Digital Commons Network^™

Imagination, Performance, Expression: Unraveling Global Pakistani Identity, Omaer Naeem

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

Expressions of Pakistani identity are presently being flattened out by both the state and global West, dominantly being explored through religion. This project argues that gender is used domestically and internationally to present a multifaceted resistance to the state’s idea of the national identity. This project interrogates the creation of global Pakistani identity through examining the historical antecedents in imagining Pakistan, resistance to the state’s identity- construction process demonstrated in performing Pakistan, and transnational expressions of identity. This project argues that gender, while leveraged by the state in a top-down construction of national identity, has been used bottom-up to reconfigure …

Ecumenical Dialogue Between Reformers And Orthodox Under The Ottomans (15-16th Century), Svetoslav Svetoszarov Ribolov

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

Despite the capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453, the Orthodox Church continued to make contacts with the West. In the 15^th and 16^th centuries, Patriarchs Joasaph II and Jeremias II had ecumenical contacts and theological dialogues with two generations of Reformers. Martin Luther and Melanchthon, and later Martin Crusius, Jakob Andrеä, and their associates in Wittenberg took up the initiative for a serious ecumenical dialogue with Constantinople. Despite a sincere desire on both sides, lack of a common methodological framework in the talks did not allow for significant results. In the end, both sides did not …

In The Land Of Brothers, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of In the Land of Brothers (2024), directed by Raha Amirfazli and Alireza Ghasemi.

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

Articles

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

Inclusion And Hegemony: Reading Salmān Al-Fārisī'S Conversion Story, Stacey Zhang

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

In the otherwise expansive medieval Arabic literature, the scarcity of information concerning the conversion process of the early Islamic community piques interest in the handful of existing conversion narratives.One particular narrative that stands out is the conversion story of Salmān al-Farisi, recounting his transformation from a devout Zoroastrian to a dedicated companion of Prophet Muhammad. In the compilation of stories of Salmān al-Farisi by Louis Massignon named "Khabar Salmān," the persistence of many plot elements across different accounts of the story suggests a deliberate process of repetition and canonization. Recognizing the Salmān al-Farisi story as a site of memory, curation, …

The Incoherence Of Orientalists, Sarah Zaid Alafifi

Theses and Dissertations

Orientalism, the Western practice of fetishizing cultures, extends beyond mere misrepresentation of the “other;” it epitomizes the underlying structures of colonialism and imperialism, infiltrating everyday life and eroding the moral fabric of Islamic society.

This thesis analyzes colonial control through the exercise of political power and the production of knowledge, investigating key events related to Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign and the narratives of resistance that emerged in opposition to it.

Through the lens of this 18th-century expedition, the study examines how Western knowledge systematically contributed to the dismantling of Islamic systems of knowledge. Select phrases from Colonial-era printed proclamations are extracted …

Islamophobia In India And Its Impact On India’S Foreign Relations, Dylan Morgan

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

India has a vast history of Islam throughout the subcontinent, beginning over a millennia ago. Throughout this time, developments such as Muslim rule over Hindus, British colonization, the partition to create Pakistan and eventually Bangladesh, as well as the rise of Hindu nationalism throughout India from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have created a dangerous status quo for Muslims in India. Communal, state-sanctioned, violence against Muslims, their businesses, symbols of the religion, and any sort of public display is increasingly common. The impact on India’s international standing, especially with predominantly Muslim countries such as Arabian Gulf countries, Iran, Malaysia, and …

"The Opium Of The People" - The Effects Of Soviet State Atheism On The Muslims Of Central Asia, Joshua Hughes

Senior Theses

This thesis explores the Soviet Union’s approach to Islam in the Central Asian republics of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan and the effects that these policies have had on believers following the collapse of the Soviet Union. As the first nation to adopt atheism as official policy, the Soviet Party-state employed many tactics to suppress Islam in the region through violence, propaganda, and strict control. Relying on existing literature written on the topic, I begin by offering a historical analysis of the attacks on Islam in the 1920s and 1930s. In an attempt to expand the scope of English-language …

(Dis)Locating Meaning: Toward A Hermeneutical Response In Education To Religiously Inspired Extremism, Farid Panjwani

