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Near Eastern Languages and Societies Commons™
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Articles 1 - 30 of 55
Full-Text Articles in Near Eastern Languages and Societies
Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray
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 …
Coexistence, My Ass!, John C. Lyden
Coexistence, My Ass!, John C. Lyden
Journal of Religion & Film
This is a film review of Coexistence, My Ass! (2025), directed by Amber Fares.
Lost & Found (Game Series) [Book Chapter], Owen Gottlieb
Lost & Found (Game Series) [Book Chapter], Owen Gottlieb
Articles
Description of game series for use in the classroom with best practices.
"The Opium Of The People" - The Effects Of Soviet State Atheism On The Muslims Of Central Asia, Joshua Hughes
"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 …
Collaborative Constructions: Designing High School History Curriculum With The Lost & Found Game Series, Owen Gottlieb, Shawn Clybor
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 …
“Whenever We Crossed A Mountain / On This Earth, Yet Another One Appeared”: Circumstantial Poetry In ʿAbd Al-Ghanī Al-Nābulusī’S (D. 1143/1731) Travelogues, Tom J. Abi Samra
“Whenever We Crossed A Mountain / On This Earth, Yet Another One Appeared”: Circumstantial Poetry In ʿAbd Al-Ghanī Al-Nābulusī’S (D. 1143/1731) Travelogues, Tom J. Abi Samra
Comparative Literature M.A. Essays
This essay identifies an early modern aesthetic that mobilizes the mundane to make a point about the world or the grandiose. Through a close reading of the poetry in the travelogues of the 17th-century Ottoman Damascene scholar ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (d. 1143/1731), this essay identifies, theorizes, and historicizes early modern Arabic circumstantial verse—what the 19th-century French poet Stéphane Mallarmé calls vers de circonstance. By drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the “chronotope,” this essay shows how the poetry in Nābulusī’s travelogues fits within, and sometimes advances, their linear narrative. If poetry is expected to transcend the chronotope in which …
'Here We Start And In Jerusalem We Meet:' The Motivational And Organizational Influences Of Israel's Statehood Ontransnational Salafi Jihad, Charlotte Armistead
'Here We Start And In Jerusalem We Meet:' The Motivational And Organizational Influences Of Israel's Statehood Ontransnational Salafi Jihad, Charlotte Armistead
Honors Theses
The Israeli occupation of Palestine and its impact on the proliferation and longevity of transnational Salafi jihad is largely underestimated in current literature. In this thesis, I argue that Palestine, defined as both the nation and physical borders before the Balfour Declaration, largely contributed to the twentieth century revival of transnational Salafi jihad and is used by both Al Qaeda and ISIS as liberation and annihilation movements, respectively. In order to assess the motivational and organizational influences of the Israeli occupation of Palestine on transnational Salafi jihad, I examine the works of Abdullah Azzam, a selection of Osama Bin Laden’s …
Workings Of Theocracy: The Historical Function And Modern Applicability Of Charitable Endowments, Nuh Elalaoui
Workings Of Theocracy: The Historical Function And Modern Applicability Of Charitable Endowments, Nuh Elalaoui
Honors Program Theses
Historically, various systems and institutions across diverse civilizations have been established to meet the many needs that interweave the fabric of society. One, and perhaps the most significant of these institutions is the waqf/hubus system. Characterized by the designation of a property or revenue stream as mortmain and the investment of the usufruct for the benefit of (often predetermined) beneficiaries, this form of charitable endowment is hailed as a cornerstone of Islamic civilization. The objectives of this paper are threefold. Primarily, it examines the historical role of awqāf, with focus on their social and economic significance in two distinct Islamic …
Efter Jobbet: En Inledande Diskussion Om Studiet Av Fritid, Leif Stenberg, Anders Ackfeldt
Efter Jobbet: En Inledande Diskussion Om Studiet Av Fritid, Leif Stenberg, Anders Ackfeldt
Faculty & Staff Publications
No abstract provided.
