bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Islam and the West
Authors: Prince of Wales Charles,
Published: December 2020

Ladies and gentlemen, it was suggested to me when I first began toconsider the subject of this lecture that I should take comfort from theArab proverb: "In every head there is some wisdom." I confess that I havefew qualifications as a scholar to justify my presence here in this theatre,where so many people much more learned than I have preached andgenerally advanced the sum of human knowledge. I might feel moreprepared if I were an offspring of your distinguished university, ratherthan a product of that "Technical College of the Fens," though I hope youwill bear in mind that a chair of Arabic was established inseven-teenth-century Cambridge a full four years before your first chairof Arabic at Oxford.Unlike many of you, I am not an expert on Islam, though I amdelighted, for reasons that I hope will become clear, to be a vice patron ofthe Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. The Centre has the potential to bean important and exciting vehicle for promoting and improvingunderstanding of the Islamic world in Britain, and one which I hope willearn its place alongside other centres of Islamic study in Oxford, like theOriental Institute and the Middle East Centre, as an institution of whichthe university, and scholars more widely, will become justly proud.Given all the reservations I have about venturing into a complex andcontroversial field, you may well ask why I am here in this marvelousWren building talking to you on the subject of Islam and the West. Thereason is, ladies and gentlemen, that I believe wholeheartedly that thelinks between these two worlds matter more today than ever before,because the degree of misunderstanding between the Islamic and thewest ...
Ethnocentric Trends in Sociology
Authors: Farooqui Jamil
Published: December 2020

Sociology was developed in the western intellectual ethos within adistinct sociopolitical milieu rooted in a postrevolutionary Europecharacterized by new tmds of thought that represented serious and sharpteLtctions to the prevailing social situation. Social thinkem of the periodexpressed an intense desire to develop a new science of Society that, onceequipped with adequate methods and theoretical constmcts, could be usedto study and better understand society and social phenomena. This newtool would then be used to analyze how the construction and teconstructionof society could be carried out to ameliorate the lot of people.During the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, European society passedthrough a tumultuous state and witnessed drastic changes in its Social andintellectual fabrics. The expansion of trade in the sevenknth century ledto the crumbling of the economic order and the emergence of its newmastem: guilds and charted corporations. The eighteenth century replacedthis system with that of free labor and competitive production. Theemergence of large-scale industries structured the economic organizationanew and accelerated both pduction and profit. Competition fotcedindustries to develop new technology in order to increase production andproduce better quality goods. Markets were explod and expanded, andtrade was encouraged. This economic mrganization affected the patternof social life, as the ensuing population shift from the rural to urban areasaltered the extant family structure. In addition, the rule of law began tobe considered necessary for the smooth functioning of the new economicorder. These developments gradually transformed the feudal order and thetransitory mercantile order into a capitalist economic system that created ...
Muslim Commitment in North America
Authors: Moore Kathleen M.
Published: December 2020

The purpose of this paper is to examine the curtent debates within theAmerican Muslim community regatding the expression of Muslim religiouscommitment in American life. The size of the community is nowestimated to exceed four million (Stone 1991), and the numlxx of Muslimimmigrants entering the United Stab has more than doubled since 1960.During the same period, the number of American converts to Islam hasalso risen. Both the growth of the Muslim community in mxent yeas, inthe United Stab and worldwide, and the increasing number of Muslimsin "diaspora" as Muslim labor migration continues, which has resulted ina heightened sense of "minority" status among Muslims (Haddad 1991),have raised many crucial questions concerning religious expression:Should Muslims remain marginal to secular power relations in accordancewith the teachings of classical Islam or adopt a strategy of assimilationwhich, in the American context, includes the p d t of claims to equalprotection under civil law? What happens to a religious community, suchas the Muslim community, as it develops the institutional organization itneeds to preserve its identity in a non-Islamic society? Can it still remainopen to the sowe of inspiration and spiritual guidance located in the foldof the Islamic world? Or does the locus of authority shift? Changingcircumstances require adaptation, and yet that adaptation involves the riskof losing the connection to the heatt of the original insight and cultm.Conflicting tesponses to these and related questions raise issues ofself-representation and lifwle. The resulting theological and ideologicaldebates within the Muslim community itself provide and refine variousmodels for Muslim minority life in a non-Islamic envimnment. They alsoillustrate the tension between alienation and integration ...
Political Islam
Authors: Hashmi Sohail H.
Published: December 2020

