Islamic World and Near East History Commons^™

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.

Hiroshima And The Birth Of The Perilous Present, Scott M. White

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

This article explores how the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945 not only marked a transformative moment in military and political history but also set a lasting precedent for modern global risk. By examining the implications of Hiroshima, this paper will delve into how the initial decision to use nuclear force instigated a high-stakes period of unprecedented risk management that extends to today's geopolitics, nuclear proliferation, and even international policy on climate and technology. This article will argue that the atomic history of Hiroshima established the world’s first encounter with existential weaponry and its accompanying ethical challenges, thereby laying the …

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 …

Gold, Manuscripts, And Misunderstanding: The Forgotten Intellectual Wealth Of Timbuktu, Caroline A. Valdovinos

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This article re-examines Timbuktu’s legacy, challenging European myths that imagined the city as a hidden African “El Dorado” while overlooking its intellectual wealth. From the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, Timbuktu thrived as a hub of trade, religion, and scholarship, home to mosques, libraries, and networks of learning that drew scholars from across the Islamic world. Manuscripts on theology, law, medicine, and science circulated widely, placing the city at the heart of West Africa’s intellectual life. Yet European explorers and mapmakers, influenced by accounts like those of Leo Africanus, recast Timbuktu as a treasure-laden city of gold. This obsession, reinforced by …

Laila: A Doll Memoir Of 1947 Partition Of India And Pakistan, Maleeha Malik, Maleeha Fatima Malik

Children's Literature (MFA) Theses

This abstract examines a creative and critical work centered on the 1947 Partition of India, which displaced approximately fourteen million people and caused one million deaths. The narrative introduces Laila, an anthropomorphized doll who functions as both witness and archive, embodying the memories and traumas of multiple child survivors. Through Laila’s journey across India, Pakistan, and the diaspora, the text explores themes of identity, belonging, loss, and intergenerational memory.

Blending personal family history with historical analysis, the author situates Laila within lived experiences of migration, silence, and religious marginalization, particularly as part of the Ahmadi Muslim community. The narrative foregrounds …

An Ideological Target Through The Archaeological Archive: The Islamic State’S Destruction Of Palmyra And Its Impact On Local Syrian Identity, Tristen A. Leone

Pomona Senior Theses

This paper investigates how Palmyra's multicultural archaeological archive incited ISIS's destruction of the site during the Syrian Civil War through an analysis of sepulchral and religious architectural structures and onomastic practices. In contributing the cultural heritage scholarship, this paper places the motives of Islamic extremist groups in conversation with intellectual discourse around the multicultural identities of the Ancient Near East during the Roman Imperial Period. Further, through anthropological methodological frameworks and the photographic archive of excavation efforts at Palmyra, I aim to center modern local communities' experiences of living on and near an archaeological site like Palmyra. In consulting modern …

Imperial Islam And Colonial Control: The Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly As A Mediator Of Russian Rule In The Kazakh Frontier, Zharas Akhan

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

Examination of the strategic role of the Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly (OMSA) as a pivotal instrument of imperial governance in the Kazakh Steppe during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The study investigates how the Russian Tsarist administration instrumentalized Islamic institutions to exercise political control and facilitate the integration of nomadic Kazakh society into the imperial hierarchy. Drawing on extensive archival evidence, the author analyzes the institutional evolution of the Muftiate, its involvement in diplomatic and intelligence operations, and the intermediary agency of Tatar mullahs who bridged the gap between the Kazakh aristocracy and the Russian bureaucracy. The paper identifies …

The Birth Of Afghanistan: From Ancient Persia To A Modern-Day Multiethnic And Linguistic Country, Tyler A. Worm

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis offers a comprehensive historical analysis of the formation and evolution of Afghan identity from antiquity through the early medieval period, emphasizing the region’s role as a dynamic crossroads of civilizations. It traces the origins of Afghan populations to Indo-Iranian pastoralist migrations and examines the successive influence of major imperial formations, including the Median and Achaemenid Persian empires, the conquests of Alexander and the Seleucid period, and the rise of the Kushan, Parthian, and Sasanian states. Through this longue durée approach, the study demonstrates how Afghanistan’s geographic position facilitated continuous cultural interaction, economic exchange, and political contestation, producing a …