Warfare And Welcome: Practicality And Qur’Ānic Hierarchy In Ibāḍī Muslims’ Jurisprudential Rulings On Music, Bradford J. Garvey
Warfare And Welcome: Practicality And Qur’Ānic Hierarchy In Ibāḍī Muslims’ Jurisprudential Rulings On Music, Bradford J. Garvey
Yale Journal of Music & Religion
While much ink has been spilled by musicologists on the legal standing of music in Islamic jurisprudential scholarship, few scholars have offered as comprehensive a view as Lois Ibsen Al-Faruqi. Thirty-five years after her major works on this issue, this article seeks to reassess her model of musical legitimacy within Muslim scholarship. Al-Faruqi places Qur’ānic recitation at the apex of a unidirectional continuum of sound art, with genres less similar to the recitation of the Qur’ān located progressively further away from it. Based on fieldwork in the Sultanate of Oman in 2015-17 and engaging with recent reinvigorations on the anthropological …
Gender And Patriarchy In The Films Of Muslim Nations: A Filmographic Study Of 21st Century Features From Eight Countries, Candace Mixon
Gender And Patriarchy In The Films Of Muslim Nations: A Filmographic Study Of 21st Century Features From Eight Countries, Candace Mixon
Journal of Religion & Film
This is a book review of Patricia R. Owen, Gender and Patriarchy in the Films of Muslim Nations: A Filmographic Study of 21st Century Features from Eight Countries.
The Performance And Patronage Of Baloch Culture Through Music (And Related Arts) In The Eastern Arabian Peninsula, George Murer
The Performance And Patronage Of Baloch Culture Through Music (And Related Arts) In The Eastern Arabian Peninsula, George Murer
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This dissertation is a study of Baloch musical—and ritual—idioms as cultivated (and variously innovated, embellished, patronized, and reconstructed) in the relatively prosperous and cosmopolitan urban environments of the coastal Eastern Arabian Peninsula—the third major concentration of Baloch population after Balochistan and Karachi. Due to historical and geographic particulars, the origins of Peninsular Baloch communities lie primarily in the Makran region that extends along the Arabian Sea coast and across the political boundary separating Iran and Pakistan. If musical activities play a significant role in orienting Baloch communities socially and politically, what are the presentational strategies implied in the foregrounding of …
Islamic And Middle East Area Studies Librarianship, Walid Ghali, Waseem Farooq, Paul Auchterlonie, Arnoud Vrolijk
Islamic And Middle East Area Studies Librarianship, Walid Ghali, Waseem Farooq, Paul Auchterlonie, Arnoud Vrolijk
Abdou Filali-Ansary Occasional Paper Series
The three papers collected here are based on a seminar on Islamic Studies Librarianship held on 31 January 2019 at the Aga Khan Library (AKL), in conjunction with the Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (AKU-ISMC). Curators, area studies directors, and collection librarians, who are currently involved in this field, gathered to discuss common challenges and to identify strategic areas for collaboration.
Texts, Language, And History In The Madhab-Law Tradition: A Study Of The ShāfiʿĪ School, Tarek Ghanem
Texts, Language, And History In The Madhab-Law Tradition: A Study Of The ShāfiʿĪ School, Tarek Ghanem
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis advances the study of the legal literature from the madhhab-law tradition by way of studying the Shāfiʿī literary tradition and its two most authoritative classics. These two works are al-Nawawī’s (d. 676/1278) digest Minhāj al-ṭālibīn and Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī’s (d. 974/1567) commentary on it, Tuḥfat al-minhāj. This study will provide a typology of the development of the Shāfiʿī juristic texts. The typology is based on an indigenous and coherent periodization centered around an analysis of the intellectual and social developments within the Shāfiʿī legal tradition, not the classical Eurocentric periodization scheme. The main objective of this typology is …
The Gaze And A Sufi Ethics Of Vision In Majidi’S The Willow Tree: Form, Meaning, And The Real, Cyrus A. Zargar
The Gaze And A Sufi Ethics Of Vision In Majidi’S The Willow Tree: Form, Meaning, And The Real, Cyrus A. Zargar
Journal of Religion & Film
In his 2005 film The Willow Tree (Bīd-i Majnūn), Majid Majidi offers a complex moral commentary on the faculty of sight. To do so, the filmmaker draws from Sufi theories of gazing, in which desire must be for ultimate meaning (maʿnā), as conveyed through the vehicle of perceivable form (ṣūra), a distinction with both metaphysical and ethical implications. Majidi presents sight, when devoid of contemplation, as a sort of voyeurism, especially in contrast to the privacy and immediacy of speech and especially within the context of the modern city. Moreover, his use of a …
The Muslim World In Post-9/11 American Cinema: A Critical Study, 2001-2011, Ali A. Olomi
The Muslim World In Post-9/11 American Cinema: A Critical Study, 2001-2011, Ali A. Olomi
Journal of Religion & Film
This is a book review of Kerem Bayraktaroglu's The Muslim World In Post-9/11 American Cinema: A Critical Study, 2001-2011 (North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 2018).
