Arabic Language and Literature Commons^™

Unraveling The Roots Of Violent Extremism In Sudan: Challenges And Pathways To Peace, Fawzi Ahmed Abdullah Slom

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

The Rights Of Religious Minorities In Sudan: A Case Study Of Armenians, Jon Armajani

The Journal of Social Encounters

This essay examines the constitutions of the Republic of Sudan and minority rights, with a focus on Armenians in that country.  It provides (1) the demographics of Sudan; (2) an overview of the Armenians of Sudan; (3) a history of Sudan’s constitutions; (4) an analysis of their provisions and related laws on minority rights, citizenship, naturalization, and inheritance; (5) an overview of Sudan’s civil war, which began on April 15, 2023, and (6) a concluding section which analyzes risks to Armenians and other religious and ethnic minorities in Sudan.

The Erosion Of International Norms And The Crisis Of Global Leadership In The Era Of Selective Warfare, Farhia Abdi

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Protection Without Power? The Successes And Failures Of Un Civilian Protection In South Sudan, Gatkuoth Lok Gatwich Diet

The Journal of Social Encounters

Since its establishment in 2011, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has been tasked with protecting civilians in the context of ongoing violent conflict and political instability. The mission has recorded some important achievements, especially through the creation of Protection of Civilians (PoC) sites that have provided shelter to hundreds of thousands of displaced people. However, these gains have been accompanied by major limitations. Repeated attacks on PoC sites, continued communal violence, and the inability to prevent large-scale atrocities highlight a persistent gap between mandate and real-world implementation. This essay examines UNMISS’s performance from 2013 to the present, …

Un-African Union Cooperation In Darfur: Multilevel Governance In Action And The Future Of International-Regional Peace Operations, Philip Mutio

The Journal of Social Encounters

This paper will explore the changing dynamics between global and regional governance frameworks using the example of the UN partnership with regional and sub-regional organizations in the management of intricate peace and security issues. The analysis is anchored on the case of African Union–United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID), an example of layered governance, to examine the effect of coordination problems, operational difficulties, and joint mission performance in the areas of peace talks, post-conflict reconstruction, and civilian protection. Along with persistent issues including scarce resources, political instability, and disjointed command structures, the report acknowledges significant advancements such as increased …

Ethics Under Siege: The Conflict In Tigray Through The Lens Of Just War Theory, Daniela Widya Purba

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

This research article explains the ethical principles of the conflict in Tigray based on the Just War Theory. By using the descriptive qualitative methodology, this research article draws data from secondary sources which includes; academic journals, news reports, as well as international legal instruments to analyze the moral trajectory of the conflict. This research begins with jus ad bellum, to assess Ethiopia’s government justification in declaring conflict within Tigray. While the government fulfilled the criteria of just cause and legitimate authority, the question stands on the ambiguous political intentions and the failure to enact peaceful alternatives before resulting in waging …

Presidential Visits As Foreign Policy Instruments: U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy In Trump’S Second Term, Atar Thaung Htet

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

Through an analysis of President Donald Trump's October 2025 travel to Asia, this study investigates the consequences of U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy under his second-term diplomacy. The paper examines three significant diplomatic encounters—the ASEAN Summit in Malaysia, bilateral meetings in Japan, and the APEC Summit in South Korea—using a qualitative case study methodology based on role theory and foreign policy analysis. The results show that alliance-centered security cooperation, strategic balancing toward China, and selective economic engagement were U.S. Indo-Pacific goals. Through extremely transactional and bilateralized relations, presidential diplomacy allowed the United States to fulfill a number of foreign policy responsibilities, such …

The Narrative Legacy Of Shajar Al-Durr In Arabic Literature, Mary Evelyn Quinlan

Theses and Dissertations

The story of the life of Shajar al-Durr (d. 1257) has been retold many times in Arabic literature in a variety of genres and mediums. In the pre-modern era, Shajar al-Durr’s biography appeared in the works of Ibn Wāṣil, Abū al-Fidāʾ, Al-Maqrīzī, and Ibn Taghrībirdī as well as the popular epic Sīrat Baybars. Many others have written about her since the 19th century, including Qadriyya Ḥusayn and Jurjī Zaydān. Writers of her biography used varying degrees of narrativization to create a story that served their needs, whether that was chronicling the history of 13th century Egypt or promoting contemporary ideological …

The Mystical Soundscape And The Functions Of Commentaries On Ibn Al-Fāriḍ’S (D. 632/1235) Naẓm Al-Sulūk, Sherine Mohsen Aboulwafa

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Ibn al-Fāriḍ’s Naẓm al-Sulūk and its earliest commentaries by al-Farghānī (d. 700/1300) and al-Tilimsānī (d. 690/1291) through the analytical framework of the mystical soundscape. Rather than treating the poem and its commentaries as static texts, it argues that meaning in this corpus emerges as an experiential and perceptual event sustained through sound, silence, and reception. The mystical soundscape is conceptualized as comprising two interrelated domains: a silent soundscape, formed through reading, memory, imagination, and conceptual engagement; and an audible soundscape, formed through recitation, pronunciation, rhythm, and communal audition. These domains are linked by the experience of bewilderment …

