Islamic Studies Commons^™

The Problem Of Listless Lovers In Al-Qushayri’S Lata’If Al-Isharat, Kristin Zahra Sands

Conference Presentations

This talk explains how Qushayri (d. 1074) uses the theme of the “listless lover” in his commentary on the Qur’an to illustrate the relationship between spiritual desire, practice, and knowledge of God and the Qur’an.

American Graffiti: Musings On The Ground Zero Mosque, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The author discusses reactions and parallels to a mosque proposed near the site of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in public discourse.

Setting The Scene, Anne K. Rasmussen

Arts & Sciences Book Chapters

Women, the Recited Qur'an, and Islamic Music in Contemporary Indonesia takes readers to the heart of religious musical praxis in Indonesia, home to the largest Muslim population in the world. Anne K. Rasmussen explores a rich public soundscape, where women recite the divine texts of the Qur'an, and where an extraordinary diversity of Arab-influenced Islamic musical styles and genres, also performed by women, flourishes. Based on unique and revealing ethnographic research beginning at the end of Suharto's “New Order” and continuing into the era of “Reformation,” the book considers the powerful role of music in the expression of religious nationalism. …

Which Orthodoxy, Whose Islam: Journalistic Accounts Versus Scholarly Analysis, Ina Merdjanova

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Evaluating “A Common Word”: The Problem Of “Points Of Contact”, Larry Poston

Bible & Religion Educator Scholarship

Why “points of contact” between Christianity and Islam are mythical—and why Christians must stay true to the task of missions that lies before us.

In September 2007, 138 Muslim scholars and clergymen issued a response to Pope Benedict XVI’s 2006 Regensburg address. The document was entitled “A Common Word Between Us and You” and was designed to promote “open intellectual exchange and mutual understanding” between the world’s Christian and Muslim communities. The authors claimed that the basis for peace between Christianity and Islam has always existed: the Muslim shahadah (“There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His messenger”), …

The Second Coming Of ‘Isa: An Exploration Of Islamic Premillennialism, Larry Poston

Bible & Religion Educator Scholarship

There is a profound difference between a historian and an apocalypticist. The former operates in a context delimited by a single reference point—the past. While admittedly somewhat relative due to ongoing attempts at interpretation and re-interpretation, the past nonethe­less enjoys the advantage of being fixed; its events are by definition completed and thus essentially unchange­able. The disadvantage of this uni-directional orientation is, of course, that from the standpoint of the historian, the future remains completely open-ended, subject only to speculation.

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 …

Comparative Analysis Of Islamic And Conventional Banking Performance, Mirza Ali Huzaifa Sultan, Muhammad Zahid Siddique

Business Review

This paper analyzes the performance of Islamic banks compared to that of conventional banks in Pakistan. This comparison is based on the financial performance, product services and customer perception. We have selected two Islamic banks, namely Meezan Bank limited & Albaraka Bank, and two conventional Banks, Soneri and My Bank. This selection was made because of the similar size of these banks in terms of their deposits. The paper shows that Islamic Banking is falling behind the conventional one both in terms of its business as well as customer perspective. The research is divided into three parts. First part covers …

Ornamental Repugnancy: Identitarian Islam And The Iraqi Constitution, Haider Ala Hamoudi

Articles

Nearly six years after the enactment of Iraq’s final constitution, the Federal Supreme Court of Iraq has yet to render a single ruling respecting the conformity of any law to the “settled rulings of Islam” despite being empowered to do precisely that under Article 2 of the Iraqi Constitution. This so-called repugnancy clause is swiftly devolving from a matter that was of some importance during constitutional negotiations into one that is more symbolic than real – an assertion of identity, primarily of the Islamic variety (though when combined with Article 92, to some extent of the Shi’i Islamic variety) – …

Identitarian Violence And Identitarian Politics: Elections And Governance In Iraq, Haider Ala Hamoudi

Articles

This Essay, originally published in a 2010 issue of the Harvard International Law Journal (Online), maintains that it is a mistake to ask whether or not the United States was wise to have "allowed" elections in Iraq as early as it did following its overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003. Such a question presumes an absence of domestic agency that was certainly not the case in Iraq, and is probably not the case in any modern society under occupation. Domestic demands coming from domestic forces seeking to shore up their own power base almost necessitated the outcome of …

Avicenna, Jon Mcginnis

Jon McGinnis