This volume surveys the complex roles Islamic ideologies play in thepolitics of the Muslim world. The authors are distinguished scholars inIslamic history, philosophy, and law as well as specialists in the sociologyand politics of various Muslim countries. Despite their varied disciplinarybackgrounds and the vastness of their subject, the book features aremarkable degree of interconnection and does not sacrifice the analyticalspecificity needed for each essay.The volume's fourteen articles ate grouped into six broad categories:History of Islamic Political Theory and Practice. These essays offer twointerpretive histories of the evolution and cutrent status of Islam's role inthe political sphere. Ira Lapidus argues that Islamic political theory hasbeen governed by two paradigms, each grounded in a separate vision ofthe Islamic "golden age." The first paradigm is the "seamless" Islamicethos, a holistic conception of law, politics, and personal morality thatexisted at M a d i i under the Prophet and his four immediate politicalsuccessots. Even though this period lasted for barely four decades, it continuesto serve as the vision of the Islamic ideal, especially for the recurrentrevivalist movements and thinkes who have based their appealsupon this "first golden age." The second paradigm is chatactenzed by diffemtiatedreligious and secular institutions. Despite attempts by medievaljurists to maintain the theoretical church-state unity, Islamic Societies developedtacit and clearly articulated spheres of religious and secularauthority. This made it possible for the early Islamic empires to absorband then live with non-Islamic traditions and peoples (i.e., Persians andTurks). This "second golden age" is epitomized by the Ottoman Empire,which nxognized Islam as the "official" religion and whose ruler was acceptedas the titular caliph. Nevertheless, the fusion of teligion andpolitics was never complete, as reflected in the emergence of distinctly"religious" institutions parallel to those of the state.Modem Muslim states, Lapidus argues, are proof of the triumph ofthe second over the first paradigm. "Modern states can be seen as anexpression of the historical separation of state and Islam .... All hope ofsalvation has been concentrated in the nonstate realm, in the religio-civilcommunity, and in personal piety" (p. 23). As a result, states are notviewed by their own people, by and large, as the bearers of their religious ...
Power-sharing Islam?
Authors: Dadoo Yousuf
Published: December 2020

This work has ventured to fill a vast gap in contemporary Islamicpolitical thought. By relating relevant basic and secondary sources to contemporarycontexts in different countries, it has attempted to determinethe extent of harmony and discord between Islamic political theory andcurrent praxis. Being the first English-language publication on this subjectinevitably raises the expectations about its scholarly merit.The first paragraph of the introduction highlights the anomalousconsequences of democratization in the Muslim world: reconciliation insome and heightened adversity in others. In principle, democracy can bereconciled with Islamic political thought. The editor then gives an historicaloutline of misconceptions toward the role of democracy in Islamicpolitics, which began with the Crusades and were reaffirmed during theIranian revolution of 1979. Turning to the twentieth century, revivalism,which often has explicit political motivations, could be easily traced tothe collapse of the Islamic caliphate. It has always welcomed ...
The Challenge of Modernity
Authors: El-Affendi Abdelwahab
Published: December 2020

The question of modernization in the Arab world remains an inexhaustiblesubject for debate precisely becau e it has not yet been resolved.This inconclusive outcome continue to put the issue at the heart of concernsin these lands. The Arab world is in turmoil: its political elites aredivided and at war with each other, social and economic problems continueto affect and trouble the masses, basic democratic rights are still adream. In short, things are not at all well.The acute awareness of this problem dates back to the setbacks sufferedby the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century. Intellectuals havesince been trying to diagnose and offer solutions for the ailment. In tryingto contribute to the debate, Safi thus joins an illustriou line of "doctors"from Khayr al D"tn al TOnis1 through al Afgha.n1 and down to MalikBennabi and ijassan I:Ianafi, to mention but a few of the valiant souls whoattempted to rise up to the challenge.Safi's approach departs from the right point. He tries to synthesizewestern and Arab views on the modernization and to keep his discussionas "scientific" as possible. But he makes no secret of his "ideological"commitment, based on a conception of modernization as a "rationalizationprocess, i.e., an emancipatory project, aiming at eliminating the ...
Muslim Communities in North America
Authors: Altalib Omar
Published: December 2020

This book, which is a collection of 22 articles by 25 authors, is appropriatefor undergraduate courses on religion in the United States, religiousminorities, immigrant communities, the history of religion, and the sociologyof Islam and Muslims. The first part contains five articles on religiouscommunities, the second part has nine articles on the mosaic of Islamiccommunities in major American metropolitan centers, and the third partconsists of eight articles on ethnic communities in metropolitan settings.Each part should have been a separate book, as this would have made thebook less bulky and more accessible to those who are interested in onlyone of the areas covered.Reading this book makes it clear that there is great need for Muslimscholars to study and analyze their own communities, which have a richhistory and have only been studied recently. Books such as this are animportant contribution to the understanding of Muslims in the West andalso serve to clear up many misconceptions about Muslims, a developmentthat makes interfaith and intercommunity dialogue easier.Part 1 begins with an article on the Shi'ah communities in NorthAmerica by Abdulaziz Sachedina (professor of religious studies, University ...
Women in the Qur'an, Traditions and Interpretation
Authors: Wadud-Muhsin Amina
Published: December 2020