Political Religious Extremism And Its Impact On Social Security: A Study At Gaza Strip, Palestine, Abumarzouq Mona J.M
Political Religious Extremism And Its Impact On Social Security: A Study At Gaza Strip, Palestine, Abumarzouq Mona J.M
Student Works (2020-2029)
This study, named 'political religious extremism and its impact on societal security: A Study at Gaza Strip, Palestine ', approaches its types, causes, manifestations, effects, attitude of interpreters and how university students in Gaza Strip perceive its reality and impact. Moreover, the role of lecturers in approaching it, and detecting of statistical differences in how the sample’s individuals realize reality of the phenomenon, attributed to the variables: (gender - university - governorate). The researcher follows the descriptive, applied, analytical approach, by extrapolating texts related to the topic comprehensively, extracting a base from contemporary interpretations, an applied study that combines interviews …
A Bridge Between Earth & Sky: How The Natural World Shaped The Civilizations Of Ancient And Early-Modern Persia, Sophia Cabana
A Bridge Between Earth & Sky: How The Natural World Shaped The Civilizations Of Ancient And Early-Modern Persia, Sophia Cabana
Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019
This project seeks to investigate the ways in which nature shaped the culture of ancient Persia through technology, architecture, agriculture, and art. Furthermore, this project investigates how the symbols and mentalities of ancient Persia were carried forward into the early-modern period. Achaemenid Persia and Babylon are studied as societies which influenced one another and combined to create the foundation of Persian culture as it is currently understood, which then combined in later centuries with other Middle Eastern and Central Asian cultural movements to produce the Safavid and Mughal Empires. The Safavids and Mughals imitated and revived Persian culture in order …
The Literary Qur'an: Narrative Ethics In The Maghreb [Table Of Contents], Hoda El Shakry
The Literary Qur'an: Narrative Ethics In The Maghreb [Table Of Contents], Hoda El Shakry
Literature
The novel, the literary adage has it, reflects a world abandoned by God. Yet the possibilities of novelistic form and literary exegesis exceed the secularizing tendencies of contemporary literary criticism. Showing how the Qurʾan itself invites and enacts critical reading, Hoda El Shakry’s Qurʾanic model of narratology enriches our understanding of literary sensibilities and practices in the Maghreb across Arabophone and Francophone traditions.
The Literary Qurʾan mobilizes the Qurʾan’s formal, narrative, and rhetorical qualities, alongside embodied and hermeneutical forms of Qurʾanic pedagogy, to theorize modern Maghrebi literature. Challenging the canonization of secular modes of reading that occlude religious epistemes, practices, …
"Some Dreamers Of The Golden Dream": The Construction Of The Golden Age Myth(S) In The Age Of Ottoman Decline, Ian Mclaughlin
"Some Dreamers Of The Golden Dream": The Construction Of The Golden Age Myth(S) In The Age Of Ottoman Decline, Ian Mclaughlin
The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing
This paper considers the role and construction of golden age myths in seventeenth-century debates about how to renew the flagging Ottoman Empire. Policymakers and preachers prescribed radically different solutions based on which golden age they idealized—whether the time of the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century or the reign of Sultan Suleiman in the sixteenth. Throughout most of the 1600s, the pendulum swung back and forth violently depending on which faction had the sultan’s ear. Charismatic mosque preachers like Kadizade Efendi whipped up Istanbul crowds against coffee, while advice writers such as Koçi Bey urged expelling “outsiders” from the military …
Education And The Arab Spring: Resistance, Reform, And Democracy, Mohammed Abullatif Alharbi
Education And The Arab Spring: Resistance, Reform, And Democracy, Mohammed Abullatif Alharbi
Faculty Publications
The Arab Spring has brought about major changes in the Arab region in many aspects, including education. The researchers aim to present the state of education after the Arab Spring revolutions and compare it with what was before these revolutions. The book has been divided into three main sections. The first section discussed the state of education before the Arab Spring by highlighting some of the teachers’ practices in the classroom. The second section presents some calls for reforming youth education in countries such as Egypt, Yemen, and Tunisia. The last section, which contains three chapters, explores the education of …
Using Wikipedia In Israel Studies Courses, Shira Klein
Using Wikipedia In Israel Studies Courses, Shira Klein
History Faculty Articles and Research
Instructors of Israeli history or literature, like professors in other areas, complain about students’ use of Wikipedia—and with good reason. Unlike peer-reviewed scholarship, many Wikipedia articles contain information that is both incomplete and wrong. Most instructors will warn their students that relying on Wikipedia is a sure recipe for failing assignments. Yet there is a way to mobilize this giant encyclopedia for pedagogical purposes. When students in Israel Studies classes are assigned to edit Wikipedia articles, they achieve multiple goals: they gain critical reading skills, shape public knowledge about Israel, and engage in active learning. This article explains how to …
Al-Ghazali's Integral Epistemology: A Critical Analysis Of The Jewels Of The Quran, Amani Elshimi
Al-Ghazali's Integral Epistemology: A Critical Analysis Of The Jewels Of The Quran, Amani Elshimi
Theses and Dissertations
The Jewels of the Quran by renowned Islamic scholar Abu Hamid al-Ghazali has usually been published as a two-volume publication, consisting of al-Ghazali’s hierarchy of sciences, followed by a thematic classification of verses from the Quran. A recent edition of the book includes a third chapter which is often published alone as The Book of Forty Religious Principles, but which al-Ghazali makes reference to in his introduction. A thorough, contextualized, critical analysis of the 3-chapter publication reveals al-Ghazali’s more comprehensive integral framework of knowledge – one which stems from and is held by a core experience of the Divine, and …
Conspiracy To Prove A Conspiracy: My Meeting With Fethullah Gülen, Reuven Firestone
Conspiracy To Prove A Conspiracy: My Meeting With Fethullah Gülen, Reuven Firestone
Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe
No abstract provided.