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

A key epistemological assumption in the ideologies of many of the groups termed extremist is that there is an unmediated access to a Divine Will. Driven by this assumption, and facilitated by several other factors, a range of coercive actions (including violence) to force others into submission to the perceived Will of God are seen as justified by some of these groups. A consideration of how religion is discussed in various contexts, from seminaries and schools to media and policy discourses, shows that this assumption about unmediated access to Divine Will is widely shared and that most children grow up …

The Fall And Rise Of Bengali Muslim Conciousness: Conceptualising The Identity Of The Bangla Universal, Habib Khan

Theses and Dissertations

The emergence of modern-nation states saw the end of the empirical era of exploitation and exercise of inherent racist tendencies towards the 'other'. However, the effect of that colonial system is still ever-present in the creation and governance of these newly independent states. While every new state aims to be 'modern', they adopt the international legal framework of the West as their own - a system they had initially wanted to escape. The concept of Muslim universality in the form of the ummah should have freed Pakistan from the shackles of its former colonial masters. Instead, this phenomenon was replaced …

Interpretatio Islamica And The Unraveling Of The Ancient Sabian Mysteries, Maurice Hines

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis makes some bold claims about the identity of the Qur’anic Sabians (Ṣābi’ūn) and their symbiotic relationship with various Near Eastern religions including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Thrice mentioned in the Qur’an, they clung to an ancient religion - or perhaps the most ancient – that spanned the entire Eastern hemisphere and provided not only the structural foundations of human civilizations, but also their religious, philosophical, and intellectual foundations. However, their creed had undergone a variety of changes over time including a shift in the conception of God from a personal to a transcendent deity, the worship …

Res Historica, Volume 2, Lynneth Miller Renberg Phd, Alpha Rho Epsilon Phi Alpha Theta

Res Historica

The 2023 journal of historical research by Anderson University students, Res Historica.

The editorial team for this edition of Res Historica was Dr. Lynneth Miller Renberg. Johnathan Sorce, and Helen Smith. Cover art for this volume by Helen Smith.

Collaborative Constructions: Designing High School History Curriculum With The Lost & Found Game Series, Owen Gottlieb, Shawn Clybor

Articles

This chapter addresses design research and iterative curriculum design for the Lost & Found games series. The Lost & Found card-to-mobile series is set in Fustat (Old Cairo) in the twelfth century and focuses on religious laws of the period. The first two games focus on Moses Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, a key Jewish law code. A new expansion module which was in development at the time of the fieldwork described in this article that introduces Islamic laws of the period, and a mobile prototype of the initial strategy game has been developed with support National Endowment for the Humanities. The …

Waqf In Transition: Tracing Local Institutional Change During The British Mandate In Palestine, Zachary Murray

Theses and Dissertations

The British Mandate’s actions of state-building in Palestine were informed by a Zionist-Western modernist envisioned past of Palestine. This state-building ideology was embedded within much of the bureaucracy of the Mandate’s system and infringed on numerous Palestinian institutions such as Waqf. Waqf was disenfranchised in particular through the implementation of urban development programs, like town planning and archaeological regimes, which sought to support the British-Zionist recasting of Palestine.

This thesis aims to show how the British’s ideology of Palestine informed the Mandate’s internal polices and actions which infringed on the rights of waqf. This was done through two axes of …

German Imperialism And Applied Orientalism: German Encounters With The Ottoman Empire, 1850-1918, Matthew David Penix

Dissertations

Edward Said’s influential treatise on culture and imperialism, Orientalism, specifically called out German scholars of the Islamic “Orient” as being different. The lack of a formal German empire in Muslim lands seemed to preclude a culture of Orientalism. This dissertation examines the lived experience of Germans who traveled and worked in the Ottoman Empire from 1850-1918. As German interests sought their “place in the sun” during the decades before 1914, the Ottoman Empire became a major field of business investment, military-to-military contact, and missionary endeavor for Germans acting at the behest of both state and private interests. Their experiences formed …

Qur’An And Constitutions: Sharia In Modern Muslim Democracies, Adrian N. Vasquez

Young Historians Conference

In contemporary society there has seen a gradual shift in the politics of the Muslim world toward more democratic constitutions. This shift can be seen in the aftermath of successful uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt during the Arab Spring as well as isolated cases in other countries. The change echoes those that resulted from the Protestant Reformation’s challenge of the Catholic Church’s authority in 16th century European politics. By looking at the ideas of early constitutionalism in Europe that supported liberalism, it is possible to compare those with the goals of constitutions of new Muslim democracies. Though in many cases …