Ottoman Wikālas In Cairo: Islamic Architecture Beyond The Mosque, Yumna Moussa

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis traces one of the largest architectural typologies in Cairo: the wikāla, a type of urban caravanserai unique to Egypt. Estimated to have reached more than five hundred buildings by the 18^th century, the wikāla was the building of choice for most patrons in Ottoman Cairo. This study initially investigates the evolution of commercial architecture within the Islamic city. It then explores the defining architectural features of Cairene wikālas built between the 16^th and 18^th centuries—their plans, decorative/iconographic programs, and urban distribution—based on waqfiyyas, chronicles, travelers’ accounts, and photographic archives. Since many of …

Hiw 301: Ottoman History, Firat Koklu

Open Educational Resources

Hybrid asynchronous survey of Ottoman history from the empire’s emergence through its collapse, examining major political, social, economic, and legal transformations across six centuries. Through primary sources, historical scholarship, and audiovisual materials, the course considers themes including imperial expansion and governance, religious communities, migration, economic change, reform, European imperialism, and the transition from empire in a broader global and comparative context.

Recurring Coups In The Sahel Region Likely To Strain U.S. Resources, Autumn Tewksbury, Anthony Zampino, Shay Dauphinais, Andrew Britland

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

This client report examines recurring military coups in the Sahel region of Africa and the probability of implications for U.S. interests. We incorporated analysis of terrorist organizations, adversarial involvement in the region, and projected socioeconomic factors in the next three to five years. Our analysis indicates these factors could pose a direct threat to U.S. national security interests. Current U.S. policy prohibits aid distribution to coup governments, increasing the likelihood that Sahelian countries will turn to U.S. adversaries for economic support. An additional aspect to consider is the Sahel’s natural resources and economic opportunities. Our project utilizes in-depth research, geospatial …

Maritime Trade And Imperial Ambitions: Yemeni Politics And Trade In The Indian Ocean World (626/1228-858/1454), Beck Sjostedt

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the role of Yemen, particularly under the Rasūlid dynasty (626/1228-858/1454) in the medieval Indian Ocean trade. I argue that the Rasūlids attempted to create an “imperial maritime space” wherein Yemen would be the imperial core, and the western Indian Ocean and Red Sea the subjugated peripheries. While the Rasūlids managed to organize state power towards their imperial project via diplomacy, military and naval expansion, and a robust and efficient bureaucracy, they never fully realized their goal of creating a thalassocratic empire in the western Indian Ocean. Nonetheless, medieval Yemen played a significant role in the political, social, …

Bridging Machine Learning And Islamic Scholarship: A Study In Hadith Translation And Similarity Analysis, Asiyah R. Speight

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Translation of Islamic religious texts poses unique challenges requiring both linguistic and theological expertise. This study explores the application of neural machine translation (NMT) models to Arabic-English hadith translation while analyzing semantic similarity patterns across different human translations. Using the complete Sahih Bukhari corpus (7,550 hadiths) as the primary dataset, we adopt a dual approach combining transfer learning and comprehensive neural network analysis to demonstrate the critical impact of corpus size on model performance.

First, we fine-tune a pre-trained MarianMT Arabic-English translation model on the full Sahih Bukhari corpus, comparing models trained on 40 hadiths versus 7,550 hadiths. Performance is …

Apocalypticism And Prognostication In Early ShiʿI Literature, Mohammad Amin Mansouri

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Arts and Humanities

This article studies the origins of Jafr, an apocalyptic, eschatological and occult book attributed to the first Shiʿi imam, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (d. 661). While it remains unclear whether Jafr was ever physically composed, it became associated with lettrism (ʿilm al-ḥurūf) in medieval Sunni and Shiʿi literature. Jafr gradually evolved into a crucial component of Islamic occult traditions and influenced various cosmological theories as well as the letter-magic practices of prominent Sunni and Shiʿi occultists. Despite its historical significance, confusion regarding Jafr’s roots, authorship and content in Shiʿi sources from the third to fifth centuries AH …

