bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Les Asbāb an-nuzūl : une branche de la tradition prophétique
Authors: Tillschneider Hans-Thomas
Published: February 2014

Résumé

Dans la littérature musulmane, les « asbāb an-nuzūl » prétendent déterminer les circonstances de la révélation des versets coraniques.

Cependant, quand on y regarde de près, on se rend compte que, d’une part la majorité des traditions dites « asbāb an-nuzūl » ne correspondent pas à cet effet, et qu’il existe d’autre part plusieurs types de ces traditions, d’où la nécessité d’établir une distinction entre elles en décrivant chaque type sur un plan synchronique.

En prenant en considération ces deux remarques, il serait possible de réécrire l’histoire de la tradition exégétique de l’islam.
Midrashic Influence on Islamic Folklore: The Case of Menstruation
Authors: Mazuz Haggai
Published: February 2014

Abstract

Islamic sources indicate that Muslims often sought to distance themselves from the Rabbinic Jewish laws of menstruation. A study of Islamic folklore on menstruation demonstrates that Muslim authors have adopted Jewish Midrashim on the subject, with certain alterations. In the following article, I will attempt to examine several Midrashic sources regarding menstruation that may have been absorbed into some Islamic sources. I will further seek to explain the differences between the Jewish and Islamic texts.
The Intellectual Context of Solon’s Dike
Authors: Lewis John
Published: February 2014

Solon is our only primary source for the intellectual context of archaic
Athenian political thought. Dike is central to that context. The primary question of dike is the degree of abstraction it denotes. To Solon dike is neither an abstract principle with metaphysical proportions, nor merely the concrete procedures of dispute mediation.

Solon understands Dike in a polis that is ordered by the thoughts and actions of particular human beings, not by divine dispensations. This re-alignment of political authority from vertical authoritarianism to horizontal citizen relationships is directly related to the views of nature found in the Milesian philosophers. Solon’s dike is immanent from the thoughts and actions of the citizens; it is not a divine power pushing down on the polis.

Solon’s dike has three distinct functions. First, it is the inevitable result of unjust thoughts and actions; this is ‘natural dike’. Second, dike is a process of dispute mediation; this is ‘procedural dike’. Third, dike is a nascent ordering principle in the polis, found in one passage in Solon as distinct from the consequent retribution. Dike is an archaic concept standing for a comprehensive inevitability in the interactions of the citizens.
The Historicity of Plato’s Apology
Authors: Prior William J.
Published: February 2014

Scholars who seek in Plato’s early dialogues an accurate account of the philosophy of the historical Socrates place special weight on the Apology as a source of historical information about him. Even scholars like Charles Kahn, who generally reject this historicist approach to the early dialogues, accept the Apology as a ‘quasi-historical’ document. In this paper I attempt to raise doubts about the historical reliability of the Apology. I argue that the claims used to support the historicity of the Apology (that it was composed close to the trial, that Plato was an eyewitness, and that the large audience at the trial would have inhibited Platonic invention) fall far short of establishing the Apology as an historically accurate record of the trial, and that this conclusion is affirmed even in the words of those scholars who defend the historicity of the dialogue. I urge an interpretation that treats the Apology primarily as a philosophical, not as an historical, document
The Platonic Academy and Democracy
Authors: Wallach John R.
Published: February 2014

From the days of Plato’s Academy, academic life and discourse have operated in tension with political life, and often the political life of democracy. Since World War II, this tension has been read as essentially antagonistic. In this survey of the relationship of the original and subsequent incarnations of the Academy to ancient Athens, republican Rome, and the Florentine city-state, it becomes clear that the tension was, in fact, potentially as much of an asset to democracy as an assault upon it—even as the tension forever remained real. Readings of Plato and versions of the Academy become antagonistic to civic life only when their intellectual posture takes refuge in metaphysical doctrines or political ideologies that bear only marginal connections to the effective argument of Plato’s dialogues or the initial political postures of Academic life.
How Joseph De Maistre Read Plato’s Laws
Authors: Kochin Michael S.
Published: February 2014

Maistre’s Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg is modeled on Plato’s Laws. Plato and Maistre both demand the political control of natural inquiry, and implement these controls through theodictic conversation. Maistre, following the lead of Plato’s legislator, publishes an exemplary conversation about providence between a young man tempted by an atheistic Enlightenment and two older, wiser, and more learned men of affairs. Maistre defends providentialism from materialist interpretations of natural science even as Plato defended it from ancient materialism.
‘Second-Hand Superiority’: Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve and the English
Authors: Briggs Ward W.
Published: February 2014

