed increasingly global dimensions through colonial encounters. By showing how Mawdudi -- depicted as a major protagonist of this development - attempted to align elements of Western philosophical thought with selected traditional Islamic ideas and concepts, 'Islamism' is established as an Islamic contribution to a universalistic notion of modernity. Along with offering a detailed portrayal of Mawdudi's system of thought, Hartung also discusses the reception and modification of his ideas in the Middle East, predominantly among intellectuals of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, and among their imitators in postcolonial South Asia. (shrink)

Western stereotypes often characterize gender relations in Muslim-majority societies as uniformly traditional and patriarchal. Underlying this imagery is a unidimensional understanding of gender ideology as moving along a single traditional-to-egalitarian continuum. In this study, we interrogate these assumptions by exploring variability across and within Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian (MENASA) societies in beliefs related to two regionally salient gender principles: women’s chastity and marital patriarchy. Data from a new online survey of Muslim Facebook users show substantial heterogeneity (...) across and within six MENASA societies in support for these principles. These data also reveal a multidimensional structure, in that societies show different configurations of chastity and marital patriarchy beliefs, and each of these gender principles is influenced by respondents’ religious beliefs and gender status in different ways. Although religious absolutism predicts agreement with both gender principles, piety is associated with support for chastity but not for marital patriarchy. Results also show a clear gender divide in attitudes toward hierarchy in marriage but not with respect to chastity. Findings complicate broad-brush depictions of patriarchy in the region and corroborate previous research on the multidimensionality of gender beliefs and the multifaceted attitudinal influences of gender and religious beliefs. (shrink)

Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East are published as supplement to Der Islam founded in 1910 by Carl Heinrich Becker, an early practitioner of the modern study of Islam. Following Becker's lead, the mission of the series is the study of past societies of the Middle East, their belief systems, and their underlying social and economic relations, from the Iberian Peninsula to Central Asia, and from the Ukrainian steppes to the highlands of Yemen. (...) Publications in the series draw on the philological groundwork generated by the literary tradition, but in their aim to cover the entire spectrum of the historically oriented humanities and social sciences, also utilize textual sources as well as archival, material, and archaeological evidence. Its editors are Stefan Heidemann (Universit t Hamburg, editor-in-chief), Gottfried Hagen (University of Michigan), Andreas Kaplony (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit t M nchen), and Rudi Matthee (University of Delaware). (shrink)

One of the most important facts that the Second Vatican Council has revealed is that the point of the Church is not itself, but to go beyond itself, to be a community that preaches, serves, celebrates, and witnesses to the reign of God with due respect to the text and context. During the past century, the Church of the Middle East experienced the absence of an authentic missionary enthusiasm and the lack of a clear and pertinent theology with which (...) it could face the challenge presented to Christianity by Islam. This challenge resides in its special role and mission before the Muslims, which this paper will further discuss and, in doing so, answer the question, How can the Church of the Middle East try to approach the Muslims in a time of violent Islamic fundamentalism and persecutions, in a region where most of the Christians are opting to remain distant or to emigrate? (shrink)

Nahdhatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah are two moderate Islamic organizations in Indonesia which operate in the area of preaching amar ma’ruf nahi munkar, and enlightenment tajdid, sourced from the Al-Quran and Sunnah. Besides being known as a religious organization, NU and Muhammadiyah are also known as organizations that play an active role in the humanitarian field. The study is based on the premise that religious discourse as a resolution can come in various forms and strategies, even by involving actors from (...) across disciplines and countries. Hence, the purpose of this study was to determine the role of NU and Muhammadiyah organizations in reducing conflict and realizing peace in the Middle East. This research used a qualitative descriptive case study method with NU and Muhammadiyah as research subjects. Miles and Huberman model was used for data analysis which required data collection, data presentation, data condensation, and drawing conclusions. In this study, it was found that in helping to create world peace, NU and Muhammadiyah had done a number of things. In the international arena, NU played a major role in global peace efforts. This role can be seen when NU actively initiated, organized, and led various meetings and conferences and interfaith dialogues. NU also formed the International Conference of Islamic Scholars or the Ulama Conference. and World Muslim Scholars. The role of Muhammadiyah, too, included resolving conflicts in Central Africa, Palestine, and the Rohingya Muslim Conflict. In resolving the Middle East conflict, Muhammadiyah was actively involved in sending aid, for example in the Palestinian conflict, Muhammadiyah formed Muhammadiyah AID. (shrink)

