Islamic World and Near East History Commons^™

Intercultural Connectivity: Intertwined Through Islamic Design, Sandra Bird

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

This paper is a critical inquiry examining the works of an art exhibit, Geometric Aljamia: A Cultural Transliteration, hosted during Kennesaw State University’s Year of the Arabian Peninsula. It includes a brief interdisciplinary discussion of the importance of geometry to the development of Islamic art and design. The contemporary artists who produced these works under study integrate drawing and paper-cutting techniques that display characteristics of art found throughout the Muslim world.

Ottoman Arabia And The Holy Hijaz, 1516-1918, Willaim Ochsenwald

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

Governments in Arabia today usually ignore the Ottoman Empire’s history in the region, but the Ottomans from 1516 to 1918 played a key role in coastal regions, especially in the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina. While Ottoman administrations intermittently ruled in Yemen and eastern Arabia, their influence was greatest in the holy Hijaz, the site of the worldwide pilgrimage. However, Ottoman rule was limited by Istanbul’s distance from Arabia. Religion played a significant role in determining the nature of Ottoman control, helping to legitimize the state among its subjects. A detailed analysis of one province, the Hijaz, with …

Introduction To The Special Edition, Daniel J. Paracka

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

Introduction to the special edition on the Year of Arabian Peninsula programming at Kennesaw State University, 2014-2015.

Ilhan, Nura, Radwa, Ziagull And Children, Ilhan, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Ilhan, his wife Nura, and their children resided near Kabul, in a region where both the Taliban and ISIS were active. As Shias, Ilhan’s family faced numerous menaces, including threats from ISIS that they would be beheaded if they did not display ISIS flags. Ilhan’s sister Radwa, who is deaf and mute, was forced to marry a regional leader. In addition to being threatened on religious grounds, Ilhan’s family was also threatened by an elder of their town. Out of desperation, Ilhan’s family sold their house appliances, escaped Afghanistan, and arrived at the …

Continuity And Contradistinction: A Geography Of Religion Study Of The Ancient Near Eastern Storm-God Baal-Hadad, Jewish Elijah, Christian St. George, And Muslim Al-Khiḍr In The Eastern Mediterranean, Erica Ferg Muhaisen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For at least the past 800 years in the Eastern Mediterranean, communities of Muslims, Christians, and Jews have venerated three important figures: Christian St. George, Muslim al-Khiḍr, and Jewish Elijah. This is paradoxical, considering that common wisdom, and even religious studies discourse, suggests that Muslims, Christians, and Jews are distinct and separate, and particularly in the contentious Levant. Moreover, the figures there also share 'peculiar' characteristics: associations with rain, greenness, and fertility. One past study of this phenomenon argued that the figures' similarities arose from the fact that they were each a continuation of an important earlier regional religious figure: …

Bilal, Bilal, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Bilal was 23 years old when he drowned in Greece. He was cheerful, intelligent, and full of energy.

He was a journalist in Afghanistan who received a death threat from the Taliban. His family decided that he should flee the country alone for survival since they couldn’t afford for the whole family to go.

He escaped from the camp in Moria by finding a hole in the fence. He outran the police, found a ship in port, and jumped on it as it was leaving. He later had 10 unsuccessful attempts to leave Greece for Germany. He was caught by …

Zurvan, Zurvan, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Zurvan and his family had a good life in Afghanistan. He worked as a clerk in a spice shop. After doing business with a foreign company, the Taliban threatened him with death. To escape this threat, he and his family escaped to Iran and hired a smuggler to get them to Turkey. From there, they traveled to Greece in an overloaded boat. They have been living in a camp in Greece, stuck in limbo, ever since. Zurvan feels hopeless, like everyone in the camp is being treated in an inhumane manner. He also feels guilty for bringing his children into …

Aarash, Aarash, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

As an anti-corruption journalist in Afghanistan, Aarash’s family’s life was threatened by warlords. His car was shot at, their guesthouse was bombed, and later when they were threatened at gunpoint, they tried to make a new life in India. But in India, they discovered difficulties in obtaining permanent visas so they had return to Kabul where they hid at a friend’s house for 20 days while obtaining documentation to flee to Turkey. Once in Turkey, they learned that Afghan registries had been closed since 2010. They determined that they needed to either apply for asylum in Turkey or leave for …

Idiris, Idiris, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Idiris is an 18-year-old Somalian refugee now living inUtah. He describes his life, mentioning that he only lived in Somalia for six years then moved to Ethiopia, where he stayed for seven and a half years.His life inEthiopia was peaceful and happy in comparison to Somalia, where Idiris and his family witnessed continuous violence. Idiris’s father eventually learned of the opportunities and education available in America and decided to move his family there for a better life, leaving behind family and friends. Coming to America, Idiris and his family did not know what their new home would be like. They …

The Student Researcher 2016 (Title Page, Preface, Table Of Contents), Selena Sanderfer Faculty Advisor

The Student Researcher: A Phi Alpha Theta Publication

No abstract provided.