The attitude of the American classical scholar Basil L. Gildersleeve toward the English may be taken as typical of Americans over the period of his long life. A native of Charleston, South Carolina, a city with deep economic and cultural ties to England, he found his youthful admiration for British scholarship offset by the sufferings of his ancestors in the Revolution and the War of 1812. At mid-century the allegiance of many American intellectuals had switched from England to Germany, viewed idealistically as a place of pure intellectual discovery and artistic creativity. British amateurism held little interest for those who were building the first American research institutions in the 1880s, but as the FirstWorldWar approached, the deficiencies of the German system and the exciting work being done by those around Jane Harrison and Gilbert Murray brought Gildersleeve back to the respect for humane British scholarship that he had learned in his youth in Charleston.
Rhetoric and the Defence of Philosophy in Plato’s Gorgias
Authors: Smith Thomas W.
Published: February 2014

In his Gorgias, Plato is not merely concerned with criticizing Sophists, tyrants, or immoral uses of rhetoric. Rather he explores the harmful consequences of living without loving wisdom. A large part of the dialogue is devoted to pointing out the difficulties associated with practicing philosophy as a way of life. These difficulties are so great that the best way of arguing for its practice is to dramatize the harmful consequences inherent in rival ways of life that deny the need for wisdom. Thus the Gorgias explores the harmful effects of Callicles’ denial of his need for wisdom. Socrates shows that Callicles does not know what he wants or needs. Instead of letting his awareness of ignorance blossom in love of wisdom, however, Callicles pursues power. Yet this love of power leads to disharmony and turmoil. In the Gorgias, Plato’s rhetorical defence of philosophy amounts to this: the only thing more difficult than living with the love of wisdom is living without it.
The Morality of Wonder: A Positive Interpretation of Socratic Ignorance
Authors: Green Jeffrey
Published: February 2014

This essay argues that there are several positive aspects of Socratic ignorance which have received insufficient scholarly attention: that Socrates’ claim not to have knowledge of the ‘highest things’ raises the possibility that there is a body of truth to be discovered along these lines; that this possibility invigorates Socrates with a sense of wonder; and that several specific moral requirements can be generated from wonder and the knowledge of one’s ignorance.
Aristotle’s Defensible Defence of Slavery
Authors: Simpson Peter
Published: February 2014

This article is an attempt to break down Aristotle’s arguments in favour of slavery into what I take to be their constituent premises and conclusions, to set these out schematically in syllogistic form, and to display both how each of the arguments works on its own and how all of them fit together to form one overarching argument. The purpose of this exercise is to make as evident as possible the structure, coherence, and validity of Aristotle’s reasoning. This is something that is lacking in scholarly treatments of Aristotle on slavery, few of which make a serious attempt to engage with the details of Aristotle’s text.My conclusion is that Aristotle’s argument is not only valid but, on the assumption of his virtue theory, sound as well.
Ernest Barker and Greek Political Thought: Plato
Authors: Taylor Quentin
Published: February 2014

For much of the twentieth century Ernest Barker was the most frequently cited authority on Greek political thought in the English-speaking world. The centenary of his first publication, The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle, provides a fitting occasion to commemorate his seminal and enduring contribution to the subject. In the first of two articles, I explore Barker’s treatment of Plato, particularly as a foil for developing his own synthetic brand of neo-idealism. With a focus on the Republic, Barker crafts an erudite yet lively account that leaves little of Plato’s political thought left standing. Yet for all this damning criticism, Barker remained under the ‘spell of Plato’ insofar as he saw in his organic and ethical conception of the polis a foundation for the state far superior to the mechanical and legalist orientation of classical liberalism. In fine, Barker provides an engaging, if occasionally anachronistic reading of Plato’s politics, one marked by an eclecticism and ambivalence that would characterize his own political commitments over the course of a long career.
Ernest Barker and Greek Political Thought: Aristotle
Authors: Taylor Quentin
Published: February 2014

Ernest Barker is best remembered for his study of Plato and his Predecessors (1918), yet his early efforts to mine Greek political theory for relevant insights centred on Aristotle.While not as original as his teacher, Aristotle represents a significant advance in political science, first, by avoiding Plato’s extremes, second, by forwarding a naturalistic and ethical vision of civic life, and finally, by adopting a pragmatic approach to improving ‘deviant’ regimes. Both thinkers serve as a foil for exposing the shortcomings of modern politics, particularly the atomistic individualism of Hobbes, Locke, and Bentham. Unlike Plato, Aristotle exhibits an ‘English spirit’ of compromise, moderation, and balance, although from a distinctly Burkean perspective. Barker’s sympathies did not, however, blind him to the ‘reactionary’, ‘primitive’, and ‘illiberal’ aspects of Aristotle’s teaching. His failure to reconcile these discordant elements—culminating in a quixotic call for an ‘aristocratic democracy’ — merely echoed the ambiguity and equivocation that marked his treatment of Plato. Barker maintained a grudging respect for Plato, but knew he was politically incorrigible. Aristotle showed farmore promise, but in the end could not be made to fit the mould of the Edwardian progressive.
Aristotle and the Law Courts
Authors: Mirhady David C.
Published: February 2014