From Street Life To Spiritual Leadership: Analyzing Transformation, Faith, And Identity In “New Muslim Cool”, Hatoumata Tunkara

Occasional Essays

Introduction:

New Muslim Cool begins with Hamza Pérez, a Puerto Rican Muslim revert, as he rebuilds his life through Islam while balancing faith, family, and community. The documentary follows his journey from being involved in street life to becoming a faith-driven community leader and rapper. Hamza uses hip-hop and religion to connect with young people and challenge stereotypes about Muslims in America. The film primarily takes place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and explores themes of identity, redemption, and the pursuit of peace in the post-9/11 world. It is directed by Jennifer Maytorena Taylor and was released in 2009.

Acculturation And Puerto Rican Muslim Reverts, Toni Akinbamowo

Occasional Essays

Introduction:

The documentary AmeRícan (n.d.) simultaneously covers the perspectives of two oft ignored groups of U.S. society–both Puerto Rican and Latino/e (both the gendered and gender neutral terms for individuals of Latin American heritage) Muslims. Bergenline Avenue, New Jersey has a heavy presence of Latino Muslims, especially those who are “Puerto Rican, Mexican, Dominican, Peruvian” ([00:00:49–00:00:50]). Latino Muslims in nearby neighborhoods have the privilege of having access to religious resources such as the North Hudson Islamic Education Center, “home to a large number of Latinx Muslims” ([01:23–01:25]).

Pedagogical Escapism And Western Performativity: A Psycho-Aesthetic Critique Of Belly-Dance Adaption Symbolics, Maryam Farahani

Comparative Woman

This paper addresses positionality misreading in Western pedagogical adaptions of belly dancing. Raqs Sharqi, known in the West as belly dancing, is a predominantly West Asian and North African discipline and performance art with multimodal varieties, globally taught and practiced while crossing sport, narratology, and story-telling boundaries. As a unique performance activity, it portrays a dynamic entertainment space to connect one’s multiple identities. I argue that Raqs Sharqi, not only as an aesthetic-educational art form but also, perhaps unwittingly, reiterated as an Orientalist communication trope in belly dancing, has forged East-West performativity models. However, the historical education-literature for Western women …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

The Architects Of Consensus: Propaganda, Patriotism, And The Owi’S Battle For The American Mind, Ryan G. Fix

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

During World War II, the Office of War Information (OWI) became the United States' most sophisticated domestic propaganda agency, charged with forging national unity in the face of global conflict. This paper explores how the OWI fused federal authority with private-sector cooperation to influence public sentiment through film, advertising, journalism, and rumor control. Rather than resorting to direct censorship, the agency relied on voluntary collaboration, emotional appeal, and strategic framing to shape a coherent narrative that blurred the line between democratic persuasion and ideological management. Drawing on an extensive range of primary sources, including internal memos, field reports, and public …

The Boxer Rebellion And Missionaries: A Study Of Historical Context And Ideological Perspectives, Danielle Russano-Simpkins

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

This paper examines the complex interplay between missionary activity, imperial ambitions, and indigenous resistance in China during the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901). Analyzing primary sources and revisionist accounts, it is argued that the rebellion exposed the contradictions between missionaries' spiritual goals and their complicity in imperial structures. The study highlights how missionary theology, imperial relationships, and local resistance converged to create one of modern history's most significant anti-foreign uprisings, shaping subsequent Sino-Western relations and Chinese nationalism.

