Islamic Studies Commons^™

Islamic Political Anti-Theology: A Discursive Practice Of Contingency Beyond Sovereign Politics, Jason Andrus

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Contributing to the field of political theology from outside the European Christian tradition, this dissertation develops a description of the distinct logics that Islamic theology generates from its metaphysical assumptions. These logics in turn make possible a discourse of political anti-theology where politics operates through contingency rather than sovereignty. Political theology scholarship has excavated how modern politics derives from secularized Christian theological concepts—particularly transcendent sovereignty. This study demonstrates that Islamic theology's absolute insistence on divine transcendence (tawhid) produces something fundamentally different: a politics that renders sovereign authority conceptually impossible. I identify this discursive practice of political anti-theology through …

Recovering Palestinian Lives: Qudsiyya Khurshid From Mandate Palestine To Postwar Pennsylvania, Andrea L. Stanton

Religious Studies: Faculty Scholarship

This article works to recover the life story of Qudsiyya Khurshid, a once well-known Mandate Palestinian intellectual and educator, who wrote essays for publication and for broadcasting on the Palestine Broadcasting Service, while working as a principal at girls’ schools in al-Bireh and Jerusalem. One of a number of educated women active in the Mandate public sphere, she disappeared from public consciousness after the Nakba. But in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, where she had moved with her husband, a naturalized U.S. citizen, she became a prominent figure in civic work and as a community speaker on Palestinian and Middle Eastern life …

Radical Hospitality: Height And Excess Of The Other And The New Host Self, Diako Alikhani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Drawing on Emmanuel Levinas’ ethical framework and its emphasis on the “height and excess” of “the Other,” this thesis explores and develops a sense of “radical hospitality” in Levinas and across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In particular, the thesis explores how encounter with the Other is not only marked by an overwhelming excess, but one which transforms the subject into what I call a “New Host Self:” Where the self is the host who greets the stranger with hospitality, it is ultimately the stranger—the refugee, the migrant—who transforms the host into someone new. Here, the host ultimately receives a gift …

Exploring College Experiences Of Muslim Students At Four-Year Institutions In Colorado: A Narrative Inquiry, Kamal Gamada Ararso

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the last two decades, Colorado's number of Muslim Americans (citizens and permanent residents) has substantially increased (Bowen, 2009a; Bowen, 2009b; Mohamed, 2021; Roberts, 2022). This increase is reflected in the growing number of Islamic community centers, emerging Islamic schools, mosques, grocery stores, Muslim cuisines, and the diversity of students in the post-secondary education system (Roberts, 2022). Although centralized data about Muslim college students are hard to find, their presence within the higher education system is well-known. Still, in Colorado, Muslims' religious, racial, cultural, and gendered experiences within the higher education system remained unexplored in the research. Therefore, this exploratory …

The Experiences And Mental Health Impact Of Islamophobia On Muslim Americans Following The 2016 U.S. Presidential Election: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study, Hadeel Ali

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the current hermeneutic phenomenological qualitative study was to understand the phenomenon of Muslim Americans’ lived experiences of Islamophobia prior to and two years into Donald Trump’s presidential administration. 14 participants from multiple regions in the United States completed a semi-structured interview via telephone. The data analysis revealed seven major themes: 1) Muslim Americans experience different dimensions of Islamophobia, 2) Muslim Americans experience various forms of Islamophobia, 3) Variables that impact the prevalence of Islamophobia, 4) Islamophobia impacts various areas of Muslim Americans’ lives, 5) Muslim Americans may react differently to experiences of Islamophobia, 6) Islamophobia impacts the …

Islamic Revivalism And Democracy In Malaysia, Ashton Word, Ahmed Abd Rabou

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

The paper examines democracy and secularism in Malaysia, a state rooted in Islam, and how it has been implemented in a country with a majority Muslim population. It briefly outlines how Islam was brought to the region and how British colonialism was able to implement secularism and democratic practices in such a way that religion was not wholeheartedly erased. Indeed, peaceful decolonization combined with a history of accommodating elites served to promote a newly independent Malaysia, to create a constitutional democracy which declares Islam as the religion of the Federation, and simultaneously religious freedom. Despite the constitution, the United Malays …

