Islamic World and Near East History Commons^™

Examining State Development In West Africa, Through Senegal And Nigeria, Kasandra L. Housley

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper studies the relationship between the state and armed conflict in West Africa with an emphasis placed on the value, influence, and role of social institutions on the long-term stability of the West African state. The countries of the Republic of Senegal and Nigeria represent the primary focus of the paper. Comparisons are made of the history of each country/state and experience with socio-political conflict in an effort to explain the penultimate place of social as opposed to legalistic or political influences responsible for the long term survival of the independent state in West Africa. The central question explored …

Casar Public Lecture: The Results Are Out! Implications Of The Us 2024 Elections On Egypt & The World: Looking At A Broader Perspective’, The Prince Alwaleed Center For American Studies And Research Casar

Performances, Events, and Presentations

DONALD TRUMP WON THE 2024 US ELECTIONS!

CASAR Public Panel Discussion: The results are out! Implications of the US 2024 Elections on Egypt & the World: Looking at a Broader Perspective."

Speakers: From AUC: Amb. Karim Haggag - Dr. Manar El-Shorbagi , and from the University of Central Florida Mr.David Dumke.

The panel was moderated by CASAR Director Dr.Mark Deets.

The panelists deliberated about the possible implications of this election round from several perspectives, analyzing the impact on Egypt, the region & the world.

Learn more about CASAR and follow us: CASAR website: https://gapp.aucegypt.edu/academics/c...

Facebook: / casar-auc-egypt-461110727349183

Instagram: https://instagram.com/casar2003?igshi.. …

Constructive Instability And Operation Unified Protector: The Destruction Of The United States-Led World-System, Devin Bryant Gillen

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

In 2011, NATO ended the 42-year-long rule of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, and plunged the country into over a decade of unending strife, while an arc of crisis emanating from Libya struck much of the region. This study examines the United States' geostrategic approach in the Libyan intervention to illustrate the dialectic intersectional relationships between processes of globalization, American hegemony over the world-system, and American foreign policy in the post-Cold War period (1992-2024) with consideration to world-systems analysis to characterize the United States post-Iraq warfighting strategy in Libya as an adaptation of the purposeful destabilization of Afghanistan and cultivation of an …

The Importance Of Sunni-Iraqi Support In The Rise And Fall Of Isis In Iraq, Deja Meekins

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

ISIS, a Salafi-jihadist terrorist organization stationed in the Middle East, has had its fair share of "successes" and "failures," both of which have been present in Iraq. Toward the beginning of the development of ISIS, it garnered a very powerful supporter base in Iraq. However, that has changed since then; ISIS currently, in 2024, no longer has the support of the vast majority of the Iraqi people. What is the reason for this? This research paper will seek to analyze and answer two major questions: what role does the Iraqi Sunni population play in ISIS’s trajectory of successes and failures …

Sedimented For The Future: Can Technology Sustain Tradition?, Nihal Bursa

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

Turkish coffee is unique in its brewing technique and deeply rooted in the culture developed throughout the Ottoman geography since the sixteenth century. The knowledge, skills and rituals of Turkish coffee are transmitted to new generations through observation, participation and practicing. Be it an elaborate ritual at the Ottoman court or a modest peasant pleasure, Turkish coffee requires dedicated time, manual skills and decorum. The pace of industrialization and urbanization in the twenty-first century forced people to acquire new lifestyles. This has put Turkish coffee service in jeopardy especially in public spaces. Owing to the Turkish coffee machine designed by …

Obedient Bellies And The Coming Of Urbanization In Fourth Millennium Mesopotamia, Saikat Mukherjee

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

Hunger has always been a persistent trauma of mankind in every age. As a matter of fact, “hunger” which according to Seth Richardson can be defined as the "routine and everyday sub-nutrition, less than a famine and more than a temporary inconvenience" is “one of the most powerful, pervasive and (arguably) emotive words in our historical vocabulary” (Richardson, 2016; Murton, 1988). Food has been the only way to satiate the mass cry and is overlooked by social and economic historians and/or archaeologists as a potent medium to understand an interdependent mass psychology. We seldom try to study food at the …

“Not The Mecca We Know”: Analyzing The Spiritual And Cultural Ramifications Of Contemporary Commercialism In Saudi Arabia, Hanif Azam Amanullah

Senior Theses

The Islamic Hajj, one of the world's most prominent religious pilgrimages, has in recent decades faced increasing scrutiny due to its rapid and persistent commercialization under the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s government. To make way for this commercialization, researchers estimate that over 95% of Islamic heritage sites have been destroyed, the justification for which often lies in Wahhabi attempts to avoid idolatry. The few remaining sites have been renovated beyond the point of recognition. Amid the drastic transformation of both Islam’s holiest city and holiest ritual, this thesis finds that the Kingdom’s fundamentalist Islamic interpretations and extreme commercial developments have …