Cries From Syria, John C. Lyden
Cries From Syria, John C. Lyden
Journal of Religion & Film
This is a film review of Cries from Syria (2017), directed by Evgeny Afineevsky.
Salafism, Wahhabism, And The Definition Of Sunni Islam, Rob J. Williams
Salafism, Wahhabism, And The Definition Of Sunni Islam, Rob J. Williams
Honors Program: Student Scholarship & Creative Works
My capstone deals with the historical definition of Sunni Islam, and how it has changed in approximately the past 200 years. Around 1800, Sunni Islam was pretty clearly defined by an adherence to one of four maddhabs, or schools of law: the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanbali schools and are all based in nearly a millennium of legal scholarship. Since 1800, however, numerous reform movements have sprung up which disavow previous scholarship and interpret Islamic law their own way. However, certain reformist groups, such as Traditionalist Salafis and Wahhabis, claim that their version of Islam is the only “pure” …
Explaining The Rise Of Isis, Anas Alqaed
Explaining The Rise Of Isis, Anas Alqaed
Political Science Theses and Capstones
In this paper I study the circumstances that led to the rise the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS/Daesh) and its economic power. I use articles, testimonies before US House of Representatives and analyze economic data to generate facts and draw conclusions. All references rely on primary source documents that were not released in an official capacity by ISIS. These are documents that have been released online by pro or anti-ISIS activists or information that was gathered and analyzed by research centers and international organizations. It is worth noting that non-officially released documents were very helpful in shedding more …
Engagement And Resistance: African Americans, Saudi Arabia And Islamic Transnationalisms, 1975 To 2000, Jeffrey Diamant
Engagement And Resistance: African Americans, Saudi Arabia And Islamic Transnationalisms, 1975 To 2000, Jeffrey Diamant
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Since the 1960s, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has financed missionary efforts to Muslims around the world, attempting to spread a Salafi form of Islam that professes strict adherence to Islamic sacred scripture. The effects of this transnational proselytization have depended on numerous factors in “host countries.” This project explores the various impacts of Saudi transnational religious influence in the United States among African-Americans. By relying on previously unused documentary sources and fresh oral histories, it shows how Saudi “soft power” attempted to effect change in religious practices of African-American Muslims from 1975 through 2000. It provides the most detailed …
Crossing Paths: Musical And Ritual Interactivity Between The Ḥamadsha And Gnawa In Sidi Ali, Morocco, Christopher J. Witulski
Crossing Paths: Musical And Ritual Interactivity Between The Ḥamadsha And Gnawa In Sidi Ali, Morocco, Christopher J. Witulski
Yale Journal of Music & Religion
The processions occurring in Moroccan pilgrimages--such as those in Sidi Ali, a small town situated in the mountains outside of Meknes and Fez--are important sites that instigate an aesthetic negotiation within nearby possession ceremonies. The many musical groups that punctuate the cacophonous atmosphere during the annual pilgrimage are affiliated with a many of the country’s diverse mystical brotherhoods, including the gnawa, ḥamadsha, and ʿīsāwa. Through a detailed ethnographic description of processions and rituals from two of these groups, this article outlines ways in which musical tastes flow between the different events, informing the aesthetics of both outdoor …
The Visa By Hisham Al Gakh, Houssem Ben Lazreg
The Visa By Hisham Al Gakh, Houssem Ben Lazreg
Transference
Translated from the Arabic by Houssem Ben Lazreg.