The aim of the article is to draw attention to a frequent mistake made by western religious experts and civilization researches who are inclined to treat Islam in the same way as while analyzing any other religion, i. e. as a specific sphere of human life which is their sacrum of contacts with God. The author of the article proves that Islam is first of all a complete social system and its religious aspect plays an auxiliary role. The Islamic vision of the world is not a function of human relations with God's transcendence, as it happens in case of Christianity, but has a ummatic dimension, i. e. makes man's will limits dependent on the will of the whole Muslim community. An individual is not limited by the dimensions of a human being with their personal soul and individual ethics constitutes an immanent part of the whole society. So human freedom is obviously limited by the social interest and every human activity is assessed and punished from this point of view. The result of the ummatic vision of the world is a specific definition of human rights in Islam which was formally reflected in the so called Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam (1991) being a former answer to the UN Declaration of Human Rights. The author's analysis is textual and refers to the most important statements made in the Cairo Declaration.
The research of religions in former Eastern Bloc countries is often presented in terms of a loss of contact with the Western academic tradition and ideological bias. This paper attempts to show however that the study of Islam in individual countries was not homogenous. Islamic Studies in communist Czechoslovakia (1948-1989), although to a significant degreee limited by the ruling atheist ideology as reflected in Marxist- Leninist dogmatism, did not develop in isolation from Western scholarly debates. In fact, major works published in Slovak and Czech language by three respected Islamicists Rudolf M a c ú c h, Karel P e t r á c e k and Ivan H r b e k show clearly that Czechoslovak scholarship on Islam was to a wide extent connected with Western concepts, including the issues of methodology and the Orientalist discourse.
The aim of this paper is to trace different representations of the encounters with the world of Islam in Latvian literary culture of the 19th and early 20th century. The Latvian case is contextualized within trends in 19th-century Orientalist representations shaped by the Western European and Russian imperial imagination. Other nations, and especially those with different religious beliefs and practices, have characteristically been perceived either with an incredulity characteristic to Western attitudes toward the Orient, or with the inevitability of direct confrontation and “Othering” in the cases of military conflicts involving the imperial forces of Russian empire and their political antagonists. At the same time, personal encounters that occurred in geographically peripheral areas of Russia as well as beyond the state borders, often led to unexpected revelations, bringing about an understanding of the fate shared with other, relatively distant societies and cultures. In our paper we demonstrate that these experiences played a substantial role not only in establishing first-hand contacts with other cultures but also contributed to the identity formation of the Latvian nation. We first provide theoretical reflections of the topic that position the discussed representations within broader contexts of Orientalism, as introduced by Edward Said, and point to the differences between the classical Orientalism and “frontier Orientalism” of close and immediate contacts, as proposed by Andre Gingrich. In the following, we focus on different images and stereotypes characteristic to the Orientalist representations in Latvian literary culture and propose a subdivision of different kinds of Orientalism. They include representations of potentially “bad” Muslims, perceived as a real or imaginary threat; travel notes and personal impressions in the vein of classical Orientalism but with a considerably greater degree of involvement if compared to the above case; and, finally, subjective portrayals of domesticated or “good” Orientals who embody a number of admirable features as they share their lives with the Christian community within the Russian empire. The first case deals predominantly with the Turks, who are involved in warfare with the Russian imperial forces; the second features both imagined and first-hand experience of exotic lands with a substantial presence of Muslim culture, legends, tales and historical monuments; the third is focused on the life in the Caucasus before and during the Great War.
The first part of the paper discusses the terminology and the basic approaches of Islam to the problem of the activity of spirits – jinns. The belief in jinns has been adopted from pre-islamic, ancient Arab traditions. The reader is subsequently informed about the methods of exorcism, including its geographical differences. Finally, a case study is presented concerning a so-called zar, i.e. a certain type of exorcism of hysterical women.
The author presents the phenomenon of al-Qaeda as the best-known of the Islamic terrorist groups. He depicts the specifics of that organisation and tracks both the evolution of its development against the backdrop of recent years and the nature of its ideology. He draws upon the circumstances which have made Islamism what it is, as well as upon the political events of the last decade, attempting to map out the specifics of this contemporary phenomenon. The ideological attitudes towards jihad are also presented; these attitudes clearly contribute to a better understanding of the way in which the message of the combat is linked with the sphere of the sacrum and the justification for a mission carried out by 'the apostles of the Holy War'. A considerable amount of the commentary is devoted to a diagnosis of the nature and symbols of contemporary Islam. The article contains reflections on the evolution of the meaning and influence of al-Qaeda, as well as its image in the Islamic world and the countries of the West. The issue of radicalism amongst a part of the Muslim society living in Europe is raised, posing the question as to the real degree of their assimilation. The context of current events in Iraq is also referred to and their nature diagnosed from the perspective of the notions and practice of jihad, as are the challenges to security on both a global and a regional scale.