Rekontekstualisasi Syair Demonstran Sudan Di Media Sosial: Analisis Wacana Kritis Terhadap Representasi Kritis Kemanusiaan Dan Resistensi, Muhamad Fatih Fauzan

Multikultura

This study examines the representation of the humanitarian crisis and popular resistance in the poetry of Sudanese demonstrators, drawing on the documentary film Sudan, Remember Us (2024) by Hind Meddeb. Using Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the study analyzes data that have been recontextualized through social media. The results show the use of dehumanizing lexicon (lāji'an, mumazzaqan) and hyperbolic metaphors to depict the suffering of the Sudanese people. The poetry employs intertextuality with the story of the Prophet Job to morally legitimize the victims, and is distributed through social media platforms. At the macro level, this poetry functions as …

Sanitation System Options For Public Health Promotion For Post-War Khartoum, Sudan, Gazi Nouman

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Frontline Medicine During War In Sudan: Confronting Health System Collapse, Mogahed Halaly

The Journal of Social Encounters

Since the outbreak of war in Sudan in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, the country’s fragile health system has deteriorated rapidly. As hospitals closed, medical supplies vanished, and millions were displaced, frontline health workers were forced to make impossible choices. This essay recounts my experience as a young physician during the collapse of Sinnar Teaching Hospital, my displacement to White Nile State, and the creation of a community-led humanitarian initiative that provided clinical care, shelter, food, and livelihood support to thousands. It reflects on the intersection of war, displacement, public health collapse, and …

Emergency Response Rooms In Sudan: From Revolutionary Grassroots Organization To The Management Of Life In A Context Of Political Collapse, Salih Mustafa

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Webinar: Sudan: Possible Paths To Peace?

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Review Essay: Welcoming Iranian Refugees And Immigrants To Toronto, Canada, Paul Pynkoski

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Review Of Shia Islam And Politics: Iran, Iraq, And Lebanon, Christopher Anzalone

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Review Essay: The Islamic Moses And Muslim-Jewish Relations, Kareem Rosshandler

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Festival Diplomacy (Ceremony Diplomacy) As A Lesser-Known Form Of Cultural Diplomacy By Emerging Non-State Actors: The Newroz Legacy Of The Kurdish Regional Resistance In Iraq And Syria, Khaled Sheykholeslami

The Journal of Social Encounters

Kurds as the second largest ethnic groups in Iraq and Syria are the only nation in these two major-Arab countries that celebrate Newroz every year. However, as a minority community divided among different Middle Eastern countries, the arrival of the new year and the celebration of Newroz seem to have taken on a political significance beyond merely celebrating spring and the end of winter. This essay argues that Newroz has evolved from a cultural celebration into a strategic instrument of non-state cultural diplomacy used by Kurdish actors in Iraq and Syria to resist centralizing state power and project transnational identity. …

Islamic Relief As A Transnational Advocacy Network In Building Global Solidarity For Gaza, Nura Alanda Nabila, Zhafirah Fatin Azzah, Nuraeni -, R. Dudy Heryadi

The Journal of Social Encounters

This article examines the role of Islamic Relief in supporting Palestine from the perspective of the Transnational Advocacy Network. The conflict in Palestine, particularly in Gaza, raises the central question of how non-governmental actors contribute to global advocacy efforts amid the large-scale civilian suffering. The article is based on qualitative research, utilizing a literature review as a data collection technique, with constructivism as the theoretical framework. This study positions Islamic Relief as a transnational humanitarian organization whose work is shaped and rooted in Islamic values. The findings showed that the efforts to address the crisis in Gaza are carried out …

Food, Faith, And Sustainability: Rethinking Ramadan Consumption Practices In Qatar, Tamim Raihan

The Journal of Social Encounters

This essay examines the paradox that Ramadan’s ethical horizon of restraint and moral accountability often coincides, in contemporary Qatar, with heightened provisioning and recurrent food waste. Bringing Émile Durkheim’s sacred–profane distinction into dialogue with Nancy Ammerman’s “lived religion,” the analysis treats commensality as a privileged site where religious meaning is socially produced, renewed, and contested through embodied practice. It further mobilizes Benjamin Smith’s critique of Market Orientalism to caution against culturalizing narratives that frame Gulf “excess” as moral deficiency while obscuring political-economic conditions, labor arrangements, and infrastructures that normalize surplus. Methodologically, the article is a theory-driven, interpretive conceptual essay grounded …

United States Middle East Policy In The Age Of Donald Trump, Gary Prevost

The Journal of Social Encounters

This essay on the foreign policy of the United States in the Middle East in the middle of the second Trump administration and the continuing conflict in Gaza and the West Bank makes the case for decades of consistency in US policy but also some nuances from the current US administration. The author makes the case that there have been three constants in US policy since the era of the Second World War. First, is the guarantee the flow of reasonably priced oil to the United States and its allies.  Second, the maintenance of the state of Israel as a …

Geopolitical Transformation In The Post-October 7 Middle East (2023–2025): Power Shifts Vs. Structural Shifts, Nael Shama