American Converts To Islam, Post-Conversion Experiences Post 9/11, Muhammad Abdelhakam Kolila

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

American converts to Islam and their post-conversion experiences do not attract the attention of many researchers and policy makers in the United States. They have been understudied or overlooked as they are positioned at the margins of studies of Islam and in Muslim communities in the US. Interest in and attention to converts to Islam, however, is triggered once a few embrace an extreme worldview, especially if they join a terrorist group. Therefore, this research intends to add the complexity and diversity of post-conversion experiences of American converts to Islam to the literature of conversion to Islam studies in the …

Agreeing To Submit: Authority Constructions In Modern Sunni Islam, Trevor E. Wolff

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the modern age, Sunni communities are often claimed to be in a moment of crisis. However, despite outward arguments about this crisis, Sunni communities are more accurately described as within a state of transformation. By analyzing constructions of authority from Sayyid Qutb, the clerical establishment of Saudi Arabia, and the greater American Muslim communities, Sunni theology is best seen as seeking out methods to transform and re-center authority within Sunni communities.

Locating Palestine’S Summer Residence: Mandate Tourism And National Identity, Andrea L. Stanton

Religious Studies: Faculty Scholarship

The carving up of the Ottoman Levant into British and French Mandates after World War I introduced new realities for the inhabitants of the region. This article uses Lebanese tourism and the promotion of Lebanon as a tourist destination to Palestinians of all religious backgrounds as a case study to investigate the challenges and potentials of the new Mandate structures. Using Palestinian government archives and newspapers, it examines how Lebanon was marketed to Palestinian vacationers. It concludes by suggesting that tourism, with its mixture of private and government sector interests, serves as a key node for observing the messy process …

The African-American Islamic Renaissance And The Rise Of The Nation Of Islam, Patrick Denis Bowen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines African-American Islamic culture from 1920 through 1959, a period I label the "African-American Islamic Renaissance" (AAIR). The AAIR is characterized by a significant increase in interest in Islam, extreme diversity in views about Islam, and the absence of a single organization dominating African-American Islamic culture for a significant amount of time. Previous works dealing with African-American Islam in this period have failed to fully recognize these features, particularly the last of these. As a result, explanations for the rise of the Nation of Islam (NOI) have not satisfactorily explained why it was only the NOI--and not other …

The Changing Face Of El Moudjahid During The Algerian War Of Independence, Andrea L. Stanton

Religious Studies: Faculty Scholarship

The 1956 Soummam conference is considered a turning point for Algeria’s National Liberation Front (FLN), due to a platform that asserted the supremacy of political over military objectives and the corollary importance of diplomacy and public relations. For domestic outreach, the FLN turned to a small publication that had debuted months previously - El Moudjahid - giving it a heightened profile and a new importance.

From its founding in June 1956 to the Evian Accords in March 1962, El Moudjahid’s layout evolved dramatically – an evolution most evident on its cover page. The simple style and pamphlet-like shape of …

Human Rights And The Search For Common Ground: A Comparative Study Of Islamic And Christian Thought, Joseph Prud'homme

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Common Ground: Islam, Christianity, and Religious Pluralism. By Paul Heck. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. 2009.