The al-Qaeda terrorist attacks upon the United States on September 11, 2001, in the Western countries commonly acknowledged to be the turning-point in relations with the Islamic world, were merely a reflection of the growing from several decades Muslims' dislike for the West of which initially the most important reason was the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, unsolved from 1948. However, the actual situation was also influenced by: the consequences of the Yom Kipur War in 1973, which proved the dependence of the West, especially Europe, on the Middle Eastern petroleum supplies; the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the rising of the first Islamic republic which was accompanied by gradual rejection of Western influence and values adopted during the colonial period; and finally the Mujahedeen victory during the Soviet war in Afghanistan in 1978-1989. The success in Afghanistan made many Muslims believe that elimination of the Western influence also from the other Middle Eastern countries is possible. In 1990s the Islamic radicals, including al-Qaeda leaders, succeeded in convincing some Muslims that the West, together with cooperating local Arab leaders, are responsible for the deepening civilizational backwardness of the region. Several awkward statements of Western politicians, including the one of George Bush initially describing the operation of elimination of the Saddam Hussein's regime from Iraq in 2003 as a 'crusade', confirmed many Muslims' opinion on the hostile intentions of the West. However, the chances are that the real causes of the deteriorating economic situation of the Islamic world are internal: above all the very high demographic expansion and the persistent poor economic performance. Both the Western and the Arab experts point out that the Middle Eastern Islamic world needs political and economic reorganization to surpass the obstacles obstructing its development. Unfortunately, nothing yet indicates that the American authoritative attempt to introduce Western-style reforms and democracy in the Middle East was successful. The direct effect that problems of the Southern Mediterranean Coast countries have upon the European security (the increasing terrorist threat, illegal immigration, ecological problems) was the ground of decisions taken by the UE leaders in regards of the policy towards this region. The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, initiated in 1995 in Barcelona, is a coordination forum for the cooperation between the Northern and Southern countries. Today it is still difficult to predict the future of the Middle East but it seems that in the most part it will depend on the very inhabitants of the region. Due to those new factors that added to the tension after 1948, at the moment nothing indicates that even the probable resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict could fully recover peace in the region but it could at least seriously improve the mutual relations of both civilizations.
The author attempts to approach the concept of the permissible use of violence and force by Islam as a religious/political system. Considerations of the topic are presented in parallel from historical and theological viewpoints. The fundamental aim of the following study is the search for an answer to the question which is exercising an increasingly large group of people; is the substance, the very essence itself of the Muslim religion the killing of the Infidel? The article enters a wide discussion currently being conducted on a global forum. It is an additional voice brought to a discourse devoted to the nature and essence of Islam, as well as to its relationship to the use of violence. It also attempts to discern the source of these relationships. The study encompasses two fundamental parts; a more general historical part, presenting the phenomenon within the context of Islam's past and a somewhat more detailed theological part, dealing precisely with the religious aspects of the 'Jihad', Holy War, conducted by Muslims. The conclusion generalizes the most important observations made in the article. It is neither the intention to warn anyone against nor to persuade anyone to Islam, let alone to pigeonhole it as a bloodthirsty cult. It is simply an attempt to reach its true countenance and that embraces, amongst other things, the employment of violence and the use of force. As it was then, so is it now.
In contemporary societies religion has still a great influence on the culture and the way of organizing social life. Consequently family, its structure, norms, functions and roles are determined by the religion and its values. The paper presents the role of marriage in the Christian and Islamic societies. Whereas for Christians the celibate plays a key role as it is seen as the most desirable way of life, Islam religion does not recommend the state of womanlessness. However, the status of women in both Christian and Muslim families is shaped by patriarchal attitudes rooted in the social values. The authoress discusses pre-marital institution, e. g. an institution of 'mahr' - a gift of money or valuables given by the bride's family to that of the groom to permit their marriage which serves aftewards as a private savings of the wife in the case of divorce. Furthermore, she compares ways of upbringing of children and attitudes to divorce in both religions. Finally, she considers both religions similar in their concept of family due to their common judaic origin. (http://www.genderonline.cz/view.php?cisloclanku=2005120101)
In the light of its constitution, the Republic of Turkey is in public-legal categories a secular country. However, due to vitality of Muslim religion practiced by 95% of citizens, Turkey finds it difficult to defend secularism in the way western democracies do. In a recent period both in Turkey and in other European countries (especially in France), a new problem appeared concerning wearing the headscarf, or the hijab. It accumulated political significance as a religious symbol. Thus, specific bans on wearing the hijab were introduced in Turkey. One of them, introduced by the University in Istambul, resulted in filing a lawsuit against Turkey before the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) (Layla Shain v. Turkey). The Court decided that there was no human rights violation (Convention art. 9), and the University acted properly and within means available in a democratic society.