Mosque Library: History, Function And Research Map, Sudana Sudana, Aam Slamet Rusydiana, Nur Fahmiyati

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The existence of the mosque is a holy place for Muslims. Apart from being a place of worship, it also functions as a center for Muslim activities in regulating the life of Muslims. Mosques have many functions, one of which is as an educational institution. So that this function can support activities related to the life of the people and run well and optimally, it is necessary to have supporting facilities and infrastructure. One of the supporting facilities and infrastructure for mosques as educational institutions is a library, which will provide reading facilities that can increase knowledge and religious insight …

Coping With Defeat: Sunni Islam, Roman Catholicism, And The Modern State. Jonathan Laurence (Princeton, Nj: Princeton University Press, 2021). Pp. 606. $35.00 Paper. Isbn: 9780691172125, Jared Rubin

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

A book review of Coping with Defeat: Sunni Islam, Roman Catholicism, and the Modern State by Jonathan Lawrence.

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 …

Librarian In Islamic Civilization, Muhammad Syafii Antonio, Aam Slamet Rusydiana, Yayat Rahmat Hidayat, Dwi Ratna Kartikawati, Amelia Tri Puspita

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Talking about improving human resources, the library occupies a very urgent role. This is in line with Law Number 43 of 2007 concerning Libraries, especially Article 3, which states that the library functions as a vehicle for education, research, preservation, information, and recreation to increase the intelligence and empowerment of the nation. A librarian, as explained in Article 1 paragraph (8) of Law No. 43 of 2007 on Libraries, is someone who has competence obtained through education and/or training and has duties and responsibilities to carry out library management and services. This study aims to find out the development map …

The House Of Wisdom As A Library And Center Of Knowledge, Abdillah Arif Nasution, Aam Slamet Rusydiana, Isfandayani Isfandayani, Eva Misfah Bayuni, Dwi Ratna Kartikawati, Ihsanul Ihwan

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The heyday of Islam was marked by the rapid development of Islamic science, culture, and education. This rapid development is supported by the existence of institutions that accommodate these developments. At that time, scientific institutions were established as learning science, culture, and Islamic education. Ibn Killis was a figure and pioneer of the development of education in the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt. He founded a university and spent thousands of dinars per month to finance it. One of the most important foundations built during the Fatimid period was the construction of Dar al-Hikmah (The house of wisdom) or Dar al-'Ilm …

Mosque Library: Bibliometrics Analysis Based On Web Of Science (Wos) Database, Sri Yayu Ninglasari, M. Fikri Himmawan

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Throughout history, mosque libraries have played a critical part in the advancement of civilization. From an economic perspective, the advancement of civilization in terms of education and welfare cannot be separated from the existence of libraries. The purpose of this study is to determine the extent of the development of the mosque library literature using bibliometric tools (RStudio with "biblioshiny" and Vosviewer) based on the Web of Science (WOS) database. This study shows patterns of co-authorship, document citations, keyword co-occurrence, and thematic evolution. We demonstrate the literature's influence by examining its document type, yearly publishing rate, journals, and research area. …

The Spread Of Quranic Sciences And Recitation In Lebanon, Ziad Hajj, Fatima Mourad

Al Jinan الجنان

علمُ القراءات القرآنيّة، من العلوم الّتي عزَّ طالبوها، حيثُ إنّ الإنسان في الأعم الأغلب يتلقّى الرّواية المشهورة في بلاده، ويحفظ كتاب ربّه سبحانه حسب كيفيّتها، ولا يطلُب ما عداها من قراءات أخرى، إلّا في القليل النّادر، فكانت الدراسة عن كيفية انتشار علم القراءات القرآنيّة على أراضي لبنان – بتقسيمه الحالي - ما بين (1280 ه) و(1330 ه)، أي ما بين (1863 م) و(1912 م)، برغم أنّ التّدوين التّاريخي لهذه الفترة الزّمنيّة فيما يخصّ علم القراءات القرآنية نادر، بل شبه معدوم.