In the Politics, Aristotle recognizes participation in law courts as an essential element in citizenship, yet there has been relatively little scholarship on how he sees this participation being realized. References to law courts are sprinkled widely through the Politics, Rhetoric, and Ethics, as well as the Athenaiôn politeia, where their importance is revealed most clearly. Ernest Barker took great pride in the English administration of law: if he had returned to write a more thorough treatment of Aristotle’s political thought, he might well have focused on the courts.
Ernest Barker and the Classical Tradition: Two Studies
Authors: Todd Robert B.
Published: February 2014

This paper first traces the general influence of Ernest Barker’s undergraduate training in Oxford’s School of Literae Humaniores on his later work on ancient political thought, and in particular shows how Idealism conditioned his view that the major ancient texts were perennially relevant and also applicable to practical affairs. The second part of the paper is based on a letter that Barker wrote to E.R. Dodds in 1953 critical of Dodds’s negative perspective in The Greeks and the Irrational on the religious culture of the early centuries of the Roman Empire. This document offers a revealing insight into the gulf between Barker’s Christian values and optimistic view of the evolution of the classical tradition and Dodds’s pessimistic secularism, which had its theoretical basis in ideas drawn from social psychology which Barker had always despised.
Law and Nature in Protagoras' Great Speech
Authors: Shortridge Andrew
Published: February 2014

Reading Protagoras’ Great Speech as an honest statement of that Sophist’s beliefs, it is argued that nowhere therein does Protagoras make any appeal to an antithesis of nomos (law) and phusis (nature). This paper argues that Protagoras understands civic virtue as the result of a process of socialization that works on existing predispositions to be virtuous, that are naturally possessed by each individual citizen. On Protagoras’ analysis, prudence and virtue might sometimes conflict, and it is tempting to think that this conflict might be cognate with that of nature and law. However, this is not the case, since prudence and virtue do not seem on Protagoras’ account to be always and everywhere opposed. Hence, nowhere in his Speech does Protagoras make any clear appeal to a nomos-phusis antithesis.
Persuasion and Compulsion in Plato’s Laws 10
Authors: Mayhew Robert
Published: February 2014

There is a greater use of the language of persuasion in Plato’s Laws than there is in the Republic. Christopher Bobonich has recently offered powerful arguments (against the claims of Popper, Morrow and others) for the view that this difference is a sign that the Laws is less authoritarian than the Republic, and that Plato in the Laws is more concerned with the freedom of the individual. In the present paper, it is demonstrated that this interpretation of the Laws cannot account for what Plato says in Book 10 (which discusses the nature of the gods, and impiety). This article first examines four passages from Laws 10 that reveal a different picture than the one Bobonich champions, and then argues that the context for Plato’s statements on persuasion — the political philosophy of the Laws generally—actually makes genuine rational persuasion impossible, whatever Plato actually says about its nature and value.
Erôs, Hybris and Mania: Love and Desire in Plato’s Laws and Beyond
Authors: Moore Kenneth Royce
Published: February 2014

The themes of hybris, erôs and mania are interconnected in Plato’s final opus, the Laws, regarding his narrator’s construction of sexually accepted norms for his ‘second-best’, utopian society. This article examines this formulation, its psychological characteristics and philosophical underpinnings. The role and function of his social programme are considered in the context of the Laws and the hypothetical polis outlined therein. However, this particular formulation is not a new development in later Platonic thought. It is, rather, a logical extension of earlier Platonic ideas, expressed in a number of previous dialogues, and brought to bear in the peculiar circumstances of the ‘second-best’ polis. This can be especially observed in relation to the Symposium and Phaedrus. Instead of regarding the construction of sexuality in the Laws as a work in isolation, these earlier ideas are here considered intertextually as part of a broader Platonic continuum.
Natural and Divine orders: The Politics of Sophocles’ Philoctetes
Authors: Drake Drake
Published: February 2014

A closer look at the character of Odysseus in the opening passages of the Philoctetes reveals a more nuanced psychology of guilt and justification than commentators have thus far appreciated in the cunning hero’s role. This paper examines the relations of sympathy (oiktos) between Odysseus, Neoptolemus, and Philoctetes as a way of entering into the complicated political drama of the work. Conceiving politics in the Philoctetes as a hybrid construction of the demands of nature (including the phenomenon of sympathy) and the demands of the gods, this study provides a reading of Sophocles’ play as an observation of the necessity for political regimes to efface the very conditions of sympathy that made them possible in the first place. On this reading, Sophocles’ tragedy is to be seen as an explorarion of the damage incurred by individuals when such effacement takes place.
Socrates’ Response to the Divine in Plato’s Apology
Authors: de Lara Emma Cohen
Published: February 2014

Several recent interpretations of Plato’s Apology of Socrates portray Socrates as on a divine mission. Socrates, following his friend Chaerephon’s encounter with the Delphic oracle, would be obeying a divine command by living the examined life. This is odd because, as we know from the text, the oracle does not specifically tell Socrates what to do or how to do it. This paper argues that Socrates’ pursuit of the examined life is his reasoned and personal response to the oracle, which he accepts as divine but which does not provide him with any specific commands. Socrates is portrayed as providing a reasoned, not religiously inspired, response to the divine. As as result, there is no reason to doubt the compatibility of Socrates in the Apology with Socrates in the other dialogues, as some scholars have argued.
Revisiting the Controversial Nature of Persuasion in Plato’s Laws
Authors: Buccioni Eva
Published: February 2014