It takes a book like Barbara Freyer Stowasser's Women in theQur'an, Traditions and Interpretation to help extricate the compleximages of Muslim women from the gross overgeneralization characteristicof popular western media. Truly understanding that complexityrequires a look at all of the components that make up the Islamic worldview,from its primary sources ideologically to its cultural history as ithas affected the lives of Muslims. Such a look has been offered inStowasser's book.I was very excited by the cross-referential methodology proposed bythe author in her introduction and her actual use of it throughout the text.She moves among Qur'anic passages, earlier tafasir, hadith traditions, aswell as among contenders in modem Islamic discourse: modernists, traditionalists,and fundamentalists (pp. 5-7). As a result, the reader viewsdifferent responses to ideas about specific women from the Qur'anic textwhile knowing precisely the source of certain ideas.This is not the usual diatribe that confuses indiscriminately fact withmythology, intellectual tradition with popular culture, and results in misinformingthe already ill-informed reader. Moreover, Stowasser avoidsthe other popular extreme: diminishing everything to a single factor, suchas gross misogyny, for example. Although she distinguishes between thevarious strains that make up a complex picture, she does not merelyregurgitate the historical legacy but rather offers critical analysis anddemonstrates her capability in deciphering the various components in theinternal Islamic debates as well.Perhaps the complexity of the cross-referential methodology limits thebreadth of the subject matter. We can understand how complex notions ofthe place of Muslim women in society have resulted from these variousreferences, even though we get no hint at what that place is from this work.The characters analyzed are limited to the specific female characters givenindividual attention in the Qur'anic text and to the wives of the Prophet.These models of virtue and .struggle, failure and frustration, can and have ...
State and Society in Syria and Lebanon
Authors: Freij Hanna Y.
Published: December 2020

The aim of this book, as pointed out in the introduction, is toexplore the unfolding and evolving of "state institutions, socioeconomicstructures, cultural policies and ideological currents" from the end ofthe Ottoman Empire until the present in Syria and Lebanon. Althoughlaudable, the book falls short of this lofty aim, for the arguments presentedin several essays are not developed fully while others contain agreat deal of rhetoric. Nonetheless, some articles deserve the readers'close attention.The first article is by Abdul-Karim Rafeq, a prominent Syrian historian,who challenges from the outset the notion that Arab nationalismappeared in the nineteenth century due to the European impact. Ina highly nuanced argument, he traces the development of identityamong the Syrian ulama under Ottoman rule through their defence ofthe "rightful application of the Islamic Shari'ah [which they] werehighly critical of any breaches of it" (p. 2). Moreover, he adds thatthey sided with the peasantry against the unjust application of Ottomanland grants, which reduced the peasants to little more than serfs.His initial arguments are both well researched and highly documented.After a short discussion of the tolerance that existed between theSyrian Christians and the Muslim rulers, Rafeq turns his attention toAmir Faysal's attempt to establish an Arab government in postOttomanSyria ...
New Moon's Visibility and International Islamic Calendar for the American Region 1407H - 1421H
Authors: Shaukat Khalid
Published: December 2020

The International Islamic Calendar Programme relies on calculationsof the new moon's expected visibility. The term "new moon's visibility"gives a wrong connotation, because the astronomical term "new moon"refers to a moon that is completely dark and invisible. Therefore, fromhere on the term "crescent moon" or simply "crescent" will be used for amoon that could be visible after the new moon phase.The problem of predicting the crescent moon's visibility has been ofinterest to astronomers in general for a friendly competition of sightinga young crescent moon and to Muslims for their needs associated withthe Islamic calendar. The earliest astronomical criterion for visibilityappeared in the Babylonian era: the moon's age after conjunction mustbe more than 24 hours, an arc of separation as must be more than 12° orthe moon sets 48 minutes after sunset. Hindus (500-700 C.E.) developeda more elaborate system of calculations with the same as >= 12° criterion.In the eighth to tenth centuries C.E., Muslim astronomers, notablyYa'qub ibn Tariq, Habash, al Khwarizmi, al Farghani, and al Battaniexcelled in mathematical astronomy and developed rules for predictingthe crescent's visibility based on the importance of the crescent's width.A century later, al Biruni recommended al Battani's procedures. In thefifth century, al Sufi and al Kashani still quoted the early Babylonian criterionof as >=12° .In the late part of the nineteenth century, Schmidt recorded observationsin Athens, Greece, throughout a period of twenty years. Fotheringham(1910) and Maunder (1911), who used Schmidt's data and thenadded some more observational data, made the first significant developmentsin criterion for visibility since the time of al Battani. Bruin (1977)developed an independent physics-based criterion involving such variablesas the sky's brightness, contrast, the crescent's intensity, and so on.However, his criterion was only theoretical and its validity needed to beproven by actual observations. Ilyas (1981) modified Bruin's criterion inorder to remove the discrepancy in his method and the actual observationalcriterion of Maunder. All of these suggested criteria for calculatingexpected visibility have been summarized in a tabular form on page15 ...
Beyond the Khyber Pass
Authors: Khalidi Omar
Published: December 2020