In almost every country in the world there are Muslim communities, numbering over one billion. Much of the Muslims are concentrated in the Middle and Middle East, where there are various political and civic organizations that take an active part in the life of the Islamic world and influence the development of modern society. Among them are organizations that provide regional stability and coordinate interstate relations. These are the League of Arab States, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (...) and several others. International non-governmental organizations, such as the League of the Islamic World, the People's Islamic Congress, and numerous non-governmental religious and political organizations, are constantly active. There are many charitable, educational, cultural or political organizations within the laws of their countries. (shrink)

The relationship between religion and politics is a bone of political contention and a source of deep confusion across the Islam–West divide. When most western liberals cast their gaze on Muslim societies today, what they see is deeply disconcerting. From their perspective there is simply too much religion in public life in the Arab-Islamic world, which raises serious questions for them about the prospects for democracy in this part of the world. This article critically explores the relationship between religion and (...) political legitimacy with a geographical and cultural focus on the Muslim Middle East. The broad historical question that shapes this inquiry is: Why is religion a source of political legitimacy in Muslim societies today while in the West, broadly speaking, religion is a source of disagreement and illegitimacy? (shrink)

Consented autopsy is almost non-existent in the Middle-East where established social and cultural beliefs regarding the procedure might discourage family members from requesting a consented autopsy. Evidence suggests that new information is obtained from consented autopsies. It would not be in the best interest of medicine if social and cultural misconceptions succeed in erasing the existence of consented autopsies entirely.

Muslim Midwives: The Craft of Birthing in the Premodern Middle East. By Abner Giladi. Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. x + 195. $95.

Approximately 15% of couples are affected by infertility worldwide. Subsequently, the use of assisted reproductive technologies is becoming increasingly popular, including the use of donor eggs, sperm and embryos. Despite ongoing ethical debate surrounding gamete donation, this is now a widely accepted practice in Western countries. Assisted reproductive technology is becoming more commonly utilised within the Muslim population; however, gamete donation remains a relatively controversial and taboo topic within this religion. Interestingly, there are significant differences in beliefs between Sunni and (...) Shi’a Muslims. Whilst Sunni Islam absolutely forbids the use of third-party reproductive assistance, Shi’a Islam is somewhat more lenient towards this practice. Reproductive tourism has therefore become prevalent in Shi’a Middle Eastern countries that permit the use of donor gametes in assisted reproductive technologies; however, this continues to evoke a strong bioethical debate, particularly around sperm donation. With the increased influx of reproductive tourism, this is beginning to weaken the regional Sunni Islam ban on the use of donor technologies, questioning the morality of their current beliefs. Consideration of religious beliefs is also crucial for patient-centred care in UK patients treated by the National Health Service for fertility issues. Of note, there is a lack of non-Caucasian donors in the United Kingdom. Reproductive tourism is also becoming increasingly common in the United Kingdom and needs to be considered in terms of future patient management in delivering good obstetric care. (shrink)

Inspired Knowledge in Islamic Thought: Al-Ghazālī’s Theory of Mystical Cognition and Its Avicennian Foundation. By Alexander Treiger. Culture and Civilization in the Middle East, vol. 27. London: Routledge, 2012. Pp. xi + 183. £75, $125.

© The Author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] edited volume is based on the proceedings of an international workshop held in 2009 on the theme of ‘Material Evidence and Narrative Sources’ during the fourteenth annual gathering of the Department of Middle East Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, focused on ‘Interdisciplinary Studies of the History of Islamic Societies’. Fifteen articles seek to (...) integrate material and textual evidence for the medieval and modern Middle East, deliberately adhering to a trend of interdisciplinarity that began in the 1970s, exemplified in the approach of specific studies by Michael Cook, Leor Halevi, Peter Brown, Oleg Grabar, and Jacob Lassner, as well as in the recent publications of the editors, D. J. Talmon-Geller’s Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria: Mosques, Cemeteries and Sermons under the Zangids... (shrink)