وقد تبيّن لي بعد البحث أنّ القرن الرّابع عشر للهجرة يُعتبر بداية النّهضة القرآنيّة مجدّداً على الأراضي اللّبنانيّة، بعد الرّكود …

النفحات الإيمانية في شعر شعراء الدولة الإسلامية في فلسطين, Houssam Sbat, Wael El-Arini, Nabil Abu Ali

Al Jinan الجنان

يكتب شاعر الدعوة في فلسطين ليقترب من داخله وليلقى فسحة أخرى من الحرية يسلط بها الضوء على الزوايا المعتمة في المجتمع , الزوايا التي لا يراها الآخرون , يكتب لأن في داخله وفي عقله رؤى وافكارًا وهواجس يرغب أن يبثها علّها تلقى من يستقبلها , ولا يكتب الشاعر بدافع أن يبيع كتابه ويجني من ورائه المال , فهو يسكب احساسه على الورق , وكل فكره أو جمله أو كلمه يكتبها لا تساويها كل كنوز العالم, فكيف إذا كانت هذه الكلمات تناجي الله رب العالمين ليغفر ذنبه ويفتح له باب التوبة حتى يكون من الناجين في الدنيا والآخرة , فلكل شاعر …

Diary Of An Afghan Woman Collection - September 2021

TSOS Interview Gallery

Four women share with us their daily lives in Afghanistan. Join them as they express their love for the country, the people, and each other; and as they share with you their deepest fears and most intimate moments.

They refuse to be silenced as they journey through this new, uncharted chapter in Afghanistan's history.

We at TSOS are honored to provide a platform for their voices to be heard. We will post entries as we receive them. For safety purposes, names have been changed and only avatars (designed with input from each woman) will be used.

ZOYA

Zoya is a …

Yosuf, Yosuf, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Yosef and his family of four are from the Herat Province in Afghanistan. The eldest child used to sell potatoes with Ibrahim, the middle child, who was killed by a landmine planted by counter-revolutionaries. As a result, the eldest child, Ismail, developed severe nerve and mental issues, and the wife, who is now pregnant, frequently has seizures. They sold their home to treat Ismail, but doctors say nothing can be done. Ismail’s condition continues to worsen, but he refuses to leave to see a doctor because he is afraid of the police for an unknown reason. Yosef says he is …

Empire In-The-Round: The Tiered Stages Of Naqsh-I Jahan Square In Isfahan, Sean P. Silvia

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Naqsh-i Jahan Square lies at the heart of the Safavid Empire's capital city of Isfahan, and it is a remarkable unified artistic statement that renders legible Shah 'Abbas' imperial ideology in the urban landscape. It is also a complex made up of many different buildings with theater iconography: the caravanserai, coffeehouse, maydan, and palace. Though there is much existing scholarship analyzing these buildings separately, this paper proposes a new holistic conception of these stage spaces as linked and hierarchal. The stages embody the Shah's goal of centralization by facilitating ease of movement to promote urban consolidation and they invite the …

The Judges In The Rashidun Era - An Analytical Historical Study, Yousef Abdallah Al-Sharifain, Raouf Al-Sharifain

Jerash for Research and Studies Journal مجلة جرش للبحوث والدراسات

This research studies and analyzes the judges in the Rightly Guided Caliphate. By introducing the rightly guided caliphate, the rightly guided caliphs, and the judges in the era of the rightly guided caliphs studied and analyzed To find out the most important and important characteristics that must be taken into account when choosing a judge, as well as the extent of connection or separation of the Rightly Guided Caliphs from the foundations and method of choosing the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, of judges during the prophetic period, by reading the correspondence of the caliphs with …

Lisa Campbell, Lisa Campbell, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Lisa Campbell, project manager for the non-profit Do Your Part Refugee Community Center in Greece. Lisa combined efforts with multiple organizations to better the lives of refugees in the Delisi, Greece area. Lisa discusses the evolution of the growing refugee crisis and the millions who flee to Greece and Turkey.

Structural Delusion, Religious Anxiety, And A Melodramatic Priest: Exploring Macro And Micro Influences On The CóRdoban Martyrs, Emma K. Friesen

Honors Projects

After escaping the assassination of the Umayyad royal family in Damascus, a member of this family, Abd al-Rahman I, fled to the Iberian Peninsula to establish a new Umayyad Empire (756-1492 AD). Famous for its pluralistic polity, unparalleled scholarship, artistic prowess, and more, this empire rightfully established itself as a powerful political force. Many scholars emphasize the unique convivencia, or coexistence, that characterized Islamic Spain during these centuries while others thoroughly question this reality, concerned that it ignores the cultural strain that is inevitable in such a diverse society. In this essay, we find ourselves balancing a middle position, recognizing …