Near and Middle Eastern Studies Commons^™

Gold Mining In Darfur: Its Role In The General Economy, Political Conflicts And The Current War, Raphaëlle Chevrillon-Guibert, Enrico Ille, Mohamed Salah Abdelrahman

The Journal of Social Encounters

Darfur has been shattered by a long chain of violent escalations, and numerous interpretations of reasons and recommendations for solutions have been put forward. Since the early 2010s, gold mining appeared as an additional element in ongoing conflicts and became a dominant aspect, not just as one of the financial pillars of the upcoming Rapid Support Forces under Dagalo family leadership, but also as a source of environmental pollution. Nevertheless, gold mining made its way only slowly into political analyses, and although its substantial role in Sudan's recent history, including the current war, has now more often been recognized, it …

Reshaping Identity Politics: Capitalising On Shari‘A Debate In The Sudan, Musa Adam Abdul-Jalil

The Journal of Social Encounters

The relationship between religious identity, ethnic identity, and politics has always been a problematic one, especially in plural societies like Sudan. This article is an attempt to understand the reasons behind the insistence of the popular parties of the Muslim majority in Northern Sudan on establishing shar’ia law as the law of the land. By using secondary data on party programmes, public opinion, and an analysis of political events, I reconstruct the evolution of the debate in order to identify its prime movers. My conclusion is that this debate emerged as a result of the quest for a national identity …

Review Essay: Mitri Raheb On Christian Zionism, Loren D. Lybarger

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Guns, Bombs, And Pollution: Unraveling The Nexus Between Warfare, Terrorism, And Ecological Devastation In Iraq, Hogr Tarkhani

The Journal of Social Encounters

Iraq's environment has experienced significant pollution and degradation, earning it the dubious distinction of being one of the most polluted and degraded regions globally, according to the Globe Pollution Review. The past three decades of armed conflict have exacted a heavy toll on the country, resulting in widespread human suffering, including countless fatalities, injuries, and a massive displacement of people. Amidst this death and destruction, the ecosystem has also endured severe damage, and its decline carries long-lasting implications.

The environmental crisis in Iraq has been worsened by the presence of extremist groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS) and various …

On Dialogue And Beyond: Positive Environmental Peacebuilding In Palestine, Elsa Barron

The Journal of Social Encounters

In Palestine, environmental management has been used as a tool of military occupation and oppression. Yet even within that context, many community-based organizations have established programs relating to environmental peacebuilding. Of these initiatives, environmental dialogue programs have received significant attention and resources, even more so since the war in Gaza began in October, 2023. However, a deeper interrogation of these programs reveals the danger that dialogue and collaboration devoid of a critical analysis of power and injustice further perpetuates systemic oppression. Moving these programs into the realm of positive environmental peacebuilding requires a willingness to engage in this structural analysis. …

Islam And The Environment, Jon Armajani

The Journal of Social Encounters

This is a transcript of a presentation at the Thirty-Fourth Annual Peace Studies Conference at the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University on September 18, 2023. The presentation provides (1) some background information about Islam; (2) related ideas about Christianity; (3) a discussion of some verses in the Quran, which relate to the environment, and some Islamic interpretations of them; (4) an analysis of Ibrahim Abdul-Matin’s ideas on Islam and the environment; and (5) a tribute to Father Rene McGraw, OSB.

"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 …

Arab Feminism And The Hijab: Exploring The Intersection Of Feminism And Islam In Jordan, Melanie Kallah

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The goal of this qualitative research is to procure a definition of Arab Feminism from the religious and cultural beliefs of Jordanian Muslim women while also highlighting the feminist roots of Islam. The hijab is the perfect symbol to analyze Arab feminism under and discuss the difference between religion and culture.

This paper first dives into the history of the Jordanian women’s movement and the origins of today's activism. This hinges on the work of Rana Husseini, who has the only in-depth account of the Jordanian women’s movement. This history allows the reader to better understand the current conditions of …

Muslim Enough? Egyptian Enough? American Enough?, Essraa Nawar

Library Presentations, Posters, and Audiovisual Materials

Born in Alexandria, Egypt, Essraa has studied, lived and worked in many places, including the Gulf area (Qatar), Washington D.C., where she worked for The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, and Alexandria, Egypt where she worked for Bibliotheca Alexandrina. In 2002, she moved with her husband and family to the United States where they have been studying, working, and living for 20 plus years. In this vulnerable presentation, Essraa will share for the first time her journey navigating motherhood as an immigrant, Muslim women while thousands of miles away from her family in Egypt. Everyday Essraa will ask herself: Is …

Review Of Islam And Anarchism: Relationships And Resonances, Hamza Dudgeon

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Review Of Shia Islam And Politics: Iran, Iraq, And Lebanon, Christopher Anzalone

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Measuring Ethnodoxy In Egypt And Morocco, Hannah M. Ridge

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

Ethnodoxy is the conceptual linkage of an ethnic group with a particular religion. It has been previously documented in Slavic Orthodox communities. This study uses Arabic-language surveys in Egypt and Morocco to measure this ethno-religious linkage among Arab Muslims. It develops a parsimonious survey scale for measuring ethnodoxy. It also demonstrates that ethnodox and non-ethnodox Egyptians and Moroccans have different political preferences, both for regime type and for the role of religion in politics.