John Waller, an American foreign service officer and retired inspectorgeneral of the CIA, is now an independent writer based in McLean,Virginia. He is also the author of Gordon of Khartoum and has travelledextensively in the Middle East and Asia. The book is beautifully illustratedwith photographs of men, women, and events of the time, whichsucceed in invoking visually the time period with which he is dealing: theFirst Afghan-British War.This thirty-chapter book is the story of the British failure inAfghanistan in the 1840s, as Britain competed with Czarist Russia forstrategic advantage in Central Asia. Beyond the Khyber Pass is a sweepingsaga, chronicling the brutal wars and international intrigues of thenineteenth century in India, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Russia-the"Great Game" that culminated in the siege of Kabul and the massacre ofsixteen thousand British soldiers, their families, and camp followers in1842, the year of the First Afghan-British War. Waller tells the tale ofintrigue, treachery, and wild adventure with relish evident in the juicyanecdotes and asides ...
The Paradigm of Knowledge of the Modern Islamic Resurgence
Authors: Tayob Abdulkader I.
Published: December 2020

Political and social explanations for the contemporary Islamic resurgenceabound. Most of these, however, are reductionist in that they do notpay attention to the religious component of a clearly religious phenomenon.Without rejecting its social and political locations, I believe theIslamic resurgence represents a paradigm shift involving a major reinterpretationof Islamic sources in the modem world.In the modem world, Muslims draw on a treasure of significantinsights into the dilemmas and options facing them. The sources of theseinsights, from Shariati to Bennabi to Khomeini, may vary in many respectsand often differ in fundamental fonnulations. In Islamic organizations andmovements, however, Muslims draw on this diversity to construct meaningin uniquely modem ways. At the level of practice, in contrast to thatof the thinkers, a measure of affinity is clearly noticeable in terms of modemIslamic thought and practice. I believe that the idea of a paradigm, proposedby Kuhn, is a useful and fertile way of coming to understand thiscommon meaning-making exercise.A new paradigm of understanding and living Islam, under the impactof the West, has taken shape over the past two centuries. The West as villain,the implementation of the Shari'ah, the search for Islamic solutions,and the Islamization of the sciences are some of the most important featuresof this new paradigm. In this paper, I will explore the basic idea andstructure of the modem Islamic paradigm.Knowledge, Power, and ParadigmsIn his analysis of modem medical, human, and social sciences, MichelFoucault has unmasked the power relations inherent in the formation of ...
Early Philosophical Shi'ism
Authors: Aminrazavi Mehdi
Published: December 2020

Early Philosophical Shi'ism is a comprehensive study of the Isma'ilithinker and neoplatonist, Abu Ya'qub al Sijistani. Chapter one, which followsa brief preface that presents some general remarks about al Sijistaniand the book's structure discusses "The Ismaili Message and ItPhilosophers." He first explains the origin of the Ismailis and their doctrineof authority and then alludes to the concept of imiimah and its relationshipto occultation (ghaybah). After this, Walker deals with the conceptof da'wah from it origin to its subsequent historical development.Several Ismaili dais, among them al Razi, al Kirmani, Nasir-i Khusraw,and al Shirazi, are discussed briefly, as are the role of early dais and theconcept of hermenuetics (ta'wil). Walker begins with Iran in order to providea background to da'wah in that land and also analyzes the massacreof al Na afi and his followers. The author, having offered an account ofSijistani's biography and the evolution of some of his thoughts, brings thechapter to an end by introducing his works and placing particular emphasison al Yanabi', al Maqalid, al lftikhar, and Sullam al Najat ...
Editorial
Authors: Nafi Basheer
Published: December 2020

The question of modernity in its societal, historical, and literary unfoldingsis the underlying theme of several articles presented in this issue ofAJISS. Following in the hadition of Marshall G. S. Hodgson, John ObertVoll ventures into the history of Islam as an integral part of world history.In his numerous studies, Voll has always viewed the Muslim world from aglobal perspective, a trait that is even more evident ih his “The MistakenIdenMication of ‘The West’ with ‘Modernity.”’ Voll’s article is based on aprofound understanding of the West in t m s of the fundamental changesthat have swept human life and society during the past two or three centuries.Modemity cannot be identified with the West, Voll argues, for theWest, as a repertoire of traditions, was a concept related to the existence ofcivilizations. But “civilization,” as conceived in most of the studies andanalyses of world history, is now a societal lifestyle of the past. It thereforefollows that the transfomtion of societies and lifestyles has transcendedthe classical West and created a new world situation in which relationsbetween Islam and the West are predicated on different bases. While it istrue that Islam’s repertoire of concepts and principles is more clearlyfocused than that of the West, it is also true that, in the context of the globalcosmopolitanism of our times, Islam and the West share a similar cultural,political, and social experience:Islam and the West are no longer simply two rival and clashingcivilizations or even two different modes of modernity. They arenow interactive partners, sometimes fighting and sometimes cooperating,involved in the co-constructed reality of the contemprary world.Volls’ view of a modem shared experience is supported by SurmshIrfani’s “New Discourses and Modernity in Postrevolutionary Iran.” For asociety that has been portrayed in the most denigrating t m s by the westernmedia, Irfani presents a powerfd human and creative image of contemporaryIran that touches upon a wide range of cultural revival: printmedia, film industry, literatute, and music. A common denominator of theworks cited in his article, which is based on extensive field research, is the“aftempt to go beyond the fite!rary level ofkfeqrem‘ on and extant meaning ...
Editorial
Authors: Nafi Basheer
Published: December 2020