The Holocaust's Legacy: Influencing Jewish Political Identity, Jordan Eskew

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis addresses the intricate relationship between the historical persecution of the Holocaust and its enduring influence on contemporary Jewish political engagement, a subject of significant contemporary relevance in political and international relations. Despite broad recognition of the Holocaust’s impact, the specific ways in which its memory affects Jewish political attitudes and actions around the world in the modern day have not been sufficiently thoroughly examined. Utilizing qualitative methods, including interviews with 20 individuals—public figures, Holocaust survivors, their descendants, and broader members of the Jewish diaspora— this study focuses on understanding the interplay between historical trauma, community cohesion, and the …

French Algeria: How Influential Was France On The Algerian Identity?, Sabrina Laib

Peace Studies Student Papers and Posters

Algeria is known for its revolutionary acts for freedom against French colonialism. The French ruled the religion after Algeria was handed over to them by the Ottoman Empire. The Empire had previously ruled the Algerian territory 400-500 years prior. Algerians were introduced to French rule, which drastically changed the social and political layout of the country. This paper looks at the two time periods of colonization in Algeria: from 1830-1930, as well as 1931-1962. These time periods are very different from one another and represent unique turning points for the country, with the reason being that the period looks at …

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 …

Judaism, Conversion, And The Limits Of Christian Orthodoxy: The Jewish Identities Of Joseph Wolff And Michael Solomon Alexander As Detailed In Their Memoirs And Missions To Palestine, Michael Iodice

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the Jewish identities of the Anglican missionaries Joseph Wolff and Michael Solomon Alexander by examining their conversion memoirs and evangelical missions to Palestine. It argues that they used Protestant biblical exegesis to emphasize their Jewish heritage and its importance in Christian prophecy.

Salafi Reformist Fatwas And The Challenge To Traditionalism In Egypt And Arabia, 1895 – 1930, Samuel Scurry

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Studies of the Islamic intellectual movement commonly known as Salafism have long focused either on the modernist reformers in Egypt and Syria in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, or on the far more austere and sometimes militant iterations of Salafism from the mid-twentieth century to the present day, often associated with Wahhabism. A handful of scholars have examined the links between the two and the transition from the earlier to the later Salafis, however many works which impacted the evolution of Salafism at the dawn of the twentieth century have been neglected, especially those which do not align …

The Mazdakites, The ʿAyyārs And The Mithraists, Parvaneh Pourshariati

Publications and Research

No revolutionary movement in Iranian Late Antiquity has attracted as much attention as the fascinating and enigmatic Mazdakite uprising of the late fifth century. The scholarly consensus about these has it that 1) they engaged in ibāḥat al-nisā, sharing of wives; 2) advocated the sharing of property and 3) that their past time was wine imbibing and merrymaking. I shall argue here that, as Shaki correctly suspected but did not pursue the topic, the description of the Mazdakite in our primary sources (the Letter of Tansar, Ibn Qutayba, Ṭabarī, Dīnkard, Shahrestānī), actually follows the praxis of the ʿayyārs, chivalrous men …

The Impact Of Jordan’S Peacebuilding Efforts In Gaza On Its Domestic Politics, Nina Sretenović

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Israeli-Palestine conflict has persisted for decades, becoming one of the world's longest unresolved conflicts. It is a long-standing struggle for sovereignty and territorial legitimacy on the land between the Jordan River on the east and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Since the UN Partial Plan in 1947 and the formation of the country of Israel until the most recent war started by the attack of Hamas on October 7, 2023, this conflict has shaped the politics of the Middle East. Jordan as its closest neighbor has especially been impacted by the developments of the conflict. Taking into consideration …

The Cooperation Of Russia And Iran-Led Shia Axis:Its Nature And Implications For The U.S. Strategy In The Middle East, Arman Mahmoudian

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the intricate dynamics of the partnership between Russia and the Iran-led Shia Axis formed during the Syrian civil war (2011-present), a coalition of Iran-supported state and non-state Shia entities in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. This alliance is distinguished by its unprecedented nature: a secular, authoritarian Russia aligning with a network of Shia groups, a collaboration forged amidst shared concerns over Syrian rebels and Sunni extremists, particularly ISIS. Remarkably, this partnership has evolved beyond its initial focus on immediate threats, suggesting a deeper, strategic alignment aimed potentially against a more formidable adversary, the United States. This shift indicates …

