Islamic World and Near East History Commons^™

Merchants Without Borders: Qusman Traders In The Arabian Gulf And Indian Ocean, C. 1850-1950, Mansour Alsharidah

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a history of the economic, social, and political life in Arabia, the Arabian Gulf, and the Indian Subcontinent from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. It draws on materials from al-Qasim, Kuwait, Bahrain, Karachi, Bombay, Calcutta, and London, in addition to travelers’ accounts. These materials and accounts are used to explore the extent and significance of al-Qasim’s international trade between Arabia and India through the Arabian Gulf. It further examines how Qasimi merchants mobilized commodities and traded in the port cities of the Arabian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, taking advantage of changing regional and global political …

The Formation Of Ottoman Sufism And Eşrefoğlu Rumi: A 15th Century Shaykh Between Popular Religion And Sufi Ideals, Baris Basturk

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation evaluates a transformative period in the history of the Ottoman State in which the processes of Islamization and Turkification coincided with the expansion and imperialization of the Ottoman polity. This study focuses on an Ottoman Sufi figure, Eşrefoğlu Rumi (?-1469), who benefited form this context, embarked upon a mystical path, and authored seminal works that shaped Ottoman Sufism for generations. This dissertation discusses Eşrefoğlu Rumi’s role in the construction of Islamic orthodoxy based in his Sufi ideals which he disseminated to an Anatolian and Balkan Turkish-speaking Ottoman audience. The significance of this dissertation is that it emphasizes the …

The Piety Movement In An American Suburb: The Experiences Of Women Of The Islamic Circle Of North America On Staten Island, Aisha Raheel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The participation of women in fundamentalist movements has always posed a problem for feminist analysis because it disrupts the belief that all women see themselves as victims who share a common interest in ending this oppression. More broadly, portrayals of fundamentalists as people who are uniquely opposed to modern life are simplistic and dehumanizing. They are particularly problematic for Muslims because often, all Muslims whether they are fundamentalists are not, are portrayed as adhering to the same uncompromising, fanatical, and violent form of faith.

The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) was founded in 1971 to provide its members with …

An Analysis Of Women And Terrorism: Perpetrators, Victims, Both?, Elizabeth Lauren Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper will analyze women’s participation in terrorism under groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. It will research the use of violence within terrorist organizations, perpetrated by female participants. What leads women to join groups like the Islamic State? There will be an analysis of the factors that attract women to joining terrorist organizations, in addition to the practices of recruitment that aid in their radicalization. There is a misconception that women who join the Islamic State lack education, which is seen as the sole reasoning for their radicalization or involvement. In reality, several reasons exist leading to their …

The Truman Administration And Zionist Legitimation Strategies To Achieve Statehood, Gianna Meier

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Following World War II, with the strength of Britain shattered by economic exhaustion and the rising influence of the United States in post-war international policies, the Zionist commitment to Jewish statehood intensified, driven even more urgently by the specter of the Holocaust atrocities. Meanwhile, warfare in Palestine both between the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs and between the Jews and Britain increased tension in the region to such a point that Britain decided in February 1947 to withdraw from its obligations under the Mandate for Palestine. It left to the United Nations (UN) the challenge of finding a workable resolution …

Devotional Literature Of The Prophet Muhammad In South Asia, Zahra F. Syed

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Many Sufi poets are known for their literary masterpieces that combine the tropes of love, religion, and the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). In a thorough analysis of these works, readers find that not only were these prominent authors drawing from Sufi ideals to venerate the Prophet, but also outputting significant propositions and arguments that helped maintain the preservation of Islamic values, and rebuild Muslim culture in a South Asian subcontinent that had been in a state of colonization for centuries. The continued practice of both ritualistic and literary veneration of the Prophet became a key factor in this preservation and rejuvenation …

Shock And Awe, Sectarianism, And Violence In Iraq Post-2003, Sarim Al-Rawi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The violence systematically deployed upon the prosperous nation of Iraq in 2003 was directly influenced by the Shock and Awe doctrine set forth by Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade in their 1996 book Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance. The experimental methods of warfare and violence outlined in the text describe methods for the systematic destruction of every major aspect of a nation and society, militarily, economically, and socially. In the wake of the US Invasion of Iraq, we saw the direct implementation of these methods by the occupation forces, setting off a brutal cycle of violence that …

“The Community For Educational Experiments”: The Alliance Israélite Universelle, Gender, And Jewish Education In Casablanca, Morocco 1886-1906, Selene Allain-Kovacs

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

At the end of the nineteenth century, the Alliance Israelite Universelle (AIU) opened boys’ and girls’ schools in Casablanca, Morocco, introducing ideas of European-inflected modernity and secular education to the local Jewish community. Letters and reports from the founding directors provide insight into the problems, social and practical, they encountered and reveal the ways in which both Moroccan and European gender norms affected this “educational experiment.”

Time Machine Research And Approach, Tarek Bouraque

Theses and Dissertations

Time Machine is a hybrid documentary that explores the logics of enslavement, colonialism, eurocentrism and their interconnectedness in our globalized world. Mustapha Azemmouri, born in 1502, undertakes a journey to the 21st century to recount his own story of enslavement and exploration, and reflects on a collective puzzle of 500 years of hidden history.