This paper revisits the scholarly controversy about the nature of persuasion in Plato’s Laws. So far scholars have identified the nature of this persuasion in often conflicting ways, e.g. from ‘lying propaganda’ (Popper 1945) and ‘enchantment’ (Morrow 1953) to ‘sermon preaching’ (Stalley 1983 and 1994; and Yunis 1996, respectively), or even as ‘rational persuasion’ (Bobonich, 1991 and 2002). Rather than proposing yet another identification, this paper shows that the nature of the persuasion envisioned by the Athenian lawgiver becomes evident once the divergent scholarly views are brought together into one idea. The seed to this reconciliation was contained in the debate all along but has not been sufficiently fore-grounded. A close examination makes evident why such persuasion appears to different readers to be of a vastly different nature. It employs, indeed, a variety of linguistic means geared towards a variety of different people at different times in their lives.
Earthborn from the Same Mother: Another Look at Elements of Equality Within Plato’s Political Vision
Authors: Hammond Scott John
Published: February 2014

This paper examines questions regarding the nature of and need for a certain species of equality within the overall design of Plato’s prescriptive political philosophy, with particular reference to the Republic and Laws. A common, traditional, reasonable and yet incomplete interpretation of Plato relies on the notion that Plato’s political theory and, more particularly, his prescriptions for the city of speech (kallipolis of the Republic) and the second best city (Magnesia of the Laws) rest on an abiding belief in the need for social inequality and political hierarchy, and thereby rejecting in the essence of things equality as a viable political concept. But perhaps a second look at Plato is in order here. This essay attempts to explore those elements of Plato’s conceptual and prescriptive theory that reflect a different attitude toward hierarchy, one that cannot be regarded as egalitarian in any modern sense of the word, but that might evince a facet of Plato that is at the very least open to the possibility of a more egalitarian view of politics and at most directed at promoting a more egalitarian politics that has been largely unrecognized by many of Plato’s readers and overlooked by most of his commentators.
Spartan Justice: The Conspiracy of Kinadon in Xenophon’s Hellenika
Authors: Gish Dustin A.
Published: February 2014

Xenophon presents his perplexing account of the conspiracy of Kinadon and its suppression in the midst of his portrait of Spartan imperial power at its zenith in the Hellenika. While the political relevance of this conspiracy has long been assumed by scholars, the labyrinthine structure of Book III obscures the centrality of the account in Xenophon’s examination of Spartan imperialism and Spartan justice. Attention to the details in the conspiracy account and its place within the narrative reveals the source of corruption and decline inherent in the Spartan regime: an unexamined, and fatally deficient, view of justice as a virtue. Imperialism is not the cause but a symptom of the corruption rooted in fundamental defects of the Spartan constitution. Thus understood, the account of Kinadon’s conspiracy in the Hellenika constitutes a compelling critique of Spartan justice and helps to establish the overarching Socratic character of Xenophon’s political thought.
Xenophon’s Poroi and the Foundations of Political Economy
Authors: David Lewis John
Published: February 2014

In the Poroi, Xenophon’s radical solution to Athens’ financial problems includes several ideas vital to the field of political economy. His identification of justice with the pursuit of wealth provides an alternative to the power politics that for half a century had taken Athens into a series of self-destructive imperial wars. He supports his idea of economic growth with arithmetic calculations, and he connects the results to traditional Greek views of public rewards and benefits. From this he crafts a goal-directed strategy for economic growth designed to foster good will through incentives rather than coercion. This brief commentary on the text (in translation) shows how Xenophon’s positive claims are based not on a modern demand-side conception of economic stimulation, but rather on building productive capital. He is a proto-Saysian, not a Keynesian. Xenophon’s proposals range beyond the polis into a pan-Hellenic vision of increasing trade that is centred on Athens, monetized with Athenian coinage, and idealized into the common peace that the Greeks had so long desired but so little achieved.
Being a Good Ruler in a Deviant Community: Aristotle’s Account of the Polity
Authors: Irrera Elena
Published: February 2014

In Politics III, 4.1277a15–16 Aristotle presents phronēsis as the characteristic excellence of the good ruler. Difficulties arise when we consider that, on his view, a good ruler should always be loyal to his constitution (Politics V, 9.1309a34), even when its prescriptions are contrary to moral goodness. This paper investigates the condition of a wise ruler in imperfect communities by attempting to answer the following questions: (i) Would a wise ruler be capable of retaining his practical wisdom in a deviant community and stay loyal to the constitution? (ii) Can the quality of any deviant polis be improved by the ruler’s practical wisdom without losing its distinctive nature? It is argued that Aristotle believes in the possibility of improving a deviant constitution compatibly with its preservation, and that such a possibility does not undermine the ruler’s practical wisdom. The only one constitution that leaves this possibility open is the polity.
Tēn Tou Aristou Doxan: On the Theory and Practice of Punishment in Plato’s Laws
Authors: Trelawny-Cassity Lewis
Published: February 2014