In this issue of AJISS we present a diverse number of articles that dealwith a wide range of issues. The thorny and continuously debated relationbetween Islam and the West is the subject of four contributions: RalphCoury’s “A Neoimperial Discourse on the Middle East,” Charles Butterworth’s“On Others as Evil: Toward a Truly Comparative Politics,” Ali A.Mazrui’s “Islam in a More Conservative Western World,” and M. HazimShah ibn Abdul Murad’s review essay on “Islam and ContemporaryWestern Thought.”Commonly, it is the reports of missionaries, travel literature, colonialistmemoirs, or orientalist texts that have been the main field of research forstudying western attitudes toward Islam. In contrast, Ralph Coury’s contributiontakes an uncommon approach to exploring these attitudes by usingthe works of Paul Bowles, the American expatriate novelist, as a principleresearch tool. Bowles has spent most of his productive life in Morocco,where the Arab and Islamic constitutional elements of the people and theirlife make up the fabric and background of his novels and his other writings.In this penetrating analysis of Bowles’s views of Islam and of Arabs, Courylinks the inner psychodramatic self of the novelist to his political and culturalunconscious in order to provide an alternative insight to his works.Looking at the issue from a different perspective, Charles E. Butterworthbrings to the fore a variant reading of the western cultural heritage.Butterworth begins his study by emphasizing that, as far as the relationbetween Islam and the West is concerned, “for exchange to be fruitful, eachparty needs to look at the best in his or her own tradition, rather than at theworst, or even the ordinary, and ask that the interlocutor do the same for hisor her tradition.” By this, Butterworth endeavors to recover the other, thelost and forgotten dimension of the westem mind: the mind of Homer, ofSocrates, and of Albert Camus. It is the tentative mind that is seen as relevantto Islamic-western dialogue, the self-doubtful mind, where the humantraits of wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice lend themselves veryprominently to a particular part of the western discursive tradition.Instilled with the wisdom and insight of a keen observer of the humancondition, Ali A. Mazrui treats the subtle ideo-political transformation ofthe West as well as that of the Muslims living in the West, not as studentsor travelers, but as members of this society. His findings rest on three main ...
The End of Empire in the Middle East
Authors: Sullivan Anthony T.
Published: December 2020

Living memory has now faded concerning the scattered pieces ofempire that Britain ruled in East Africa and South and East Arabia for upto a quarter of a century after the end of the Second World War. In the nottoo-distant future, what Elizabeth Monroe once described felicitously asBritain's "moment" in the Middle East will have passed from personal recollectioninto history. Mindful of that inevitability, British diplomat andquondam scholar Glen Balfour-Paul has undertaken to chronicle the postwarencounter between Britishers and Arabs in Sudan, Aden, and the Gulfstates from which Britain withdrew in 1956, 1967, and 1971, respectively.The results of his study should be of particular interest to government officialsrequiring perspective for the formulation of policy and to neophyteforeign service officers about to depart for the regions discussed, as well asto scholars and advanced students of the contemporary Middle East.To his subject, Balfour-Paul brings almost unique credentials. Afterexperience in the Middle East during the Second World War, he became amember of the Sudan Political Service for nine years and, thereafter, servedas a diplomat until 1977 in various Arab countries, in three of them asambassador. The book under review was written largely in the late 1980swhile the author was an honorary research fellow at the Centre for ArabGulf Studies at Exeter University. In the meticulousness of its research, theobjectivity demonstrated on contested issues, and above all in the eleganceof its prose, the volume at hand is a model of what diplomatic history (acraft now rarely practiced by professional historians) should be. Those onboth sides of the British-Arab divide have reason to be grateful that there is ...
Private Voluntary Organizations in Egypt
Authors: Carapico Sheila
Published: December 2020

Over the past five years or so, the considerable western interest inthe role played by nongovernmental voluntary associations in Egypt hasbeen reflected in a growing English-language literature on the subject.Researchers tackle the question from a range of perspectives.One approach, relatively state-centered and legalistic, focuses on howCairo manages to control, co-opt, or "corporatize" autonomous organizationsincluding labor and professional syndicates, agricultural and othercooperatives, and private not-for-profit groups. The principle tool for reiningin private voluntary and community associations is the notorious Law32 of 1964. Under Law 32, the Ministry of Social Affairs can interferedirectly in all aspect of associational life-articulation of goals, election ofofficers, pursuit of projects, allocation of funds, and so on. Among the wellknownsecular nonprofit groups with international linkages that have beendenied licenses from the Ministry are the Egyptian Organization of HumanRights and the Arab Women's Solidarity Association. In this legal and policymilieu, many scholars and human rights activists argue that no registeredassociation in Egypt can properly be deemed "nongovernmental."Other analysts, however, accept Cairo's position that the threat of radicalIslam justifies authoritarian restrictions on independent organizations.The second group of studies is inspired partly by these concerns over theradicalization of Islamist associations. Scholars familiar with social, eco­nomic, and political circumstances in the Nile Valley usually try to counteracthysterical mass media portraits of "Muslim terrorists" with inquiries intothe structure, function, membership, activities, and ideologies of a range ofIslamist institutions including welfare and charitable associations. The particularstrength of politicized Islam in the 1990s, this research suggests, restson the capacity of Islamist charities to provide a crucial layer of social servicesto a burgeoning, underemployed, increasingly impoverished population.Opinion is divided, however, on the question of whether this circumstancefavors containment and stability or frustration and insurrection.A third set of studies, sometimes overlooked by scholars, comes fromwithin the Cairo-based donor community, the "development practitioners" ...
World Orders, Old and New
Authors: Karbal Mohamed
Published: December 2020

