The Islamic Reformist Movement in North Africa

1964 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leon Carl Brown

If my own experience is at all typical, probably most students concerned with the influence of Islam in the modern world occasionally experience total doubt about their approach to the subject. Can one still justify putting such emphasis on the role of Islam as a historical continuum? Rather, since the nineteenth century, the period of the intensive ‘impact of the west’, haven't there been so many institutional changes that we have reached a real watershed, a breaking point with past history and with past categories of thought designed to explain that history? Shouldn't we de-emphasise Islam as a vital factor in the equation of the modern Arab world and of North Africa? Isn't it a mistake to put so much emphasis on the Islamic heritage?

2009 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 563-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raf Gelders

In the aftermath of Edward Said's Orientalism (1978), European representations of Eastern cultures have returned to preoccupy the Western academy. Much of this work reiterates the point that nineteenth-century Orientalist scholarship was a corpus of knowledge that was implicated in and reinforced colonial state formation in India. The pivotal role of native informants in the production of colonial discourse and its subsequent use in servicing the material adjuncts of the colonial state notwithstanding, there has been some recognition in South Asian scholarship of the moot point that the colonial constructs themselves built upon an existing, precolonial European discourse on India and its indigenous culture. However, there is as yet little scholarly consensus or indeed literature on the core issues of how and when these edifices came to be formed, or the intellectual and cultural axes they drew from. This genealogy of colonial discourse is the subject of this essay. Its principal concerns are the formalization of a conceptual unit in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, called “Hinduism” today, and the larger reality of European culture and religion that shaped the contours of representation.


1998 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 35-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Smith ◽  
James Crow

AbstractThe fortifications of the Hellenistic and Roman city of Tocra are over 2 km long (including the sea-wall) and comprise a curtain wall up to 2 m wide flanked by 31 rectangular towers. Three main structural phases were noted in the survey carried out in 1966 by David Smith: (1) Hellenistic walls of isodomic ashlar, (2) later Hellenistic work of isodomic ashlar with bevelled edges, associated with the indented trace along the south rampart, and (3) an extensive rebuild of plain ashlar blocks including the towers and reconstruction to the East and West Gates, dateable, on the basis of Procopius, to the reign of Justinian. The general significance of the fortifications at Tocra is considered in the second part: these include the Hellenistic indented trace along the south side, later reinforced by towers in the sixth century AD. Also of wider importance was the use of an outer wall or proteichisma, and the pentagonal, pointed towers at the two main gates. Both these elements were unusual in Byzantine North Africa and they are discussed as part of the more general repertory of Byzantine fortifications. The unusual tower adjacent to the West Church is considered in the context of literary accounts. The article concludes by considering how the architecture and magnitude of the fortifications can allow a reassessment of the wider role of the city in the sixth and seventh century defences of Cyrenaica.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 32-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.D. Tikhonova ◽  
N.V. Dvoryanchikov ◽  
A. Ernst-Vintila ◽  
I.B. Bovina

The main purpose of the presented article is to reveal the potential of social psychological knowledge for the analysis of radicalisation of young people. In the introduction, the features of socialisation in the modern world are discussed. Special attention is drawn to the role of the Internet in the socialisation of adolescents and young people. It is noted that the dominance of audiovisual information contributes to the reduction of reflexivity and promotes the so-called clip thinking, which has become an integral characteristic of adolescents and young people. It is emphasized that life in the modern society is associated with a number of changes taking place simultaneously at different levels, and uncertainty has become its important feature. Extremism and radicalisation are considered as a reaction to uncertainty, a way to overcome it. The main part of the article is devoted to the analysis of models of radicalization describes in various works. Finally, perspectives of further investigation into the subject are outlined.


2020 ◽  
pp. 0957154X2096729
Author(s):  
Cara Dobbing ◽  
Alannah Tomkins

The nineteenth century witnessed a great shift in how insanity was regarded and treated. Well documented is the emergence of psychiatry as a medical specialization and the role of lunatic asylums in the West. Unclear are the relationships between the heads of institutions and the individuals treated within them. This article uses two cases at either end of the nineteenth century to demonstrate sexual misdemeanours in sites of mental health care, and particularly how they were dealt with, both legally and in the press. They illustrate issues around cultures of complaint and the consequences of these for medical careers. Far from being representative, they highlight the need for further research into the doctor–patient relationship within asylums, and what happened when the boundaries were blurred.


Author(s):  
David Fieni

This book explores the confluence of decadence and Orientalism since the mid-nineteenth century in French and Arabic writing. It demonstrates how French Orientalism set the terms of modernity for Arab and Muslim thinkers and writers, but also how the latter responded to and transformed these terms. The book argues that Orientalism is doubly decadent: it describes the supposedly inherent degeneration of the Semitic and the “Oriental,” and in so doing Orientalism attempts to contribute to the decay of these societies. Through comparative close readings of French, Francophone, and Arabic texts, the author outlines how notions and representations of decadence and decay during the colonial and postcolonial periods have in fact produced symbolic and social disintegration in parts of the Arab world. Part 1 of the book examines the role of philology, secularism, Islamic reformism, and colonial policy in the configurations of colonial modernity during the second half of the nineteenth century, focusing on the Arab East (or Mashreq) and Algeria. Part 2 turns to Maghreb to explore the ways that loss becomes nationalized and gendered in the postcolonial era and how Maghrebi writers engage with the legacy of Orientalist decadence to find ways beyond it. In the context of these questions, it offers analyses of work by a wide range of writers, including Ernest Renan, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Ahmed Faris al-Shidyaq, Farah Antun, Céline, Tahar Wattar, Tahir Djaout, Ahlam Mosteghanemi, Yamina Méchakra, Assia Djebar, Hélène Cixous, Abdelwahab Meddeb, and Abdelkebir Khatibi.