The penal code of the Laws has attracted scholarly attention because it appears to advance a coherent theory of punishment. The Laws’ suggestion that legislation follow the model of ‘free doctors’, as well as its discussion of the Socratic paradox, leads one to expect a theory of punishment that recommends kolasis and nouthetēsis rather than timōria In practice, however, the Laws makes use of the language of timōria and categorizes some crimes as voluntary. While the Laws provides a searching criticism of contemporary Greek penal practices rooted in anger and retribution, Kleinias’ dramatic participation in the discussion forces the qualified inclusion of these common beliefs.While the Laws provides a philosophic intervention intended to reform the injustices of contemporary penal practices, it ultimately suggests that educated doxa, not theoretical completeness, is the proper standard for establishing a workable penal code.
Xenophon’s Socrates and Democracy
Authors: Gray Vivienne J.
Published: February 2014

This article surveys Xenophon’s evidence for Socrates’ views on democracy. It offers a more balanced and complete reading of the evidence in Xenophon’s Memorabilia, and takes account of new ways to assess the definition of what is democratic. It argues that Xenophon’s basic image of Socrates is democratic (dēmotikos) in the broadest sense through an investigation of topics such as Socrates’ attitudes towards democratic laws, and the use of dokimasia and the ballot, as well as his views on oligarchic and democratic regimes of his time, the ‘royal art’ of rule, the assembly and its decisions, and the role of the wealthy in democracy. It also argues against the general view that Xenophon’s own views on democracy as expressed in his other works show no support for democracy.
Socrates’ Pragma and Socrates’ Toughness: On the Proper Translation of Apology 30B 2–4
Authors: Samad Joy
Published: February 2014

The translation of Apology 30b 2–4 has long been controversial. The standard translation of this sentence reveals a Socrates who wants to highlight a problem about virtue by making an extremely optimistic statement about it; the alternative translation supported by Myles Burnyeat and Christopher Rowe (on philosophical grounds) would suppress the problem by appearing to resolve it. A detailed examination of Socrates’ speech at 28b–31c, defending the nobility of his Delphic activity, finds fault with the resolution proposed by Burnyeat and Rowe, shows how Socrates’ speech is informed by his clear awareness of human hopes for virtue, highlights his clarity about his situation, and addresses the question of the character of the Socratic virtue or toughness that is the by-product of his activity.
Empty Esotericisms: Doctrines of Secret Writing and the Politics of a Platonic Code
Authors: Walsh Sean Noah
Published: February 2014

The aim of this article is to address the recently renewed debate pertaining to esotericism, secret messages encoded within writings from antiquity, especially in the writings of Plato. The question of esotericism has assumed a prominent role within debates concerning the history of political thought. Ever since Leo Strauss offered his suspicion that there were secrets ‘buried in the writings of the rhetoricians of antiquity’, the idea that philosophers deliberately concealed their true beliefs in a way that few could detect has been fiercely debated. More recently, the research of J.B. Kennedy has made international headlines for discovering a musical pattern embedded within Platonic writings, a pattern that Kennedy insists is evidence of Plato’s Pythagorean allegiance. The theses proffered by Strauss and Kennedy are empty doctrines of esotericism, or empty esotericisms. These doctrines insinuate the presence of secret or coded writing within Platonic dialogues but reveal no actual secret. These theses of esotericism falsely represent Plato as hyper-cryptic.Without actually providing substantive content, these notions of esotericism compel the reader to merely negate the exoteric writings of Plato, which actually render his already heterodox writings as commonplace and orthodox.
Comic Authority in Aristophanes’ Knights
Authors: Lombardini John
Published: February 2014

This article investigates the relationship between comic speech and political authority in democratic Athens through a reading of Aristophanes’ Knights. The article surveys three different interpretations of how Aristophanes constructs the authority of his comic persona in the play: (1) he contrasts comic speech with rhetorical speech to illustrate the superiority of the former (comic superiority); (2) he reflexively reveals to the audience the potential deceptiveness of comic speech (comic reflexiveness); and (3) he mocks his own claims to authority through the construction of a comically boastful persona (comic anti-authority). It is argued that the final two readings best capture the spirit of Aristophanic comedy, pointing to an affinity between the comic authority constructed by Aristophanes and the democratic conception of authority in operation in classical Athens.
Casey Perin’s The Demands of Reason
Authors: Brennan Tad
Published: February 2014

The Demands of Reason: An Essay on Pyrrhonian Scepticism. By Casey Perin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. 130. ISBN 978-0-19-955790-5.
The Emergence of the Ẕahabiyya in Safavid Iran
Authors: Anzali Ata
Published: February 2014