Killing The Rotten Citric Lump: A Somatic Reading Of The Death Of Shahrazād’S Hunchback, Erin S. Lynch

The Hilltop Review

Throughout the narrative of the Hunchback’s Tale within the Thousand and One Nights, the hunchback is always at the center of the action, yet with the exception of the first time he is “killed,” he is never written as the reader’s focus, except in instances of violence performed against the hunchback’s body. The reader’s gaze is constantly drawn to the killer, rather than the victim, and led to laugh at or empathize with the killers of the hunchbacked corpse, rather than the deformed, ever-abused body. Neither the champion nor the foil, the body of the hunchback functions merely as …

Salman, Salman, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Salman and his family are from Afghanistan, where he worked as a doctor. He worked for fifteen years for a mining institute, and before that he worked in various hospitals with Americans and Germans for another combined 15 years. The family ran into problems with the Taliban, who threatened violence if he didn’t close his drugstore. During that same time, his son witnessed a suicide bombing at his school. Their daughter was forced to abandon her education when the Taliban poisoned the water at her school. They fled in attempts to live a normal life again and escape the threats …

Emal, Emal, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Emal was a gate security guard in the Afghan army and a supplier for American forces at the airport. Before leaving Afghanistan, Emal was kidnapped by Daesh, beaten, thrown into a pile of bodies, and left for dead. He woke up weeks later in hospital with adent in his skull, brain damage, and mental/emotional problems. When he was able, Emal fled with his wife and six kids, but they travelled with smugglers in separate cars and got separated. Iran police deported his wife and children back to Afghanistan. Emal continued on and eventually made his way to Oinofyta refugee camp …

Fawad And Zakeela, Fawad, Zakeela, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Fawad and his wife, Zakeela, have three children. Zakeela was a beautician, and Fawad was a singer in the Baghlan district in Afghanistan. The music he produced was not in accordance with the strict restrictions of the Taliban. They threatened his life and assaulted him many times, so he decided to leave with his family to Kabul. Fawad’s day job was as an FM radio producer; at night, he moonlighted as a singer and musician. He produced music for ceremonies and weddings, often performing for the women’s part, which the Taliban did not accept. Eventually, his life was again threatened, …

Faroosh And Elina, Faroosh, Elina, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Faroosh was a cameraman for a private television program in Afghanistan working on a documentary about the Taliban. When he and his crew were discovered, the Taliban attacked them and he and his wife fled to Turkey, walking 12 hours to get there. Upon arrival the police arrested and harassed them. Turkey was not a safe place. After several suicide bombings in the area, they decided to move on to Greece, where they are in a refugee camp without any progress in their situation. They have no money to move forward and no ability to work and the economic situation …

Crusaders In Khaki: Britain, The Crusades, And The First World War, Rhys Weber 16

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.

Nasser Of Egypt And The Egypt Of Nasser, Pria G. Jackson

Undergraduate Research Awards

In the Egyptian consciousness, there is a date that resonates in the nation’s memory as the official catalyst that led to the rise of modern Egypt: July 23, 1952. On this day, a military group called the Free Officers rose up and seized control of Egypt from the monarchs and British colonizers in a near bloodless coup d’état. The face of the Free Officers at the time of the coup was General Muhammad Naguib (1901 – 1984), but the brain and heart of the movement was the then colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918 – 1970). During the first three years …

Paper Rights: The Emergence Of Documentary Identities In Post-Colonial India, 1950–67, Haimanti Roy

History Faculty Publications

This essay contextualises the emergence of a document regime which regulated routine travel through the deployment of the India–Pakistan Passport and Visa Scheme in 1952. It suggests that such travel documents were useful for the new Indian state to delineate citizenship and the nationality of migrants and individual travellers from Pakistan. The bureaucratic and legal mediations under the Scheme helped the Indian state to frame itself before its new citizens as the sole certifier of some of their rights as Indians. In contrast, applicants for these documents viewed them as utilitarian, meant to facilitate their travel across the new borders. …

Tracing Islamic Extremist Ideologies: The Historical Journey Of Jihad From The Late Antique Period To The 21st Century, Nikhil Kanade

CMC Senior Theses

Popular interpretations and academic scholarship tends to emphasize the relationship between jihad, military action, and communal violence. These reinforce a sense that violence is inherent to Islam. Investigations into the contexts where jihad has been deployed highlight how its use is often a call for unity believed to be necessary for political goals. Therefore, in order to deconstruct this belief, this thesis tackles instead the relationship between textual interpretations and historical actions, and how these varied across specific moments in time. The case studies examined range from the initial evolution of a theory of jihad in the late antique world, …

Algerian, Tunisian, And Moroccan Students Abroad In France: The Importance Of History In Understading The International Student Experience, Hannah M. Ulrich

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In the wake of two major terrorist attacks in the past year, the presence in France of a large Arab-Muslim population has gained new global attention. Whether or not the perpetrators of these events held French or other European nationalities, their names and faces all said “Arab” to the public and raised questions about immigration, terrorism, Islam and the presence and status of Arab-Muslims in France. These questions are nothing new, even if they seem to take on new urgency. Since North Africans began coming to France in significant numbers in the 1920s and 1930s their place in France has …

Front Matter

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

Cover, editorial board, submission guidelines, subscription information, and table of contents for Vol. 10, No. 1.