The catch phrase "new world order" has shaped the view of the futuredifferently for various groups and people. It has been associated mostlywith former American president George Bush, who witnessed the end ofthe old system with the collapse of the Soviet Union and, with others, realizedthe beginning of a new order. Prior to the end of the cold war, ThirdWorld countries were calling for "new economic and political orders."Speaking before the General Assembly of the United Nations, Fidel Castrocalled for the establishment of a "new world order based on justice, onequity, on peace." And an altogether different new world order has beenanticipated in the near future by such evangelists as Pat Robertson in hisbook The New World Order. Robertson believes the new order will commencewith the rerurn of the Messiah, who will erect a new and just world.However, for prominent scholar Noam Chomsky, the new world orderis merely a continuation of the old one. From the basis of three lecturesdelivered at the American University in Cairo in May 1993, Chomskywrote World Orders, Old and New. The book is divided into three parts.The first part discusses the cold war and how it was used by the superpowersto justify all foreign and domestic political, economic, and militaryactions. “The Cold War provided easy formdas to justify criminal actionsabroad and entrenchment of privileges at home.” Both sides were able toclaim that such atrocities were committed to promote the “national securitywhich was threatened by the other side.” ...
The Testimony of Women in Islamic Law
Authors: Al ‘Alwani Taha J.
Published: December 2020

The only verse in the entire Qur’an to equate the testimony of twowomen to that of one man is the so-called verse of debt (ayat al dayn),which occurs in Qur’an 2:282. This verse contains a significant amount ofmaterial that later jurists categorized variously as recommended or merelyinstructional (irshad) and without legal import. However, a very few juristsopined that the recording of debts, witnessing, and all other matters dealtwith in the verse may be categorized as obligatory (wajib).Whether we agree or disagree with a particular school, there is nearunanimity among all jurists that the Qur’an’s mention of testimony in relationto transactions was revealed to advise Muslims on how they mightreduce the possibility of misunderstandings arising among themselves.Therefore, the entire matter of testimony was revealed to humanity by wayof instruction. Obviously, instruction is one thing, while binding legal preceptsare another matter entirely.The verse of debt, moreover, may be seen as connecting testimony, thetaking of witnesses, the agreement of both parties to the contract at the timeof its ratification, and the judge’s (qadi)ep tance of testimony given bythe witnesses, as follows:and call upon two of your men to act as witnesses; and if two menare not available, then a man and two women from among such asare acceptable to you as witnesses . . . (2:282)The verse goes on to explain the reason for seeking testimony from twowomen in place of the testimony of one man, by saying “. . . so that if oneof them should make a mistake, the other could remind her” (2:282).Thus, the verse indicates clearly that there are differences in the abilityof women to serve, under the prevailing social conditions, as competentwitnesses and givers of testimony in cases involving financial transactions.The relevant wording implies that, in general, transactions were not oftenmatters of concem to women at that time. It also indicates that the actualwitness would be one woman, even though her testimony might require thesupport of another woman, who would “remind” her if necessary. Thus,one woman acts as a guamntor for the accuracy of the other‘s testimony ...
Islamic Resurgence in South Africa
Authors: Aziz Ahmad Khalil
Published: December 2020

The contemporary Islamic resurgence and spirit of pan-lslamism thatare being experienced today throughout the world did not come aboutovernight. They are the results of two counterforces operative in any giveperiod of time. On the one hand, there was the deconstructionist force, inthe form of the colonial and imperial forces that sought to destroy theIslamic value system. On the other hand, there was the reconstructionistforce of 'ulama haqq and the Sufi shaykhs, who served as the prime stiinulatorsof the reform impusle and of change in the religiopolitical outlookof Muslims throughout the world.Islam in South AfricaSouth Africa has played a forceful role in maintaining Islam's dynamicposition for about three centuries. The picturesque activities of the earlierulama (in the broadest sense of the word)-particularly the Sufi shaykhs- andearly imams laid the foundations for the contemporary Islamic resurgencein South Africa, as seen in the Musliin Youth Movement and suchother da'wah movements as the Call of Islam. Past workers and presentmovements have been religiopolitical positivists and activists. From theoutset, Muslims needed to reconstruct Islamic education and maintain themomentum of revivalism and resurgence activities.The Dutch East India Company and English East IndiaCompany: A Deconstructionist ForceThe East India Company refers to any of a number of commercialenterprises formed in Western Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies to further trade with the East Indies. These companies weregiven charters by their respective governments to acquire territory whereverthey could and to exercise therein various governmental functions,including legislation, the issuance of currency, the negotiation of treaties,the waging of war, and the administration of justice ...
Editorial
Authors: Abugideiri Hibba
Published: December 2020