The aim of this article is to present the Scripturalist Movement in Islam, also called the Quranic Movement. Scripturalism, from Latin 'sola scriptura' – meaning 'by scripture alone', is based on an assumption that the only sound and perfect authority is the revealed scripture of a given religion, e.g. the Torah, the Bible, or the Qur'an, excluding, however, their respective commentaries, traditions or scholarly interpretations. Thus, in Scripturalist Judaism, the Talmud is discarded. e.g. by Karaites and Samaritans, in Protestantism - the apostolic tradition, while in Islam - Ahadith and Sunnah. The article shows the historical perspective of the Scripturalist Movement from the 7th to early 20th centuries at the Indian Subcontinent and in the Middle East.
That migrant street Islamic school pupils 'suffer' has been contentious in the light of the motive of their endeavour but there is no controversy that the 'almajirai' are part of the underprivileged population. Hence, they constitute part of the lumpen population. The paper explores the various dimensions of lumpenhood among the 'almajirai' discussing the forms of hardships which have been a way of life of this set of lumpen children. The paper shows that street livelihood among the children constitutes a distinct social problem in Nigeria with particular reference to migrant Quranic school pupils in Northern Nigeria. Attributes of this set of lumpen children have been inhuman exposures to poor accommodation, drug use, malnutrition and shortage of other basic amenities. It is observed that the preservation of the 'almajiranci' system of education despite the enormous succession of social alterations in the overall social organization has been a major source of concern. This is because such preservation has been a mechanism for the reproduction of lumpenhood which is detrimental to overall national development. It is in the light of this that the paper suggests an overhauling of the 'almajiranci' system of education in line with current and emerging new education values and realities.
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s attempt to bolster its power among some Asian countries such as India has involved a variety of political and economical decisions. While it has tried to improve its influence among the Indian Muslim communities, it has found the energy as the best way to grow its relations with the Indian government to make strategic ties. Although Iran has followed these policies for many years, it seems that it does not have its previous influences among the Indian Muslims. In addition, Iran’s oil and gas production besides its energy relations have been limited due to some internal and international factors such as energy sanctions imposed by U.S. The present study attempts to analyze the factors behind Iran’s undermined role in India.
The aim of the study is to identify the areas of scholarship where Professor Edward Said's work 'Orientalism' (1978) has laid foundations for new forms of enquiry or where new approaches are being formulated replacing those seriously undermined by the book. The first category covers the production of what is referred to as 'postcolonial studies', the second deals with the attempts to find an alternative to orientalism.
This paper is inspired by the dichotomy in the characteristics of the terms ahl al-ḏimma ‘people under protection’ designating the religious groups under the protection of an Islamic administration, and ahl al-kitāb ‘people of the Book’ used for the religious groups who have a revealed scripture (the Old or New Testaments, the Avesta) in the modern literature on Islam. The prevailing narrative sees them as two separate terms whereas some studies point to their near synonymy. Our study is based on the behaviour of the two concepts in works of classical Arabic literature (based on the CLAUDia historical corpus of Arabic). On the grounds of the collocations connected with the two concepts, the data supports the thesis of two distinct terms with rather little contextual overlap, where ahl al-ḏimma is used mainly for practical and formal aspects of the life of the above-described people within Islamic society, and ahl al-kitāb serves as a designation of the representatives of opposing religions in theological debates.
Islam categorises reality into two clearly separated spheres; lay and sacred. This division determines nearly every sphere of the Muslim's life. Because of the importance of this division, sanctified by religion and custom, borderline places, which both link and separate both worlds, become particularly important. The author discusses the problem of border as one of the most basic issues of the culture. He analyses it in the context of the rural environment of Northern Sudan, which he learnt during his two study trips. In Northern Sudan it is the Nile that serves as the physical and symbolic border area. It is most strongly associated with the experience of border and sacrum. Because of this, it is a model of the conceptualisation of all kinds of places or events, which give the impression of border crossing. The phenomena described in the article, although strongly connected with the North Sudanese context, are basically common to the other areas of the Middle East. Simply, because they are integrally linked to Islam.