Over the years, there are various research on cultural development seen from socio-historical perspective. The uniqueness of Islam in Malay region as it is diverse and open to outside influences is important to be look at; as it differs greatly from "the Islam" that have been practiced in the Middle East. Based on the discussions, the ulemas or Muslim clerics of this region and the Malays themselves have already practiced the supra-madhhab model as proposed by many contemporary scholars. Using (...) Shia influences in the Malay culture, this paper attempt to show how sectarianism within Islam was never entertained by the Muslims in this region. In fact, Shi'ism was so embedded in Malay culture. Although being dominated by Sunnism, most of the Shia doctrines and pillars were widely accepted and embraced. The axiology of Shi'ism in Malay culture reflected in many religious texts, classical literature and cultural events. However, as sectarianism rising in this region, the Shia influence and its axiology slowly eroded and were victimized by unnecessary foreign interventions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.2 (2001) 335-358 [Access article in PDF] Between East and West: Hegel and the Origins of the Russian Dilemma Ana Siljak Nikolai Berdiaev, the eminent twentieth-century Russian philosopher, wrote that the "problem of East and West" was an "eternal" one for Russia. 1 Attempting to make sense of the violent upheavals that shook Russia in 1917, Berdiaev believed that the source of Russian (...) troubles lay in the "inconsistency of the Russian spirit" due to the "conflict of the Eastern and Western elements in her." 2 Russia, he argued, always contained within its wide territory an invisible and shifting border between two continents, and thus Russian society was forever torn between two cultures. Berdiaev insisted that Russia could not discover its true calling or its place in the world until it resolved its internal conflict between East and West. 3Berdiaev was contemplating the course of the nineteenth century, when Russia's geographical destiny had deeply troubled Russian intellectuals. In the late 1830s Russian thinkers began their minute analyses of cultural and historical sources, hoping to determine the essential character of their nation and believing that their research would enable them to predict Russia's future. Often, diverse questions of progress and stagnation, tradition and innovation, and the individual and society were all framed within this overarching problem of East versus West.It is tempting to see this Russian dilemma as longstanding and natural, given Russia's position between two continents. Indeed, many recent scholars have argued that Russian encounters with Asia, taking place within the framework of Russia's territorial expansion eastward, forced Russians to examine their relationships [End Page 335] with the Eastern, Asian world. 4 It is true that European geographers and historians have debated the location of the border between Asia and Europe since the Middle Ages. But before the nineteenth century this ambiguity hardly troubled Russian minds. The Muscovite state of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, for example, was well acquainted with cultures and lands to its East, engaging in trade and diplomatic relations with Muslim Tatars and others. Yet there is little evidence to suggest that Muscovy was concerned about its position between Eastern and Western countries. 5 Even Peter the Great, whom historians have credited for bringing European customs into Russia, was little concerned with the European/Asian divide in Russian culture. For him the most important geographical question was Russia's place among the northern states, and he was particularly obsessed with Sweden as Russia's primary military rival. 6After Peter's reign, educated Russians, as they became increasingly acquainted with Western European culture, experienced their first pangs of envy and self-doubt in the face of perceived European superiority. Nonetheless, throughout the eighteenth century few cultured Russians had trouble embracing a diverse historical legacy and national character--German, Slavic, Asian. After all, Europeans themselves were proud of their barbarian past. Peter the Great's chief historian, V. N. Tatishchev, wrote with full confidence and little concern that the Russian empire was located "in both Europe and Asia," noting that though more Russian people lived in Europe, Russia had more territory in Asia. In passing he mentioned that "where the border between these two large and most important cultures is located, no one has as yet determined for certain." 7 According to him, the Slavic people as a whole could be divided into Asian and European branches, thus both cultures were of importance in Russian history. 8The first of the great nineteenth-century Russian historians, Nikolai Karamzin, was proud of Russia's diverse heritage. Russia, he wrote, [End Page 336] raising its head between the Asiatic and European kingdoms, represented within its civic life the characteristics of these two parts of the world: a mixture of old Eastern customs, brought by the Slavs into Europe and renewed, so to speak, by our long connection with the Mongols; Byzantine customs borrowed by the Russians along with the Christian religion, and some German customs imparted by the Varangians.... 9This cultural "mixture... (shrink)

Public debates depict Arabs as opposed to gender equality because of Islam. However, there may be substantial numbers of Arab Muslims who do support feminist issues and who do so while being highly attached to Islam. This study explains why certain Arabs support feminism while remaining strongly religious. We propose that some Arab citizens are more likely to subvert patriarchal norms, especially in societies that construct Islam and feminism as more compatible. Empirically, we apply three-level multinomial analyses to 51 Arab (...) Barometer and World Values Surveys, which include 57,000 Arab Muslims. Our results show that one in four Arab Muslims supports Muslim feminism—far more than those who support a more secularist version of feminism. Employed women, single people, people who distrust institutions, and more highly educated people support Muslim feminism more than do others—especially in societies that construct feminism and Islam as less contradictory, such as those with strong feminist movements. The presumption that Islam and feminism are necessarily opposed may hinder feminism. A more effective way to boost gender equality in the Arab region may be to embolden emancipatory religious interpretations. (shrink)