With this issue of AJISS, we bring this volume to a close. This year hasbrought many changes to AJISS, not only in the scope of Islamic issueshighlighted within the articles, but also in the range of opinions articulatedby their authors. As a fourm for intellectual debates on issues relating toIslam, MISS strives to “push the intellectual envelope” of Islamic thought.No subject matter better reflects this attempt than the issue of women,which many articles in this issue analyze.In her article “Oikos/polis Conflict: Perspectives of Gender Feministsand Islamic Revivalists,” Zeenath Kausar examines the continuing debateon women’s political participation in order to demonstrate “how genderfeminists prefer women’s political participation at the cost of deconstructinggender and family, whereas contemporary Islamic revivalists “supportand encourage women’s political participation-but not at the expense offamily and the distinct identity of women.” After a brief survey of feministphilosophy and Muslim revivalist discourse, Kausar concludes that genderfeminists create an atmosphere of conflict between men and women, whileMuslim revivalists look at men and women as copartners in constructingcivilization.In questioning exactly this notion of copartnership between men andwomen, Hibba Abugideiri undertakes, in her “Allegorical Gender: TheFigure of Eve Revisited,” a discourse analysis of classical Islamic texts inorder to uncover how gender categories were constructed by classicalexegetes. By focusing on the figure of Eve, which “has not only definedthe identity of Muslim woman: it has also set the parameters for how thatidentity has been forged,” she questions the authoritative value and relevanceof the classical view of Eve for contemporary social demands.Underlying her Qur’anic rereading of Eve’s role in the parable of creationlies the goal of forging a new methodological approach to Islamic issuesthat need to be redressed, particularly in light of the current wave ofIslamic revivalism.Finally, in her review essay “Muslim Women’s Studies: Two Contributions,”Mohja Kahf engages in a critical analysis of two gender historiesthat interface nicely with Abugideiri’s study. Here, Kahf reviews two foraysinto the field of Muslim women’s studies that uncover the place of ...
The Islamic Movement in Egypt
Authors: Cantori Louis J.
Published: December 2020

The author of this book is a member of the Egyptian diplomatic servicewith a Ph.D. from the University of Geneva. This study employs carefullydefined concepts, the most important one being Islamism as the politicizationof Islamic symbols. In addition, however, he defines the boundarybetween the internal world of perceptions and the external world that isbeing perceived as the ummah. In so doing, the author logically raises thequestion of the universalism of Islam and the particularism of Egyptiannationalist foreign policy perceptions. It is this carefulness that allows theauthor to tell the story of Islamic ideological perceptions objectively andwithout raising controversies of theological interpretation.The book begins with a historical treatment of the Islamic perceptionof international relations from the foreign policy of the Prophet Muhammadto the formulations of al-Afghani, 'Abduh, and Ri<;ia. He includes inthis survey the organizational development and points of view of the allkhwanal-Muslimm, the al-Jama'at al-Isla.m1yah, and the clandestineorganizations, (e.g., Shabab Mul:tammad, al-Takfir wa al-Hijrah, and alJihad).He then goes on to identify the positions of these organizations onthe internal issues of the Muslim world, e.g., the Iranian revolution, theMuslim world in general, and the attitude toward particular Muslim countries.On the question of the Iranian revolution, the Ikhwan initially supportedit but, as the Iranians attacked it and its leader, al-Tilmasiin1, thissupport cooled. The Ikhwan had less concern with the Shi'ism of theIranian revolution than did the remaining more extreme groups in Egypt.These supported the revolution but had doubts about its Shi'ism.The "external" issue of the Israeli Zionist threat also provides evidenceof relative moderation by the lkhwan. It initially opposed the Egyptian­Israeli peace but then tacitly came to accept it. It also was totally opposedto the normalization of relations with Israel. As the author notes, this positionwas very much in conformity with Egyptian public sentiment. Theother groups, on the other hand, remained adamantly opposed.In general, the Egyptian Muslim organizational point of view offoreign policy naturally responded to international forces. Thus, theywere uniformly opposed to communism and especially the Soviet invasion ...
ISLAM AND THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Authors: Haron Muhammed
Published: December 2020