Unveiling Estrangement: The Ambivalence Of Iranian Cultural Identity In Documentary Films, Vahid Valikhani

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines estrangement within Iranian society as depicted in Iranian documentaries, which, I argue, regularly suppress the complexities of Iranian cultural identity. While Iranian narrative cinema has been studied in this context, documentaries have received less scholarly attention, despite their potential to illuminate the shortcomings of conceiving Iranian cultural identity. I examine three documentaries: Tehran Today (Ahmad Faroughi Ghajar, 1962), Newcomers (Kianoush Ayari, 1979) and Tehran Without Permission (Sepideh Farsi, 2009). Through this analysis, I uncover various forms of estrangement, including those induced by westernization, gender oppression, and the political control of what Hamid Naficy calls “mediawork.” Drawing on …

Iran's Nuclear Program: A Struggle For Security And Modernity, Sina Azodi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the historical evolution of Iran's nuclear program from its inception in the 1950s to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. It examines how threat perceptions have, over the decades, influenced Iran's nuclear posture, leading the Iranian political leadership to adopt a hedging strategy that extends beyond changes in ruling regimes. This study employs the Proliferation Strategy Theory (PST) as its theoretical foundation. This framework helps in dissecting the dynamics between threat perceptions and the candidate state's adopted nuclear posture. The principal findings of this dissertation highlight the direct impact of regional …

Centrifugal Forces Impacting Urbanization In The Eastern Mediterranean During Roman And Early Islamic Times, Øystein S. Labianca

Faculty Publications

My goal with this essay is to make the existence of a distinctive Levantine cultural paradigm a lens through which to examine long-term patterns of urbanization and cultural change in the Eastern Mediterranean—focusing especially on present-day Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories. Inspired by the agenda and approach of global history, the essay is an attempt to highlight a number of salient features of societal formation processes in this region that set them apart from such processes in the heartlands of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. The paradigm holds that societal formation dynamics in the Levant have been dominated more by …

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, …

Armenian Church Of Our Saviour Collection, Jennifer Krulisz-Hossain, Robyn Conroy

Strassler Center Archival Collection Finding Aids

This collection comprises of books, manuscript and volumes, and journal reviews donated by the Armenian Church of Our Saviour in Worcester, Massachusetts. The materials focus on Armenian history, culture, and literature, emphasizing the richness of Armenian heritage's intellectual and cultural aspects. These resources are preserved within the church's library and archives. The Shelved Books within the Rose Library include English-language books written by Armenian authors and translated works that explore themes of Armenian history, culture, and resilience. These texts serve as accessible educational tools for scholars, students, and the broader community. The Manuscript Volumes contain original works by Armenian authors, …

Strategic Rhetorics: Apartheid South Africa/Apartheid Israel: Address To Chapman University’S Gaza Solidarity Encampment, May 2024, Ian Barnard

English Faculty Articles and Research

"On 2 May 2024, Chapman University faculty were asked to participate in a 'faculty speak out' in support of the Chapman Students For Justice In Palestine’s Gaza solidarity encampment. We were invited to speak 'from our expertise and/or personal experiences in a call for a ceasefire in Gaza' (Leitz, 2024). This is a slightly expanded version of what I said[.]"

Unfolding Remembrance: Folding Islamic Principles Into Pondering Machines, Hind Al Saad Al-Kuwari

Theses and Dissertations

Principles of early Islamic art can be surveyed as a precursor to Western computational art. Though produced in different historical and cultural contexts, Islamic art and computational art are connected by underlying structures—arithmetic, harmony, and the concept of the Infinite.

Islamic developments in knowledge, like algebra, contributed to mathematics and mechanics—the building blocks of contemporary technology. Returning to Islam’s traditional harmony between religion and science, my creative practice constructs machines as an act of worship (ʿibadah), folding Islamic principles into the medium of computation.

Selected verses from the Quran are used as the core of each automaton (self-operating machine). Their …

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 …

Discursive Femininity In The Encounter Of Sultan Kamil And St. Francis, Zilka Spahić Šiljak

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

In discussions about violence, wars, and peacebuilding, we often hear essentialist arguments about women and men, equating men with masculine and women with feminine characteristics, while avoiding the acceptance that both genders contain both sets of traits, depending on how they are nurtured and exhibited. Socialization polarizes and solidifies essentialist views on gender roles, and any deviation from these norms is sanctioned through stigmatization and exclusion. However, the greatest male spiritual authorities in the world serve as examples of embracing the feminine within themselves, and it is this acceptance that makes them memorable and continues to inspire humanity today. Two …