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Lost & Found (Game Series) [Book Chapter], Owen Gottlieb

Articles

Description of game series for use in the classroom with best practices.

Mimar Sinan, Aleesha Hafeez

Publications and Research

Historical Interpretations And Their Legacies: Dialectical Materialism And The Umayyad Conquest Of Morocco, Grayson Shaw

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The death of the Prophet in the 7th century paved the way for the Umayyad Caliphate, one of the largest empires by land to exist in human history. Most notably, the Umayyads controlled a territory that spanned from India across North Africa into Spain. Along this expansionary route, the Arab Umayyads interacted with, integrated, and fought local indigenous Amazigh people all along Northern Africa into Morocco. Historical records about the Umayyad influence in Morocco are widely varied, ranging from later Abbasaid records to 20th century European interpretations. At its core, the Umayyad conquest of Morocco has fallen victim to interpretations …

Studying Hadith Commentaries In The Digital Age, Aslisho Qurboniev, Gowaart Van Den Bossche, Maroussia Bednarkiewicz

Faculty & Staff Publications

In this essay we reflect on the challenges involved in corpus building for hadith studies as well as the advances already made. We specifically focus on the Open Islamicate texts Initiative (OpenItI), a large, academically curated corpus of arabic texts sourced from various online libraries. this corpus is continuously vetted and expanded by scholarly contributions. We discuss its advantages for computational macro-analysis and for more traditional close reading, and survey recent research in digital hadith studies as an example of the possibilities of computational macro-analysis, we focus on assessing the output of the software ‘passim’, which has identified millions of …

A Girl Named Malaka: An Exploration Of Lebanese-American Identity, Ava Munyer

Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

Ava Munyer is a passionate and ambitious student at Belmont University pursing a double major in Finance and Business Systems and Analytics, as well as a minor in French. This paper explores the relationship between cultural background and societal engagement as a Lebanese-American, discussing the impact of ethnically identifying features in conjunction with ancestral history. After traveling to Lebanon and the birthplace of her ancestors and intensely connecting with her cultural traditions, she experienced inner conflict when expressing these revelations when reintroduced to American academic settings. This autobiography begins with a through explanation of her lineage and family’s immigration to …

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Jordan Spring: An Analysis Of The Regime Survival Tactics Adopted By The Hashemite Kingdom, Saumyaa Gupta

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Inspired by the 2011 Arab Spring events in Tunisia, cries of the regional chant “al-sha’ab yurid isqat al-nizam” (the people want to bring down the regime) were echoing in several MENA countries. Targeted demonstrations were aimed to express people’s dissatisfaction with the political and socioeconomic conditions within their countries. Protestors demanded regime change and, as a result, authoritarian leaders in countries like Tunisia and Libya were deposed. Some regimes succumbed to their citizens’ demands, while others launched violent crackdowns and used their security forces to confront the demonstrators. However, countries like Jordan curbed major social unrest and avoided …

Muslim Americans’ Experience Of The Pandemic At The Intersection Of History, Culture, And Gender, Enaya Othman, Lee Za Ong

Arabic Languages and Literatures

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of Muslims in the U. S during the COVID-19 pandemic. Religion has been playing an important role in individuals’ experiences of the pandemic. Many studies were essays on how to utilize a theological approach to respond to and cope with the pandemic. There is limited research on the impact of how Muslim communities in the U. S responded to the pandemic, particularly from the lens of Islamic history, religious beliefs, and attitudes, and being minoritized in a predominantly Christian country. Using an oral history approach, individual virtual interviews were conducted. …

Querying The Past: Automatic Source Attribution With Language Models, Ryan Muther, Mathew Barber, David Smith

Faculty & Staff Publications

This paper explores new methods for locating the sources used to write a text by 昀椀ne-tuning a variety of language models to rerank candidate sources. These methods promise to shed new light on traditions with complex citational practices, such as in medieval Arabic where citations are ambiguous and boundaries of quotation are poorly defined. After retrieving candidates sources using a baseline BM25 retrieval model, a variety of reranking methods are tested to see how effective they are at the task of source attribution. We conduct experiments on two datasets—English Wikipedia and medieval Arabic historical writing—and employ a variety of retrieval- …

S-400s, Disinformation, And Anti-American Sentiment In Turkey, Russell "Alex" Korb, Saltuk Karahan, Gowri Prathap, Ekrem Kaya, Luke Palmieri, Hamdi Kavak, Richard L. Wilson (Ed.), Major Brendan Curran (Ed.)