More Muslim, Salman Ahad Khan

Capstones

More Muslim is a show that explores the Muslim experience, with all its messiness.

Each episode is a narrative, transhistorical journey into one aspect of the Muslim experience that defined or is being defined by the modern world. This capstone forms the first two episodes of the series. Episode 1, "When Memes Meet Sufis," explores the question of how Rumi, a Muslim scholar from the 13th century, became the best-selling poet in the US. Episode 2, "The Halal Meat Conundrum," is a firsthand journey into the American halal meat industry and attempts to understand how halal became a $20 billion …

Gender Equity And State-Mosque Relations In Middle East North Africa: A Case Study Of Tunisia, Joy Amarachi Agbugba

Dissertations and Theses

Why is the Middle East North Africa region consistently ranked the lowest on the gender equity scale? This question is quite perplexing and that has driven several scholarly researchers to investigate the situation of gender and women's rights within the states in the region. In this research, I explore the various theories explaining the cause of gender inequity in this region including the Islam thesis/social modernization theory, political-economic theory, and psychological/social structural theories, with an emphasis on the Islamic thesis theory. I argue that the state's support and prioritization of Muslim/sharia law over federal law is a major contributor to …

Finding Aid For The Evelyn Uhrhan Irving Collection (Mum00146)

Archives & Special Collections: Finding Aids (alphabetical)

Correspondence of modern language professor Evelyn Uhrhan Irving with various public officials and media outlets on foreign policy and domestic matters.

Devide Et Impera: The United Arab Emirates’ Strategic Policy In Yemen, Riskiansyah Ramadhan, Syaiful Rohman, Imam Khomaeni Hayatullah

Journal Of Middle East and Islamic Studies

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) may have withdrawn its troops from Yemen, but its influence remains substantial and significant. From the first stage of the war, Saudi Arabia focused on the north of Yemen, while the UAE actively engaged in the north's south and coastal areas. Not only trains fighters, but the UAE also provides them with financial and political support. This is a descriptive-analytical article, using qualitative methods with data and works of literature, collected various books, journals, and online resources related to the topic. Furthermore, the author uses the "devide et impera" theory to elaborate, examine, and investigate …

Three Muwahhid City Gates In Morocco, Rasha Ali

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Tolerance In Islamic Architecture, Aya Mohammad El-Hakim

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Diary Of An Afghan Woman Collection - September 2021

TSOS Interview Gallery

Four women share with us their daily lives in Afghanistan. Join them as they express their love for the country, the people, and each other; and as they share with you their deepest fears and most intimate moments.

They refuse to be silenced as they journey through this new, uncharted chapter in Afghanistan's history.

We at TSOS are honored to provide a platform for their voices to be heard. We will post entries as we receive them. For safety purposes, names have been changed and only avatars (designed with input from each woman) will be used.

ZOYA

Zoya is a …

Yosuf, Yosuf, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Yosef and his family of four are from the Herat Province in Afghanistan. The eldest child used to sell potatoes with Ibrahim, the middle child, who was killed by a landmine planted by counter-revolutionaries. As a result, the eldest child, Ismail, developed severe nerve and mental issues, and the wife, who is now pregnant, frequently has seizures. They sold their home to treat Ismail, but doctors say nothing can be done. Ismail’s condition continues to worsen, but he refuses to leave to see a doctor because he is afraid of the police for an unknown reason. Yosef says he is …

Lisa Campbell, Lisa Campbell, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Lisa Campbell, project manager for the non-profit Do Your Part Refugee Community Center in Greece. Lisa combined efforts with multiple organizations to better the lives of refugees in the Delisi, Greece area. Lisa discusses the evolution of the growing refugee crisis and the millions who flee to Greece and Turkey.