Understanding The Role Of Drug Offenses And The Death Penalty In Iran, Cyrus Zarganj

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Since the 1979 revolution, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been governed by Islamic laws devised by Shia Muslim clerics, significantly influencing the nation's legal framework in both criminal and civil contexts. The death penalty in Iran covers a broad spectrum of offenses, many of which would not be considered capital crimes or even crimes globally. This extensive application of the death penalty is an instrument of social control during periods of political tension, indicating a direct relationship between the regime's stability and the enforcement of extreme punitive measures. Despite some reduction in the visibility of executions due to international …

Life-Course And Biography Of Things: Minangkabau Women's Headgear, Attari Putri Denendra, Irmawati Marwoto

International Review of Humanities Studies

Like men, objects also have a biography or life-course. Both biographies are intertwined, so when someone experiences a new life phase transition in their life-course, it will cause changes in the objects attached to them. This is also supported by the statement that the identity is performative. The headgear as one of the elements used by Minangkabau women also represents the identity of the wearer. This research was conducted in three stages: (1) data collection in the form of old photos and literature of Minangkabau women with headgear in Batipuh, Fort de Kock, and Payakumbuh, (2) data processing by analysis …

The Factors Of The Emergence Of The Ikhshidi State And The Reasons For Its Downfall, Noura Mereb

Al Jinan الجنان

The current study talks about the Ikhshidi state: its emergence and the factors of its downfall.

It began with a definition of the Ikhshidid state, as it is an Islamic emirate founded by Mohamed bin Tughj al-Ikhshidi in Egypt, and later extended towards the Levant and the Hijaz, thirty years after the return of the Egyptian and Levantine lands to the Abbasid state, after the collapse of the Tulunid emirate, which was independent by virtue of the aforementioned lands, and separated from the Abbasid Caliphate for 37 years.

The founder of the Ikhshidid state was a Turkish Mamluk, and this …

The Most Important Ways To Confront The Hypocrisy Movement On The Political Side In The Light Of The Qur’An And Sunnah, Salem Al Oraymy

Al Jinan الجنان

The hypocrisy movement is one of the most active movements to limit the spread of the Islamic call, as it works hard to hinder its reform projects and keep it away from the areas of influence in various walks of life. Therefore, the researcher will try to identify the most important ways through which the hypocrisy movement can be confronted during the period of political conflict between Muslims and hypocrites in the civil covenant from the mission of the Prophet, may Allah God bless him and grant him peace, and mention some evidence for this confrontation from the Book and …

Supply And Demand, Concepts And Tools For Intervening N Them - An Islamic And Comparative View, Sulayman Elhassan, Yahiya Hijazi

Al Jinan الجنان

The importance of supply and demand in the market lies in the principle of their work as a real measure that determines the extent of economic activity of the market, where the laws of supply and demand are based on determining the relationship between the seller and the buyer, on showing the importance of the relationship between the existence of a commodity and its demand and supply, as well as its relative price between one period and another, as the supply and demand models that we hear about as economic concepts are considered among the basics of economic work where …

An Exhibition And Protest Of Executions In Iran, Donna M. Hughes

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

An exhibition and protest of executions in Iran was held in Washington, D.C. in June 2025. Portraits of 2000 men and women who were killed or executed in Iran since the 1980s were displayed on the National Mall in front of the Capitol. The Iranian Resistance estimates that 30,000 activists were massacred in one period in 1988. Executions of prisoners have continued steadily, making Iran the world’s leading executioner of men and women. In recent years, there has been a sharp escalation in the number of executions of prisoners. A United Nations Special Rapporteur reported that over 800 persons were …

“Perfect Hearts And Pure Pages”: The Transmission And Recitation Of The Qur’An In Mamluk Cairo—The Shāṭibiyya As A Case Study, Jonathan Hearn

Theses and Dissertations

The Ḥirz al-Amānī wa-Wajh al-Tahānī of Abū al-Qāsim b. Fīrruh al-Shāṭibī (d. 590/1193) became one of the most widely studied texts associated with the recitation of the Qur’an. A didactic versification of Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī’s (d. 444/1053) Kitāb al-Taysīr fī al-Qirāʾāt al-Sabaʿ, the Shāṭibiyya was composed in Ayyubid Egypt and transformed the discipline of the variant readings (qirāʾāt). Despite its popularity and acknowledged impact upon the discipline, the Shāṭibiyya remains a relatively untapped resource for understanding the Qur’an in its recited form. This thesis studies the recitation of the Qur’an in Mamluk Cairo through the Shāṭibiyya, …