On 4 June 1996, a plenary session was held at Groot Auditorium, inthe Academy Building of Leiden University. This session was chairedby Professor Leertouwer, the vice-chancellor and rector of LeidenUniversity (est. 1575), who also gave the opening address. In hisspeech, he emphasized the importance of the conference theme andreferred to one of the most noteworthy and influential Dutch scholars,Snouck Hurgronje, who taught at the university between 1907 and 1921and contributed to the field of Islamic studies in a unique manner. Hethen introduced Tarmizi Taher, Indonesia’s current minister of religiousaffairs, who delivered the opening address along with AbdelkabirAlaoui M'daghri, Morocco’s current minister of waqf and Islamicaffairs, and a representative of the Netherland’s Ministry of Education,Culture, and Science. The minister of the Netherlands was not able toattend the conference.The Indonesian minister, a trained medical doctor, used his openingaddress to stress the importance of research in Islamic studies and to conantrateupon Dutch-Indonesian cooperation in this field. The Moroccanminister‘s speech was well received; the minister was added to the programat the last minute when it was learned that he would be visiting thecountry at that time. Tht title of his speech was “Coexistence in the NewWorld Order.” A lawyer by training, he Ssed the issue of human rightsand perfaced it by commenting upon the changes that have taken placeover the centuries and the manner in which societies and communitiestook control of their circumstances.The keynote speaker, Riffat Hassan (University of Louisville, KY,USA) gave a speech titled “What Does it Mean to be a Muslim on theEve of the Twenty-First Century?” A social anthropologist by training,she addressed the topic and drew quite a bit upon her own life history asa woman. The audience genedy found her feminist ideas to be veryprovocative and challenging.It was indeed unfortunate that one of the first parallel sessions wascancelled because one of the key participants fell ill. The other panelistsfor this session were fitted into other sessions. Atadah Bogdan Kopan ...
Muslim Minorities in the West
Authors: Haniff Ghulam M.
Published: December 2020

In this superb compilation of essays, fourteen scholars provide a timelyassessment of the expanding Muslim communities in ten western countries,carefully describing their growth and development, sometimes in minutehistorical detail, as they are increasingly scrutinized under the global spotlightfor a variety of complex reasons. Produced as a serious work ofresearch, this volume represents one of the first attempts to examine systematicallythe status and nature of Muslim collective life in the westerndiaspora as seen from the theoretical perspective of the majority-minorityrelationship. It developed out of a conference convened to consider the conditionof the Islamic minorities worldwide. After the conference, selectedpapers were transformed into chapters written specifically for inclusion inthis book.Through fourteen rich and original articles, this book explores a plethoraof problems confronting Muslims, both the recent immigrant arrivals inEurope, Australia, and North America as well as the indigenous followers ofIslam in the Balkans, living within communal collectivities of the Westernworld. It considers “how Muslim minorities fulfill their religious rites andobligations, engage in social and community life and educate their young.” Itexamines “the sacrifices Muslims have to make and the price they have to payto maintain or to acquire a Muslim identity.” With two essays each on Australia,Canada, and the United States, and Britain, the English-speaking world,gets the most attention. But the more obscure cases of Bosnia and Bulgaria,both the terra incognita of the Islamic world until the recent tragedy, are analyzedthoroughly by their native sons, Smail Balic and Kemal Karpat. Despitea diversity of academic orientation, the essays are all highly stimulating, andthe quality of the contributions are all equally superior.The overarching dilemma, identified by the authors as the culprit responsiblefor the Muslims’ difficulties, is the demonization of Islam and the Islamicpeople in the western worldview. As a powerful psychological force on westernthinking, this mindset has brought about the victimization of Muslims and hasled to their wholesale discrimination, indeed, to their rejection as the undesirable“other.” The first two chapters of the book, directly relevant to this concern,delve into the agony of the Muslims of Bosnia; despite their ethnic and racialcompatibility with the Slavic majority notwithstanding, they have undergoneone of the most gruesome incidents of calculated mass murder and brutality inrecent European history. In spite of Bosnia’s “open-minded, liberal and tolerant”p. 23) nature, it has not been spared “a ruthless genocide” p. 24), perhapsbecause Islam rejects the underlying racist premise of the nation-state and istherefore seen as a subversive force. Commensurately, history seems to berepeating itself in Europe. Almost five hundred years after the obliteration ofIslam from Spain, Khalid Duran points out that Bosnia, “truly a cosmopolitansociety” p. 30), is being turned into another Andalusia ...
THE IMPERIALISM OF IN A NONWESTERN CULTURE
Authors: Khaleefa Omar H.
Published: December 2020

General psychology includes many areas of investigation: biologicalbases of behavior, sensation and perception, consciousness andattention, motivation and emotion, conditioning, learning, cognition,language, thinking, remembering and forgetting, intelligence, and personality.During the first half of the twentieth century, psychologistsclassified themselves as structuralists, functionalists, behaviorists,gestaltists, psychoanalysts, existentialists, humanists, or cognitivists.Today, such classifications are little used in the West. If one looks at thepublications of the American Psychological Association and the BritishPsychological Society, psychologists classify themselves according totheir fields or specific topic of hterest, such as social psychology,developmental psychology, abnormal psychology, psychotherapy,counseling, occupational psychology, psychometrics, media, women,and so on. Several tools are used in psychology to study behavior,among them surveys, questionnaires, interviews, observations, experiments,and tests.Psychology is defined as the scientific study of human behavior, andits theories and methods are considered scientific and universal.According to this understanding, there are four important terms that need ...