Abstract

This article revisits some aspects of the commonly accepted scholarly narrative about the early historical development of the Barzishābādi offshoot of the Kubrawi order in Safavid Iran, a Sufi community better known in later sources as the Ẕahabiyya.1 My research focuses primarily on eleventh/seventeenth-century developments, and my examination of published and unpublished primary sources, some of which have not previously been taken into account, inclines me to suggest two major revisions to the standard scholarly narrative. First, the term Ẕahabiyya was not adopted as a proper designation for this Sufi order until the late eleventh/seventeenth century. Second, the official spiritual lineage of the order (the mashīkha), is likewise a late eleventh/seventeenth-century construction, a product of the joint efforts of the Ẕahabi master Muʾaẕẕin Khurāsānī (d. 1078/1668) and his disciple, Najīb al-Dīn Zargar Iṣfahānī (d. ca. 1108/1696–7). I examine the adoption of the designation Ẕahabiyya and the construction of a spiritual lineage and show how they intersect with a fascinating process of identity formation undergone by this Sufi order as it adapted to transformations in the religious landscape of Safavid Iran.
The Heart of Wang Daiyu’s Philosophy: The Seven Subtleties of Islamic Spiritual Physiology
Authors: Petersen Kristian
Published: February 2014

Abstract

The True Explanation of the Orthodox Teaching (Zhengjiao zhenquan 正教真詮), published in 1642 by Wang Daiyu 王岱輿 (ca. 1590–1658), is the oldest extant text in the Han Kitab, a Sino-Islamic canon. This literature employed Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist language and imagery to explain Islamic thought. Wang was a pioneering figure in the institutionalization of this distinct Sino-Islamic discourse and crystallized much of the terminology used throughout subsequent Han Kitab literature. In the Zhengjiao zhenquan, Wang analyzes the spiritual nature of the heart, dividing it into three aspects and seven levels. These seven levels are correlative of the classification of subtleties (laṭāʾif ) or stages (aṭwār) developed by authors affiliated with the Kubrawi Sufi order. In this article, Wang’s spiritual taxonomy is analyzed in comparison with delineations of the multiple levels of the heart determined by Najm al-Dīn Rāzī (d. 1256) and Nūr al-Dīn Isfarāyīnī (d. 1317). Through a close reading of the sources I establish the intellectual influences from these authors’ thought on Wang’s explanation of Islam. By doing so we begin to determine the various sources for Sino-Islamic thought and determine an exact lexical register of Chinese language Islamic literature.
Trends in the Western Historiography of the United States’ Occupation of Germany
Authors: Lovelace Alexander G.
Published: February 2014

This article examines the historiography of the U.S. Army’s occupation of Germany after World War II and how historians have portrayed the event in North-American literature. It argues that the central question dividing American historians is whether the U.S. occupation was too lenient or too harsh. This split began at the end of the war with Allied leaders divided between a harsh occupation of the Reich and containing the Soviets. This historiographical essay traces this, and other trends, in how historians have viewed the occupation.
Testing Amici Curiae in International Law: Rules and Practice
Authors: Crema Luigi
Published: February 2014

Amici curiae are persons interested in a trial but not party to it that submit an unsolicited written brief or make an oral statement before the bench. The widespread possibility to submit amicus curiae briefs in international courts and tribunals is a recent phenomenon. Traditionally international procedures did not allow this kind of intervention. The purpose of this paper is to take stock of this evolution and assess the functioning of the new procedures. It does this by looking comparatively at several courts and tribunals, in order to get a picture of the commonalities and common problems surrounding this general development. Two sets of questions are considered, the first centered on issues of transparency and public participation, the second on the rights of the parties. Among the elements that deal with public participation, the paper examines the clarity of the procedures, the equality of the treatment of all the interested entities, the conditions and reasons for accepting or refusing the proposed amici, and the inclusion of the amici submissions in the text of the final decision. The other set of questions, concerning the rights and interests of the parties to the dispute, includes their role in the submission phase and their interest in efficient proceedings. In answering these questions, serious issues of transparency, publicity, and the political role of states acting as amici emerge. The paper concludes that further reflection is necessary on the origins of these problems, but that a first, important step can be achieved by addressing these procedural issues.
Universal Fascism and its Global Legacy. Italy’s and Japan’s Entangled History in the Early 1930s
Authors: Hedinger Daniel
Published: February 2014

In the early 1930s, fascism emerged as a global phenomenon. In Europe, Mussolini’s Italy was the driving force behind this development, whereas in Asia the center of gravity lay in the Japanese Empire. But the relationship between Japan and the mother country of fascism, Italy, in the interwar period has been hardly examined. The following article thus focuses on the process of interaction and exchange between these two countries. Moreover, the question of Japanese fascism has previously been discussed from a comparative perspective and thereby generally with a Eurocentric bias. In contrast, this article adopts a transnational approach. Thus, the question under consideration is not whether Japan ‘correctly’ adopted Italian Fascism, so to speak, but rather the extent to which Japan was involved in the process of fascism’s globalization. I will show that the pattern of influence in the early 1930s was certainly not limited to a single West-East direction and that fascism cannot be understood as a merely European phenomenon. This article begins by describing the rise and fall of universal fascism in the period from 1932 to 1934 from a global perspective. It secondly explores the legacies of fascism’s global moment and its consequences for the subsequent formation of the Tokyo-Rome-Berlin Axis when, following the end of an utopian phase, a more ‘realistic’ phase of global fascist politics began, with all its fatal consequences.
‘We Will Never Leave.’ The Reale Accademia d’Italia and the Invention of a Fascist Africanism
Authors: Rota Emanuel
Published: February 2014