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

As social and political discourse in most countries becomes more polarized, anti-Americanism has risen not only in the Middle East and Latin America but also among the U.S. allies in Europe. Social media is one platform used to disseminate anti-American views in NATO countries, and its effectiveness can be magnified when mass media, public officials, and popular figures adopt these views. Disinformation, in particular, has gained recognition as a cybersecurity issue from 2016 onward, but disinformation can be manufactured domestically in addition to being part of a foreign influence campaign. In this paper, we analyze Turkish tweets using sentiment analysis …

The Contradictions Of Sought Safe Havens: The Difficulty Of Immigration And Integration For Muslim Maghrébins In France, Serena Korkmaz

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of laïcité and government trends to the right in France affect immigration and integration policy in France as it pertains to Muslim Maghrébin migrants. To do so, I conducted interviews with five experts with experience in some facet of Muslim North African migration, followed by using secondary sources to identify current trends, policies, and practices pertaining to migrants in France. The paper is broken into five sections that build on each other to contextualize and explore how the lives of Muslim Maghrébins are affected, including historical migrant trends, laïcité as …

Economic Perceptions And Potential Within La Marsa, Dean Roiland

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This research largely focuses on the perspectives of the Tunisian youth in regards to the unemployment situation they are being faced with. These perspectives carry many insights as to the problems in Tunisia and the potential solutions to these problems. Background research was conducted to examine the specifics of the economic situation and how it ended up in such a state. The Tunisian economy was found to be heavily suffering from high unemployment, high inflation, a lack of job creation, and a lack of FDI to name a few. These negative symptoms have especially been impacting the young adults in …

Market Feminism In Morocco, Claire Madsen

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Despite widespread views of “Moroccan Exceptionalism,” Morocco continues to rank poorly on international evaluations of gender equality. This project seeks to understand the extent of the influence neoliberal economic forces in Morocco have had on the feminist landscape. Analysis of Moroccan political history, Foucauldian theories of power relations, and relevant literature on state feminism set the groundwork for the evaluation of the extent state feminism in Morocco can be understood as market-based, in accordance with the definition from From State Feminism to Market Feminsim (2012) by Kantola and Squires. Through interviews of three experts, three meetings with women’s empowerment NGOs, …

The Bedouin In Arabia: A Nomadic Success, Cole D. Quinn

Student Publications

This paper analyzes the lifestyle of Bedouin tribes in Arabia prior to the rise of Islam. It looks closely at how Bedouin tribes were able to coexist alongside pre-Islamic settlements and secure a dominant position in Arabia. Specifically, this paper covers the Bedouin's practice of pastoralism, tribalism, and militarism, and explains how Bedouin tribes were able to secure and maintain a dominant position in Arabia despite the pressure of neighboring settlements.

Philosophy In The Narrative Mode: Alexander The Great As An Ethical Character From Roman To Medieval Islamicate Literature, Anna Ayşe Akasoy

Publications and Research

Histories of Arabic and Islamic philosophy tend to focus on texts which are systematic in nature and conventionally classified as philosophy or related scholarly disciplines. Philosophical principles, however, are also defining features of texts associated with other genres. Within the larger field of philosophy, this might be especially true of ethics and within the larger body of literature this might be especially the case for stories. Indeed, it is sometimes argued that the very purpose of storytelling is to reinforce and disseminate moral conventions. Likewise, the moral philosopher can be conceptualized as a homo narrans.