This volume reflects the late Norman Calder's own interests and contributions. It includes articles by scholars who are already renowned, like Calder, for their sophisticated and challenging approaches to Arabic and Islamic texts. The papers are on a variety of topics of interest to people in the field of Middle Eastern cultures, and similar in nature to other collections, conference volumes and Festschriften. Also represented are his former students colleagues working in the field of Rabbinic Studies, which informed his (...) own work. Topics include: Transformations of Jewish Traditions in Early Islam: The case of Enoch/Idris, Narrative and Doctrine in the First Story of Rumi's Masnavi, Fiqh for beginners: an Anatolian text on jihad, Research Muslim Minorities: some reflections on fieldwork in Britain, Defective marriages in classical Hanafi law, and Can rights co-exist with religion? (shrink)

This paper provides new theoretical insights into the interconnections and relationships between women, management and globalization in the Middle East (ME). The discussion is positioned within broader globalization debates about women’s social status in ME economies. Based on case study evidence and the UN datasets, the article critiques social, cultural and economic reasons for women’s limited advancement in the public sphere. These include the prevalence of the patriarchal work contract within public and private institutions, as well as cultural and (...) ethical values which create strongly defined gender roles. The discussion examines the complexities of conceptualizing women’s equality and empowerment in Islamic states. The paper reveals that there have been significant achievements in advancing women in leadership and political roles, but that there are still institutional and cultural barriers embedded in business systems. Linking feminist, development and management theoretical strands a development framework is proposed which is sensitive to the Islamic Shar’ia encompassing government, organization and individual level strategies. It is suggested that scholars should integrate literatures from gender and management, development and Middle East studies, and in particular that critical scholars of gender and organization should consider the interrelations of the national and transnational in critiques of contemporary global capitalism to understand the complexity of women and social change in the ME. (shrink)

This article argues that systematic comparative analyses of women's strategies and coping mechanisms lead to a more culturally and temporally grounded understanding of patriarchal systems than the unqualified, abstract notion of patriarchy encountered in contemporary feminist theory. Women strategize within a set of concrete constraints, which I identify as patriarchal bargains. Different forms of patriarchy present women with distinct “rules of the game” and call for different strategies to maximize security and optimize life options with varying potential for active or (...) passive resistance in the face of oppression. Two systems of male dominance are contrasted: the sub-Saharan African pattern, in which the insecurities of polygyny are matched with areas of relative autonomy for women, and classic patriarchy, which is characteristic of South and East Asia as well as the Muslim Middle East. The article ends with an analysis of the conditions leading to the breakdown and transformation of patriarchal bargains and their implications for women's consciousness and struggles. (shrink)

This article examines the methods of urban Muslim scholars of the early Abbasid period in their endeavour to collect information from Bedouin informants. Analogies with the problems of modern anthropological fieldwork are investigated, and the impact of the preconceptions and assumptions that the scholars brought to the field is highlighted. It is shown that mediaeval Muslim scholars’ fieldwork might involve varying activities taking place in different settings, and the term ‘Bedouin informants’ masks quite a variety of individuals claiming some expertise (...) in ‘Bedouin’ culture. The idealised image of a scholar heading for the Arabian deserts to visit genuine nomads and make lengthy inquiries among them might be less typical than is often implicitly thought to have been. On the basis of concrete cases of data-collection, three fundamental assumptions heavily influencing the scholars’ thinking regarding Bedouin culture are identified. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 92 Heft: 1 Seiten: 124-147.

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 93 Heft: 1 Seiten: 320-325.

In 2012–13, we signed up for Facebook in seven Middle East and North Africa countries and used Facebook advertisements to encourage young people to participate in our survey. Nearly 18,000 individuals responded. Some of the questions in our survey dealing with attitudes about women’s work and cosmetics were adopted from a survey conducted by the Frankfurt School in 1929 in Germany. The German survey had shown that a great number of men, irrespective of their political affiliation harbored highly authoritarian (...) attitudes toward women and that one sign of authoritarianism was men’s attitude toward cosmetics and women’s employment. We wanted to know if the same was true of the contemporary MENA. Our results suggest that lipstick and makeups as well as women’s employment are not just vehicles for sexual objectification of women. In much of MENA world a married woman’s desire to work outside the house, and her pursuit of the accoutrement of beauty and sexual attractiveness, are forms of gender politics, of women’s empowerment, but also of antiauthoritarianism and liberal politics. Our results also suggest that piety among Muslims per se is not an indicator of authoritarianism and that there is a marked gender difference in authoritarianism. Women, it seems, are living a different Islam than men. (shrink)