Emancipation Through A Domestic Education: How One Magazine Inspired A Female Literary Renaissance In The Nineteenth-Century Middle East, Lauren S. Palmieri

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

Both in its contemporary journalistic milieu and in recent secondary scholarship, al-Fatah (1892-1894) has been widely recognized as the first Arabic women’s periodical. This magazine has similarly been credited with ushering in the era of the Arabic female press during the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries. However, al-Fatah has received little attention as a magazine in and of itself. An analysis of al-Fatah helps to nuance the nahda cultural movement and its literature as more than male-dominated voices and authorship. This thesis explores how al-Fatah laid foundations for a female press by facilitating communication between editors and readers. …

Non-Muslim Integration Into The Early Islamic Caliphate Through The Use Of Surrender Agreements, Rachel Hutchings

History Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this honors thesis, I discuss the role of surrender agreements in the early Islamic caliphate and their evolution through the ninth century. Seen as a window into the developing relations between Muslims and non-Muslims, surrender agreements shed considerable light on the evolving conceptualization of non-Muslims’ place in dar al-Islam from the point of view of Islamic legal tradition and political theory. By defining the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims in a framework that was agreed on by all parties and one that preserved the basic rights of non-Muslims, these agreements were remarkably effective in facilitating the incorporation of …

A New Synthesis: Saudi Salafism And The Contested Ideologies Of Muhammad Surur, Ahmad Kindawi

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis examines the life and thought of Muhammad Surer Zayn al-Abidin, the Syrian ideologue and founder of an influential Islamist trend within the Sahwa (Awakening) movement in Saudi Arabia. In the highly politicalized Saudi Islamist scene of the early 1970s, Surur came up with a unique synthesis: an amalgam of the political awareness of the Muslim Brotherhood in seeking political reform and the implementation of an Islamic order and the religious thought of Wahhabis. Under the influence of Surer's ideas, a new group appeared, al-Sureriyya, which had a significant impact on Saudi Islamic activism, becoming the main group within …

Obituaries, Subjectivities, And Perceptions Of Ariel Sharon, Sean Switzer

History in the Making

No abstract provided.

Iranian Receptivity To Cia Propaganda In 1953, Alex Ponce

History in the Making

In 1953, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), together with the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), organized a coup to overthrow the democratically elected PrimeMinister Mohammad Mossadeq (1882-1967). While much has been written about the coup, little attention has been given to the U.S. propaganda that preceded the operation. From 1950 to 1953, the U.S. launched a series of propaganda campaigns in Iran. Drawing from U.S.-Iranian correspondences, memoirs, journal articles, and secondary sources, this paper seeks to shed light on the U.S. and CIA perceptions of Iranian receptivity to propaganda from 1950 to 1953. What did CIA officials like Kermit Roosevelt …

The Case For Early Arabia And Arabic Language: A Reply To The New Arabia Theory By Ahmad Al-Jallad, Saad D. Abulhab

Publications and Research

A reply to an article published on May 23rd, 2018, in The New Yorker magazine by Elias Muhanna, titled A New History of Arabia, Written in Stone, introducing a new theory by Ahmad al-Jallad, a Harvard trained scholar of ancient Near East languages and scripts, asserting that the Arabic language (and presumably the Arabs) was originated in the south Levant desert and migrated southward. This theory would reverse the established conclusions set forth by the esteemed work of numerous Islamic Arab linguists and historians, over more than a thousand years, who believed the Arabs and the Arabic language originated in …

The Permanent Liminality Of Pakistan's Northern Areas- The Case Of Gilgit-Baltistan, Hamna Tariq

Senior Theses and Projects

Since Pakistan’s inception, Gilgit-Baltistan, a sprawling region in Northern Pakistan, has not been granted provincial status due to its colonial association with the disputed region of Kashmir. Gilgit-Baltistan refutes its forceful integration with Kashmir, an unfortunate remnant of British divide-and-rule strategy, and demands provincial recognition and constitutional rights. Pakistan unfairly claims that it awaits the UN-sanctioned plebiscite in Kashmir to determine the region’s status. However, the likelihood of a plebiscite is little to none, since the Indian government officially annexed Indian-held Kashmir in August 2019, breaching the UN resolution on the plebiscite. A region that has been at the mercy …

Islam, Democracy, And The Leadership Role Of Women In Government, Leea Collard

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis examines the relationship between Islam, democratic government, and the governmental leadership of women in the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey (MENAT). In order to understand female leadership in this region, the compatibility between Islam and democracy is analyzed. This occurs through the examination of Sharia Law and democratic principles within Islam. Furthermore, a statistical analysis of the successes of democracies in the region will be presented. Each nation will be categorized by the constitutional provisions entrusted to its female citizens. Thus, this thesis will present the legality of the political participation of women in each of the …

No Riddle But Time: Historical Consciousness In Two Islamicate Films, David Sander

Journal of Religion & Film

This article explores ways in which film expresses “internal history” in the context of Muslim cultures. As such, it enquires how film can work as both Islamic art and historical contemplation. The films discussed here, Nacer Khemir’s Wanderers in the Desert and Muhammad Rasoulof’s Iron Island, inhabit and explore the borderline between imagination and reality. The films in question offer an imaginal interspace between “modern” and “traditional” worlds. As such they open up critical perspectives on the meaning of history. What follows is a discussion of how each film offers a window onto differing perceptions of time, and what …

Historical Geopolitics Of Kashmir: A Discourse Analysis Of Civilizational Framings, Thomas J. Liguori

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation attempts to locate the intractable issue of Kashmir within a global context. The global setting utilized here is constituted and shaped by multiple levels, none of which is purely discrete, and which act upon each other with differing degrees of salience. Taking a discourse analytic approach, political positions can be seen as activating (acting upon, mobilizing, or challenging) existing discursive material in a given political context and then deploying it. This dissertation aims to show how the Kashmir problem has: 1) come about; that is, how it has been constituted and the (discursive) contexts which shaped the available …

William Everett Ferguson Papers, 1941-2014, William Everett Ferguson

Center for Restoration Studies Archives, Manuscripts and Personal Papers Finding Aids

Finding aid for the William Everett Ferguson Papers, 1941-2014.