The aim of this …

The Objectives Of Islamic Law: The Promises And Challenges Of The Maqāṣid Al-SharīʿA, Walid Ghali

Faculty & Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Stress And Acculturation On The Self-Rated Health Of Arab Americans, Abdul-Rahman Suleiman, Arash Javanbakht, Keith Whitfield

Office of the President Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: The self-rated health of Arab Americans has been found to be worse than non-Hispanic whites. Psychosocial factors such as stress and acculturation may explain this disparity. As a result, we designed this survey to better understand the effects of stress and acculturation on the self-rated health of the Arab-American community. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Using a convenience sample, we surveyed 142 self-identified Arab Americans regarding demographics, stress, acculturation, and self-rated health. Stress was measured using instruments assessing perceived stress, everyday discrimination, and acculturative stress. Acculturation was measured using a modified Vancouver Index of Acculturation. To measure self-rated health, participants were …

Mes 160: Classical Islamic Literature & Civilization, Kirsten Beck

Open Educational Resources

This open resource includes a syllabus, class schedule, grading rubrics, and guidelines/examples for digital poetry annotation.

The course website can be found here: http://mes160.social.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/

In this course, we will take a journey through history, literature, and ideas, traveling through Islamic civilization from 600-1250 CE. We will learn about and contemplate the major events and concerns of Islamic civilization, from the dawn of Islam through the expansions, transformations, and fragmentations of Islamic empires, up until the end of the 13th century. Works of Islamic literature from a variety of genres will fuel our journey. Along the way, we will learn how …

Palestinian Evangelical Christian Music In Bethlehem, Israel/Palestine, Abby Smith

Senior Honors Theses

Often the story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is portrayed as Jewish vs. Muslim, Hebrew vs. Arab. There is little room in the international dialogue for minorities such as Arab Christians. Though Palestinians have a rich culture of Arabic musical and poetic heritage, they are unable to produce their own new songs. In this study I interviewed three members of Immanuel Evangelical Church on their experiences and opinions on local Christian worship. The findings show that Palestinian Christians may feel unable to write worship music because of a prevalent feeling of inadequacy and a lack of musical training. I propose several …

A Papyrus Fragment Related To Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih’S Al-ʿIqd Al-Farīd*, Mark Muehlhaeusler

Faculty Journal Articles

This article presents an edition and a translation of a papyrus fragment from the Beinecke Library at Yale (P.CtYBR inv. 2598), together with a brief commentary. This literary fragment, containing two verses of poetry, is interesting because it provides an oriental source for a text until then known only through the famous Andalusian work of Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, al-ʿIqd al-farīd; it also serves as an example of an informal mode of written transmission of Arabic poetry.

Madness And Sanity: Wisdom Of Madmen And The Wise Men Madness In The 19th Century, Norah Roudhan

Undergraduate Research Symposium

This research is based on a careful examination of the concept of insanity and reason. In addition to mentioning some examples from the nineteenth century in the literature to illustrate how each of them used the concept of insanity. Despite the different reason for describing each of the above names and personalities as insane, through analyzes and questions posed it becomes clear that insanity in the end may have a different meaning from what today’s concept represent. The research concludes with the main reason behind the presentation of literature to some famous figures of insanity in a manner that reflects …

The (Un)Sustainability Of Higher Education Institutions In Jordan, Sumaya Bint El Hassan, Kyle E. Cordova, Ghaith Rabadi, Wejdan Abu Elhaija

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Higher education in Jordan has been tied closely to the state-building process in the century since the modern Hashemite state's foundation in 1921, with its explicit purpose being to educate and train high volumes of students who are competent and capable to serve as contributors to the state's development. Though this purpose has largely been successful to date, it is becoming increasingly clear that more is needed than simply issuing degrees. In an increasingly globalized world, it is necessary to educate those who can contribute to future research arenas and labor markets over which a single state has limited control. …

I Planted The Sun In The Middle Of The Sky Like A Flag: In And Of Etel Adnan’S Arab Apocalypse, Hilary Plum

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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 …

Constructions Of Democratic Citizenship And Civic Education In Tunisia, Abigail Smith