At the beginning of November 1938 the Reale Accademia d’Italia, the official cultural institution of the Italian Fascist regime, organized a conference on Africa. Mussolini himself had chosen the theme for the conference and major Italian political figures, such as De Vecchi and Balbo, delivered papers, together with French, English and German politicians and scholars. The conference, organized in the same year of Hitler’s visit to Italy and of the introduction of the new racial laws, could have offered the cultural justification for a foreign policy alternative to the German turn taken by the regime. Only Mussolini’s last minute decision not to attend transformed the Convegno Volta on Africa from a potential alternative foreign policy into a forum where the dissenting voices within the regime voiced their opposition to German style racism.
Northern Europe and the Arctic Agenda: Roles of Nordic and Other Sub-Regional Organizations
Authors: Bailes Alyson J.K. , Ólafsson Kristmundur Th.
Published: February 2014

Abstract

Aside from the Arctic Council itself, a number of inter-governmental neighbourhood groupings – here defined as ‘sub-regional’ – have mandates covering at least part of the European High North. This paper asks how far the issues on the emerging Arctic agenda are addressed, in practical and/or policy terms, by such multilateral entities as the Nordic Council, Nordic Council of Ministers, Barents Euro-Arctic Council, Northern Dimension of the European Union, and Council of Baltic Sea States. Do these groups play conscious and helpful roles in tackling specific Arctic challenges, supporting a cooperative approach, and/or building joint Arctic policy platforms for their members? If not, do the explanations lie in the nature and limited competences of ‘sub-regional’ governance; in a lack of coordination, divisions and discrepancies between the bodies in question; or in an absence of political will? The need and scope for improvements are finally addressed against the wider political and institutional backdrop of the Arctic.
Iceland: A Small Arctic State Facing Big Arctic Changes
Authors: Cela Margrét
Published: February 2014

Abstract

Iceland is one of eight member states of the Arctic Council and claims to be the only sovereign state that is entirely located in the Arctic. Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that the region has gained a priority status in Iceland’s foreign policy. The developments in the Arctic will inevitably affect the country in one way or the other. This paper is divided into three sections; the first one discusses recent internal and external developments. The second section is about three different aspects of security, traditional, human and environmental, and furthermore, discusses those types of security in Icelandic context. The last section is on Iceland’s priorities in the Arctic, which are then measured against Lassi Heininen’s policy fields or indicators, and Arctic solutions presented by Alyson Bailes. Main conclusions are that even though Iceland has been going through challenging times in the resent years, the Arctic still remains somewhat a priority area, policy wise, and the Icelandic priorities, for the most part, fit within the frameworks of Arctic solutions and the policy fields they are measured against.
Arctic Security – Global Dimensions and Challenges, and National Policy Responses
Authors: Heininen Lassi
Published: February 2014

Abstract

Stability and decrease of military tension are relevant in the new Northern order which replaced the confrontation of the Cold War period. This was a conscious choice by the Arctic states. In the international system with constant regional wars and the fight against terrorism this is an achievement – it would be possible to have another kind of order. In the 2010s this order is in a test, when the Arctic and its natural resources, as well as options to them, have become a target of growing global interest. The ongoing multifunctional change and geopolitical shift from a periphery into global has also meant changes in Arctic security environment and governance: Stability is not threatened by the military presence and the deployed nuclear weapon systems but more by rapid climate change and its environmental and socio-economic impacts. Everyday security of the people is threatened. Energy security has become a new discourse of Northern security. The strategic position of the region’s natural resources may create new tension, and economic and political competition. Followed from this, and concentrating on Arctic security, there are new dimensions and challenges, which require new and more global political responses. This article opens with a brief, theoretical discussion on how security is (re)defined, and how different security concepts are implemented. Second, it describes and defines a state of Arctic security by using three methods. Finally, the article studies and discusses national strategies and policies of the Arctic states regarding how they (re)define security and respond to the global and regional security challenges.
An International Polar Code of Navigation: Consequences and Opportunities for the Arctic
Authors: Scassola Andrea
Published: February 2014