The Journal of Social Encounters

This essay investigates the geopolitical shifts that unfolded in the Middle East from October 2023 to the end of 2025, stimulated by the surprise attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent events it triggered. These included military confrontations between Israel and each of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, and Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. The essay demonstrates that these developments have reshaped power positions and alliances in the Middle East, leading to a more complex and unpredictable geopolitical landscape. It sketches out the new regional balance of …

Countering Social Encounters: Darwish’S “Speech Of The Red Indian”, J. Kristen Urban

The Journal of Social Encounters

In June 2025 the Washington D.C. Arab Center held a conference at the National Press Club titled, “A Historic Juncture: Israel’s Destruction of Gaza and the Palestinian Future.”  The discussion sparked an incisive question: Would such a future follow a Palestinian-owned trajectory?  Incisive, because Palestinians have not owned their trajectory since the 1915 Sykes-Picot Agreement, have consistently been defined in negative terms, and have lived with the ambiguity of existing while remaining unrecognized.  Growing up within Israel, Palestine’s national poet, Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008), experienced this paradox firsthand, and explored it directly in “Speech of the Red Indian,” a poem written …

Gender Justice Lessons From North-East Syria Amidst Patriarchal Perpetuation In The New Syrian Arab Republic?, Theresa Wagner

The Journal of Social Encounters

The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, whose family had ruled Syria for over sixty years, and his government by Hai’at Tahrir asch-Scham (HTS) signified for many the beginning of a new era of democracy and freedom after thirteen years of civil war. People in the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), a self-governing region that had not been ruled by the Syrian state since 2012, joined in with the celebrating crowds. However, they remained skeptical of HTS, which originated as a branch of al-Qaeda, known back then as Jabhat al-Nusra. Since taking on government responsibilities in the new …

Introduction: The Arab World And Middle East In An Age Of Dynamism And Change, Eslam Elbahlawan, Mawa Mohamed, Ron Pagnucco

The Journal of Social Encounters

On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel began a massive joint military attack against the Islamic Republic of Iran to which Iran has responded. At the time of the publication of this issue, the fighting continues and could become more widespread; the ultimate outcome of the conflict is unknown.  This conflict highlights the importance of a deeper understanding of the region.

In the shadow of these events, people of the Middle East once again find their lives reordered by decisions taken far above their heads and far beyond their borders. The current war not only devastates cities, infrastructure, …

بلاغة الدائرة الحمراء في تجسيدات لجين العيسى البصرية, Fatima Al Breiki

CoHSS Faculty Work

No abstract provided.

Parallel Concepts Found In The Thousand And One Nights And Sufi Hagiography, Walaa Kamal Emam Kamel

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that The Thousand and One Nights functions as more than mere populist entertainment; rather, it constitutes a literary corpus imbued with Sufi mystical epistemologies that reflect the spiritual quests and Sufi concepts evident in hagiographical traditions. Through discourse and intertextual analysis of two Nights stories, “The City of Brass” and “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad,” alongside Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār’s Tadhkirat al-awliyāʾ, this study demonstrates how shared rhetorical strategies—specifically David Pinault’s Leitwörter analysis and L.A. Paul’s Transformative Experience concept—reveal a narrative and rhetorical emphasis on the metamorphosis of the self from worldly attachment toward …

The Religious Groups Of Mecca And Medina In The Sixth And Seventh Centuries Ce, Ilkka Linstedt

Abdou Filali-Ansary Occasional Paper Series

Ancient and modern urban centres have been important loci for encounters between individuals of different identities. In this article, I present Mecca and Medina as multi-religious towns in the pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods of the sixth and seventh centuries ce. Mecca was a very small town, but the Kaaba shrine there served as a regional pilgrimage site that drew people from different faith communities. Medina was a larger settlement with a significant Jewish population. Jews, Christians and others (‘pagans’) lived in both towns. Some of these ‘others’ had also adopted some of the basic ideas of monotheism, although they …

Literature Review: Crowdfunding And Political Fundraising, Saiful Ahmad, Palupi Lindiasari Samputra

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

Crowdfunding is an effort to raise relatively small amounts of money involving many individuals to support a specific project. Typically, crowdfunding is conducted online through fundraising platforms. The aim of this paper is to identify and analyse the utilisation of crowdfunding in fundraising activities that are related to or have political goals carried out by certain organisations or political groups. The method used in this paper is qualitative in the form of narrative analysis carried out through in-depth reading of several scientific literatures that discuss political fundraising through crowdfunding. The sources of scientific literature collection were obtained through the Google …

How A Stay-At-Home Father Plays A Role In Family Resilience?, Fatimah Fatimah, Eko Daryanto

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

One of the impacts of modernization is the loss of barriers between job and particular gender. This also happens in the family unit, more specifically in the role of husband and wife. The husband's job which is identical to earn money and the wife's job is to manage the household should be able to be done more flexibly according to family conditions. This adaptation process is needed in order to strengthen family resilience. Non-traditional family composition that usually consist of a stay-at-home father and a working mother can be used as a family adaptation strategy. This study uses the results …