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Although Tunisia has made significant progress in establishing procedural democracy since the 2011 revolution, the state still faces significant challenges in consolidating their new spirit of democracy throughout society. This trouble includes difficulty fostering participation from its citizens, particularly among youth aged 18-30. This article hypothesizes that these difficulties stems largely from the state’s failure to construct a concept of Tunisian citizenship in line with democratic ideologies. Citizenship construction is considered as a political science concept that describes the mechanisms by which states relate with their citizenry with the goal of defining citizen interactions with the government and national community. …

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 …

Facebook’S Façade: Understanding The Disillusionment Of Tunisian Youth, Adam Cooper

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Over the past nine years, Tunisian youth voter participation has been incredibly low. Once leaders of the country during its democratic revolution in January 2011, youth in Tunisia are now disillusioned with the Tunisian political sphere and have remained absent from formal politics, a transition that is both confusing and worrying. Tunisian youth have also had a dominant presence on Facebook during this time, often utilizing the online space for political activity in lieu of voting in elections and holding membership in political parties. This paper examines the relationship between the Facebook usage and participation in elections of Tunisia youth, …

Transitional Portraits: Syrian Immigrants Of The North American Mahjar In 'Abd Al-Masih Haddad's Prose, Benjamin Smith

Arabic Faculty Works

This article argues that the 1921 collection of diasporic short stories Hikayat al-mahjar, written by ‘Abd al-Masih Haddad, makes a unique and notable contribution to mahjar literature by mobilizing formal literary techniques and innovative thematic content to capture a Syrian immigrant community engaged in a transitional moment in America. This paper situates Haddad (best known as the founder of the biweekly Arabic newspaper al-Saʼih, and a founding member of the literary society al-Rābiṭa al-qalamiyya) among his literary peers and provides an analysis of Hikayat al-mahjar that demonstrates the work’s points of convergence and divergence from the literary norms of the …

Lost & Found: New Harvest, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Presentations and other scholarship

Lost & Found is a strategy card-to-mobile game series that teaches medieval religious legal systems with attention to period accuracy and cultural and historical context.

Set in Fustat (Old Cairo) in the 12th century, a great crossroads of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. The Lost & Found games project seeks to expand the discourse around religious legal systems, to enrich public conversations in a variety of communities, and to promote greater understanding of the religious traditions that build the fabric of the United States. Comparative religious literacy can build bridges between and within communities and prepare learners to be responsible citizens …

Exposure To Household Secondhand Smoke Among Adolescents In Kuwait: Results From Two School-Based Cross-Sectional Studies, Ali H. Ziyab, Mohammad Almari, Abdullah Al-Taiar

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

INTRODUCTION: Detrimental effects of secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure are well established; however, data on SHS exposure among adolescents in Kuwait are lacking. Hence, this study sought to estimate the prevalence of household SHS exposure among two samples of adolescents in Kuwait and assess its variation by socioeconomic status and parental education level.

METHODS: Data from two large school-based cross-sectional studies were analyzed. Adolescents attending public middle (n=3864; aged 11-14 years) and high (n=1959; aged 14-19 years) schools throughout Kuwait were enrolled in 2016-2017, and parental self-reported household SHS exposure was ascertained. Associations were assessed using Poisson regression with robust variance …

Persistence Of Jewish-Muslim Reconciliatory Activism In The Face Of Threats And “Terrorism” (Real And Perceived) From All Sides, Micah B.D.C. Naziri

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation concerns how Jewish-Muslim and Israel-Palestine grassroots activism can persist in the face of threats to the safety, freedom, lives, or even simply the income and employment of those engaged in acts of sustained resistance. At the heart of the study are the experiences of participants in the Hashlamah Project, an inter-religious collaboration project, involving Jews and Muslims. Across chapters and even nations, chapters of this organization faced similar threats and found universally-applicable solutions emerging for confronting those threats and persisting in the face of them. This raised the question of whether revolutionaries and activists in general can persevere …