Author(s):  
Sainbileg B

In this article, I tried to illustrate a brief history of Buddhist Studies in the Western world and role of Mongolian Buddhism in its history and future prospects. Buddhist Studies is an independent academic discipline that pioneered by outstanding Western scholars and it covers roughly 200 years. In the modern world, Buddhist Studies has formed interdisciplinary academic research, and expands its research area with new requirements of society and newly discovered manuscripts. From the outset of the Buddhist Studies, western scholars involved with Mongolian Buddhism and manuscripts; however, unfortunately Buddhist Studies in the Mongolian context could not develop in parallel with its rapid development. In other words, Mongolian Buddhism comparatively has been slighted in the past history of Buddhist Studies. The researches by domestic scholars have been reviving after 1960. Only foreign scholars do conspicuous researches on the Mongolian Buddhism, but domestic scholars are not active on the academic research due to some reasons. First of all we should define what makes Buddhism “Mongolian”. We should describe identity of the Mongolian Buddhism, and then we able to analyze its past, present and future prospects. I assume the following five tendencies explore researches of the Mongolian Buddhism.Assimilation of Buddhism with Mongolian tradition and customs, syncretism of Buddhism and Mongolian traditional shamanism Distinctive character of Mongolian monasticism, secularity, role of Buddhism in the Mongolian society Study of ethnic Mongolian lamas as influential historical figuresResearch of Mongolian Canons and other sources in Mongolian language, and their translation Study on Tibetan and Mongolian works by Mongolian lamas in comparison with doctrinally affiliated works


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (10) ◽  
pp. 819
Author(s):  
Haitham A. Aldreabi

the events of the Arab Spring attracted the attention of many scholars from various disciplines. However, the general trend of existing literature seems to ignore the different cultural representations within the Arab world leading for assumptions that the uprisings share similar outcomes and/or motivations. This article attempts to deconstruct the terms Arab Spring and Arab world through shedding light on two of the most influential uprisings that brought about social, economic, and political changes. To do so, it combines CDA and narrative theory to address the subject of the thematic nature of the subsequent media messages during the Egyptian and Syrian uprisings to investigate the process of meaning-making and the role of language in social reality construction. The purpose is to motivate researchers to address the largely ignored issue of the different representations in media and narratives.


2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Yolanda Gamarra Chopo

The bibliography of Spanish international law textbooks is a good indicator of the evolution of the historiography of international law. Spanish historiography, with its own special features, was a recipient of the great debates concerning naturalism v. positivism and universalism v. particularism that flourished in European and American historiography in the nineteenth century. This study is articulated on four principal axes. The first states how the writings of the philosophes continued to dominate the way in which the subject was conceived in mid-nineteenth century Spain. Secondly, it explores the popularization and democratization of international law through the work of Concepcion Arenal and the heterodox thought of Rafael Maria de Labra. Thirdly, it examines the first textbooks of international law with their distinct natural law bias, but imbued with certain positivist elements. These textbooks trawled sixteenth century Spanish history, searching for the origins of international law and thus demonstrating the historical civilizing role of Spain, particularly in America. Fourthly, it considers the vision of institutionist, heterodox reformers and bourgeois liberals who proclaimed the universality of international law, not without some degree of ambivalence, and their defence of Spain as the object of civilization and also a civilizing subject. In conclusion, the article argues that the late development of textbooks was a consequence of the late institutionalization of the study of international law during the last decade of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the legacy of the nineteenth century survives in the most progressive of contemporary polemics for a new international law.


1976 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 142-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard W. Davis

It is far too early to talk with any real certainty about the mid-nineteenth century electoral structure. The very materials of which it was built are in dispute, let alone the shape of the edifice. A deference school of historians is challenging traditional notions of the growth of political individualism in the period, while so-called quantitative historians are beginning to question the assumptions and approach of both deference historians and traditionalists. Serious and detailed study of the questions involved has hardly begun. Still, some comment on the present state of the controversy may not be entirely out of place. An enduring interpretation can only be constructed of sound materials; and I am by no means certain of the soundness of some of those now being put forward for our use.W. O. Aydelotte, in a paper read a couple of years ago and soon to be published in a series of essays entitled The History of Parliamentary Behavior, notes the divergence of opinion among historians on the role of the electorate in shaping parliamentary opinion after 1832. As he rightly suggests, Norman Gash in his Politics in the Age of Peel appears to be of two minds on the subject, depending on whether one reads his introduction or his text. In the former Professor Gash stresses the increase of popular influence on Parliament, in the latter the continuance of traditional influences over the mass of the electorate. D. C. Moore comes down heavily on the side of the latter influences, contending that a relatively few leaders of what he has called “deference communities” represented effective electoral opinion, which was simply registered by the mass of the electorate.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 161
Author(s):  
Pericles Vallianos

The vital cultural project during the nineteenth century was the formation of an authoritative version of the national consciousness that serve to homogenise the disparate populations of newly independent Greece. Three towering intellectuals led the way in this process: Markos Renieris, Spyridon Zambelios and Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos. All three adhered to the since dominant theory of the historical continuity of the Greek nation from prehistoric times to the present but held sharply different views concerning the role of Greece in the modern world. Renieris stressed the European vocation of today’s Hellenic culture, given that the foundations of European civilisation were initially Hellenic as well. Zambelios put forward an anti-Western view of the nation’s destiny, tinged with theological fanaticism and a mystical historicism. Paparrigopoulos was the consummate historian who emphasised the links between the Greek present and the past, chiefly through the medium of language, but without hiding the sharp discontinuitiesbetween historical periods.


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