Palestinian Evangelical Christian Music In Bethlehem, Israel/Palestine, Abby Smith

Senior Honors Theses

Often the story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is portrayed as Jewish vs. Muslim, Hebrew vs. Arab. There is little room in the international dialogue for minorities such as Arab Christians. Though Palestinians have a rich culture of Arabic musical and poetic heritage, they are unable to produce their own new songs. In this study I interviewed three members of Immanuel Evangelical Church on their experiences and opinions on local Christian worship. The findings show that Palestinian Christians may feel unable to write worship music because of a prevalent feeling of inadequacy and a lack of musical training. I propose several …

Shurooq, Shurooq, Brandi Kilmer, Sherianne Schow, Nicole Taylor, Sasha Sloan

TSOS Interview Gallery

Shurooq fled Iraq and came to the United States when she was 12. Iraq was a beautiful place full of family and celebration. Her brother passed away from leukemia 1 1/2 years prior to coming to the States. Prior to his death, their father took him to Syria to for treatment. He passed in Syria. Although the family had applied for a medical visa to the United States, upon Shurooq’s brother’s passing, they received threats and knew they could not stay. The call came for the visa and all but her mother were able to come. Thankfully her mother arrived …

Ziba, Ziba, Sherianne Schow, Brandi Kilmer, Heather Oman

TSOS Interview Gallery

Ziba, a promising medical student, fled Afghanistan in 2018 due to instability and for her safety. Life was difficult upon arrival in the United States. In Afghanistan Ziba was involved in national and international poetry, math and science competitions. Ziba went from having everything to starting completely over in a new country. Her anxiety and depression became extremely difficult to deal with She reminded herself who she was, what her passions were and in January 2019 started medical school while working part time as a cashier. Her hope for future arriving refugees is to have a mental health network established …

The Crisis Of Rule And Rulers - Past And Present: A Quranic Study, Ramadan Alsayfi

Al Jinan الجنان

The Arab World has been witnessing many peaceful revolutions that call for changing or toppling their regimes as a result of despair and frustration from any possible internal and democratic change. Many political, sociological and psychological analysts addressed this new phenomenon in the Arab World, pointing out different causes of such revolutions. However, no one has mentioned the religious dimension according to which any regime built on non-religious bases - however strong it is - is inevitably going to collapse. Thus, this study tackles the topic from a Quranic perspective, pointing out the fundamentals of the Islamic rule that for …

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 …

Muslims’ Religious Freedom And Religiosity: Measurement And Impact, Hannah M. Ridge

Political Science Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Multiple measures of religious freedom and states’ regulation of religion are at work in sociology of religion. These scales apply one score to a country or to a subset of its policies. A uniform state score conceals the internal religious diversity and the heterogeneous experiences of religious freedom that can result. These, in turn, encourage ecological fallacies and mask the disparate impact that religious freedom for one’s own community and for other groups can have on individuals’ preferences and decisions. To demonstrate the value of measuring and studying religious freedom at the individual level, this study applies individual-level assessments of …

State Regulation Of Religion: The Effect Of Religious Freedom On Muslims' Religiosity, Hannah M. Ridge

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

Substantial scholarship argues that regulation of religion suppresses religiosity in a community by reducing individuals’ satisfaction with their religious experience. To date this research has assumed that regulations are enforced on and affect religious communities uniformly. It has also focused heavily on Western Christian populations and aggregated national data. We suggest that state regulation of religious communities and behaviours impacts citizens differently based on their affiliation. Using individual-level assessments of freedom and religiosity from Muslim-majority countries, we show that, at the individual level, restricting freedom suppresses religious belief and behaviour. Restrictions on religious minorities, however, can increase religiosity. As such, …

The Formation Of Ottoman Sufism And Eşrefoğlu Rumi: A 15th Century Shaykh Between Popular Religion And Sufi Ideals, Baris Basturk

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation evaluates a transformative period in the history of the Ottoman State in which the processes of Islamization and Turkification coincided with the expansion and imperialization of the Ottoman polity. This study focuses on an Ottoman Sufi figure, Eşrefoğlu Rumi (?-1469), who benefited form this context, embarked upon a mystical path, and authored seminal works that shaped Ottoman Sufism for generations. This dissertation discusses Eşrefoğlu Rumi’s role in the construction of Islamic orthodoxy based in his Sufi ideals which he disseminated to an Anatolian and Balkan Turkish-speaking Ottoman audience. The significance of this dissertation is that it emphasizes the …

Why I Fell In Love With Ramy And You Will Too?, Essraa Nawar

Library Articles and Research

"If you have not watched Ramy on Hulu, you are definitely missing a brilliant show. I have been following this show since the release of its first episode in April of 2019. While I can not claim that I am a media critic nor that I have any expertise when it comes to Hollywood and/or the show business in general. I must say that I was so intrigued by this show that I decided to write about it and interview a few people along the way that also enjoyed the show."