Abstract

The Arctic regime on vessel-source pollution is currently fragmented and inadequate to tackle the emerging environmental risks. Thus, a harmonized set of norms is needed to ensure compliance with internationally recognized standards. During the IMO’s Polar Code negotiations, Canada and the Russian Federation claimed that the regulations adopted pursuant to article 234 shall not be infringed. If ratified and complied with by a large majority of the international shipping community, The Code could acquire the status of generally accepted international rules and standard (GAIRAS). It follows that a Polar Code is not likely to substitute existing national norms, nor will it impede Arctic coastal states to use article 234 in the future. The tension between harmonization and the persistence of national regulations will likely result in a partially harmonized regime. While the Code will extend environmental protection to the high seas, national regulations will be harmonized in the EEZ insofar as design, construction, equipment and manning standards are concerned. Aside from the Polar Code process, designation of Special Areas and PSSAs may integrate the future Polar Code and the national regulatory frameworks now in force. Bilateral or multilateral harmonization should not be excluded to the extent practicable.
The Neglected Tradition? – The Genesis of the EU Seal Products Trade Ban and Commercial Sealing
Authors: Sellheim Nikolas
Published: February 2014

Abstract

The European Union’s ban on the placing on the market of seal products stemming from commercially hunted seals has triggered much controversy due to its negative impacts on Arctic livelihoods. This article looks at the different documents and steps that constitute the crafting process which has led to the adoption of Regulation 1007/2009 on trade in seal products. It puts special emphasis on the degree of recognition of commercial sealing as a livelihood and asks if it is a tradition that may have been neglected by the political discourse in the EU. Also the role of antisealing groups is considered that may have contributed to a pre-determined stance on the commercial seal hunt during the policy-making process.
Impact of Climate Change on Elderly People in the Arctic, with Special Focus on the European High North: A Human Rights Perspective
Authors: Begum Shahnaj
Published: February 2014

Abstract

Elderly people face increasing challenges in the Arctic region, with global warming figuring prominently among these. The rising average temperature in the region is causing not only the rapid melting of sea ice, but also a range of environmental, social, cultural and economic problems. While the population at large in the region suffers from these problems, the elderly are among the most vulnerable. Climate change has affected their lives in different ways – physically, socially, politically, culturally and psychologically – and the impacts have serious implications for their human rights. This is an issue that has not been adequately researched, particularly in the context of the European High North, and this paper undertakes to present the salient concerns in this regard.
Problems of the Legal Bases of Environmental Safety in the Arctic
Authors: Ivanova Alexandra
Published: February 2014

Abstract

Despite the large number of international legal rules and conventions, the problem of Arctic environmental safety consists of a complex political, legal and economic issues. Arctic environmental safety has not yet been adequately regulated in Russian federal legislation, state plans and programs, including the state budget.

Further studies are needed to develop a legislative framework for a qualitatively new model of balanced solutions to problems of environmental conservation, resource management and socio-economic development for present and future generations. The main areas are: the priority of environmental safety, equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of natural resources, analysis and evaluation of the negative impact on the environment, improving the efficiency of taxation to encourage investment in environmental protection, transparency and accessibility of information on the environment.

An important element is the participation of civil society, governments and business communities in the preparation, negotiation, decision making and implementation of sustainable development in the Arctic which must be based on environmental safety.
‘Himadri’ and the Global Politics of Melting Ice: India’s Arctic Presence and the March Towards Global Governance
Authors: Nayak Anuradha
Published: February 2014

Abstract

The Arctic is witnessing major changes due to the melting and thinning of Arctic sea ice. This phenomenon resulted in exposure of hidden natural resources and opening of new navigational routes. The future would witness circumpolar states benefitting from these changes. However, it seems that non-circumpolar states would also be interested in participation and reaping benefits from the development process. Hence, they make their presence felt in the Arctic, through various activities which has geo-political impact. In this light, the article focuses on one of the non – circumpolar countries, India and its perspective stance. The article deliberates on the ramification of melting ice and the present Arctic system through the Arctic Council, the Svalbard treaty and an analysis of the Antarctic treaty system. The article concludes by proposing a perceived Arctic policy for India and a global governance model. The attempt is governance should focus on pan- Arctic issues rather than regional ones. Furthermore, it should encompass interests/rights of vested states, legal entities and other interested parties.
Marvelous Destruction: The Left-Leaning Satirical Magazines of 1905-1907
Authors: Brooks Jeffrey
Published: February 2014

Abstract

Russian artists and publicists created a symbolic language of revolution in left-leaning satirical magazines during and after the Revolution of 1905. They reversed the traditional association of the occult with rebellion and pictured tsarist officials as monsters, vampires, and demons. They stigmatized the old order and portrayed death as its murderous ally. They also evoked death as an instrument of revolution. This essay explores the imagery they used and the context in which they worked.
Mocking the Masters and Creating a Nation: The Yiddish Satirical Press in Late Imperial Russia
Authors: Portnoy Edward
Published: February 2014

Abstract

This article considers the growth and development of Yiddish satire journals as a publishing phenomenon in the wake of the 1905 revolution, particularly in consideration of the unusual nature of the legal, political, and social positions of Jews in the Empire. Also considered is the proliferation of cartoons and their visual critiques of Jewish life.