Persecution Of Coptic Christians In Modern Egypt, Alla Rubinstein

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Christian community of Egypt dates back to the seventeenth century and comprises 12 per cent of the population today. As one of the oldest churches of the world, the Coptic Christian Church, first formed in Alexandria, has stood resilient and faithful to its traditions against intolerance, siege and persecutions. Having been present in most institutions of the state among the overwhelmingly Sunni-Muslim population, Copts are not new to the slow process of Islamization that Egypt has been undergoing for the last twenty years. What has been unique to the recent Coptic experience is the forced integration of Shari’a law …

Dying For Love: Homosexuality In The Middle East, Heather Simmons

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Today in the United States, the most frequent references to the Middle East are concerned with the War on Terrorism. However, there is another, hidden battle being waged: the war for human rights on the basis of sexuality. Homosexuality is a crime in many of the Middle Eastern states and is punishable by death in Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar, Kuwait, and Iran (Ungar 2002). Chronic abuses and horrific incidences such as the 2009 systematic murders of hundreds of “gay” men in Iraq are seldom reported in the international media. Speculation as to why this population is hidden includes the …

Political Repression And Islam In Iran, Amy Kirk

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Signs with the slogan, ‘I am Neda’, flooded the streets of Tehran in the violent aftermath of the 2009 presidential elections and assassination of Neda Agha-Soltan. The internationally publicized video of Neda’s death became an iconic rallying point for the reformist opposition in Iran. Stringent clampdowns since the 1979 revolution have signified a sociopolitical change that has endured for three decades. President Khatami’s reform efforts of the late 1990s were stifled by Ahmadinejad’s election of 2005. Since Ahmadinejad’s appointment there has been little official tolerance for political and fundamental Islamic dissent, leading to serious human rights violations against the reformist …

Conversion To Islam In Colorado, Patrick D. Bowen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the scholarship concerning conversion to Islam in the West, few books or articles have been written that examine non-African American US converts. Furthermore, this literature generally neglects using models of conversion for analyzing US Muslims. This thesis is an attempt to begin such a project. For this thesis, I interviewed 13 converts to Islam over the course of a month and a half at a local mosque: 8 females and 5 males; 9 white, 3 Latina/o, and 1 non-African American black. These converts told me their stories of conversion: beginning with their life prior to conversion, the process leading …

Rights And The Hijâb: Rationality And Discourse In The Public Sphere, Howard Adelman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens by Seyla Benhabib. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 251 pp.

and

Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves: Islam, the State, and Public Space by John R. Bowen. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. 290 pp.

and

Muslim Girls and the Other France: Race, Identity Politics & Social Exclusion by Trica Danielle Keaton. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006. 223 pp.

and

Human Rights and Religion: The Islamic Headscarf Debate in Europe by Dominic McGoldrick. Portland, Oregon: Hart Publishing, 2006. 320 pp.

Allen Keiswetter On Women In The Middle East: Past And Present By Nikki R. Keddie. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. 416pp., Allen Keiswetter

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Women in the Middle East: Past and Present by Nikki R. Keddie. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. 416pp.

Political Repression Of Islam, Amy Swift

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Central Asia, once one of the least known regions in the world, has become important to the United States since 9/11, the resulting U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and the new “War on Terror.” Tajikistan, often considered the poorest and most obscure of the five Central Asian “Stans,” was thrust into the public view when it became useful to the United States in its 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.

John D. Becker On Islam, Liberalism, And Human Rights: Implications For International Relations By Katerina Dalacoura (Revised Edition). London: I.B. Tauris, 2003. 248pp., John D. Becker

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Islam, Liberalism, and Human Rights: Implications for International Relations by Katerina Dalacoura (revised edition). London: I.B. Tauris, 2003. 248pp.

Addressing Fundamentalism By Legal And Spiritual Means, Dan Wessner

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Religion and Humane Global Governance by Richard A. Falk. New York: Palgrave, 2001. 191 pp.

Gender and Human Rights in Islam and International Law: Equal before Allah, Unequal before Man? by Shaheen Sardar Ali. The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2000. 358 pp.

Religious Fundamentalisms and the Human Rights of Women edited by Courtney W. Howland. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999. 326 pp.

The Islamic Quest for Democracy, Pluralism, and Human Rights by Ahmad S. Moussalli. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001. 226 pp.

The “Great Game” For The Twenty-First Century: Islamic Extremism And Central Asia, Ian Sethre

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan by Michael Griffin. London: Pluto Press, 2001. 272pp.

and

Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. 281pp.

and

Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. 274pp.