The complex history of the Balkans, which, in consequent periods of time, remained under control of different cultural centers, left an imprint on the present state of the region. One of the consequences of this fact is the current diversified ethnic and religious structure in each of the countries of South-Eastern Europe. The aim of this paper is to point at processes which effected transformations in ethnic and religious structure on the territory of present-day Kosovo. To start with medieval times, when Western Balkans were situated on the borders of Eastern and Western Christian influences, it is demonstrated how the territories of the present Kosovo found themselves in the Orthodox Serbia in the 12th century, where they remained until Ottoman conquests in 14th and 15th century. Main emphasis is put on the reasons and the character of the conversion of some of the Balkan Christians to Islam, and denominational policy of leaders of countries on the territory of which Kosovo was located in subsequent periods of time. The face of the present, predominantly Muslim, Kosovo Republic, is the sum of individual decisions of its inhabitants, local leaders and central administration as well as leaders of European empires. Nevertheless, the Islam of Kosovo is not a homogenous phenomenon. Its diversification and the depiction of the activity of the sparse Catholic community is the subject of the final part of the article.
There was a shift in Christian attitudes towards Islam from confrontation and mission to dialogue in the second half of important contributions to this shift. Watt analysed “the distorted image of Islam”, which arose in the medieval West, and confronted it with the historical facts, presented in his monographs on the life of Muhammad. Cragg also dealt with the character of the Prophet and carried out a search for points of contact between Islam and Christianity. Watt and Cragg tried to write in a way acceptable for both Christian and Muslim readers. They regarded Muhammad as a prophet, though not in the Islamic sense of that term. While Watt was attracted to relativism to a certain extent, Cragg sees an understanding of Islam as a way to a deeper realization of the uniqueness of the Christian belief in Christ.
This paper wants to bring to Slovakia the probably unknown controversy about the roots of Christian Europe, which was provoked by the publication (published eight years ago) of the work of the French medievalist and former professor at Sorbonne – and which continues unabated. Did Islam bring Aristotle to Europe, or did the Christian West have its own translators, especially at Mount Saint-Michel near the Atlantic coast of France? S. Gouguenheim´s answer to the first part of the question is negative. Followed by further positive opinions by historians, such as F. Braudel, and philosophers such as Roger-Pol Droit, R. Brague and others, this view is gaining more supporters. To the detriment of the formerly prevailing official opinion, current research also suggests the fact that Averroes himself had no influence within Islam, the Hellenization of which was very limited.
The aim of the article is to present the position of the Muslim League in Poland on the issue of citizenship. The paper focuses on the aspect of citizenship in the institutional and legal area stressing civic duties associated with civil loyalty, participation and identification. Additionally, the analysis is supplemented with the issue of Muslim integration into the Polish society. Moreover, the article highlights the role of Islam as a factor determining the civic attitudes presented by the Muslim League in Poland. The manner in which the problem of citizenship is presented in the paper indicates that it is referred to the declared positions, which characterize the particular religious association, rather than the communities of the Polish Muslims of immigrant origin. The analyzed concept of citizenship created by the League is religiously conditioned. The catchphrase: to be a good Muslim means to be a good citizen, which the League refers to, seems to be of the highest significance in his context. This example shows that a religion in this case can be an important factor determining the civil attitudes in the process of integration of the Muslim communities of immigrant origin with the Polish society, and in the broadest perspective, with the European communities.
This paper presents an overview of the life and work of Ahmad Kasravi, one of the most controversial Iranian intellectuals of the first half of the 20th century. Born in 1890 in Tabriz, he became the most outspoken anticlerical intellectual in Iran. In 1946, he was assassinated by radical Shi'ites. Kasravi was a prolific writer; the majority of his works may be divided into three categories: historical, linguistic and socio-religious. As far as the first field is concerned, he was one of the most important Iranian scholars, a pioneer (if not the creator) of modern historiography in Iran. As for his linguistic works, he is best known for the study of the Iranian language of Azerbaijan, as well as for his controversial struggle to reform Persian language. Socio-religious works mainly include his critique of the major religions and intellectual movements in Iran (including those of European origin) and the works describing the deistic religious system created by him, called Pakdini (Pure Religiosity).
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