scholarly journals At forlade sekten

2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (62) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tetz Rooke
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
Proper Solution ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Individual Freedom ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Role Of Religion

Tetz Rooke: “Leaving the Sect”In the prize-winning novel Azazil (2008) by Yusuf Zaydan, a Christian monk tells the dramatic story of his life, which is also the dramatic story of early Christianity in the Middle East. The novel problematizes the role of religion in politics and the individual’s responsibility for violence directed against “non-believers”. The same issues are also addressed in the true life story of the former Egyptian, Islamist activist Khaled al-Berry, Life is More Beautiful than Paradise (2001). Both books show defection as a proper solution when religious movements turn authoritarian and sully both individual freedom and moral principles.

Introduction: Religion and the Novel

2019 ◽  
pp. 3-33
Author(s):  
Christina Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Postcolonial Literature ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Religion And Literature ◽  
Religious Other ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter introduces the topic of religion and literature, theorises the novel as a secular genre, and develops a concept of religion as the other in the Arabic novel. It begins with a discussion of the relationship between religion and literature, identifying imagination, metaphorical language and mythos as areas of overlap, before turning to the question of religion and the Arabic novel as a modern form which eschews faith and dogma but is nevertheless packed with religious themes, images, characters, language and intertextuality. This is accounted for by the form’s secularism, which is theorised in terms of Charles Taylor’s conditions of belief. Literary secularism is not static and stable however, thus religion emerges as the other in the Egyptian novel, with all the ambivalence which alterity characteristically entails. This religious other calls into question postcolonial studies’ over-valorisation of the East/West binary insofar as it has obscured the critical role of religion in Arab postcolonial literature and identity.

scholarly journals Trading on faith: religious movements and informal economic governance in Nigeria

2009 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 397-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Meagher
Keyword(s):  
Informal Economy ◽  
Class Formation ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Economic Regulation ◽  
Economic Governance ◽  
Economic Implications ◽  
Historical Role ◽  
Role Of Religion

ABSTRACTThe pressures of economic crisis and reform that have gripped African societies have been accompanied by a proliferation of new religious movements. Amid concerns about the political impact of religious revivalism, little attention has been devoted to their economic implications. Focusing on the remarkable coincidence between the withdrawal of the state, the rise of religious movements, and the dramatic expansion of the informal economy, this paper examines the role of religious revivalism in processes of informal economic governance and class formation in contemporary Africa. Against the background of the historical role of religion in the development of market institutions across the continent, it traces the dynamics of religious revivalism and informal economic regulation in two regions of Nigeria. Rather than representing a return to occultist or patrimonial impulses, new religious movements reveal distinctly Weberian tendencies. However, modernising tendencies fostered within the informal economy by popular religious revivalism are being stunted by the relentless pressures of liberalisation, globalisation and pseudo-democratisation. Progressive religious tendencies among the poor are being instrumentalised by religious entrepreneurs and political elites, undermining fragile processes of entrepreneurial class formation taking place within the informal economy.

Studying Human Rights in the Middle East: Lingua Franca of Global Politics or Forked Tongue of Donors?

2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 357-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lori Allen
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Women’S Human Rights ◽  
Local Tradition ◽  
Women's Human Rights ◽  
Role Of Religion

The study of human rights has gone through many phases, and the boom in the scholarly industry of human rights studies has yielded many subspecialties, including human rights in particular regions and the intersections of human rights with different religious traditions. One principal area of discussion likely to be of interest to readers of this journal has been the question of Muslim women's human rights and the role of religion in this respect. The problem was often presented as primarily an ideological one, a conflict between a local tradition, Islam, and the global demands for human rights.

scholarly journals Religion and Peace in the Middle East

1989 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 337-338
Author(s):  
Mumtaz Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Interreligious Dialogue ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Concerted Effort ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Arab Israeli Conflict ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Israeli Occupation

This slim volume is based on the three papers presented at the Councilfor the World’s Religions (CWR) conference on “Interreligious Dialogue andPeace in the Middle East” held in Toledo, Spain in March 1988. The conferencewas intended to discuss the role of religion in the pursuit of peace in theMiddle East.The volume begins with a paper on “Religion and Politics: Dangers andPossibilities for Peace in the Middle East” by Rabbi David J. Goldberg.Goldberg argues that the on going Arab-Israeli conflict is essentially politicaland not religious in its origin, its cause, and in the perception of those mostintimately involved. Hence, the resolution of conflict could only come froma concerted effort to find an acceptable and mutually beneficial geo-politicalhrmula which seeks to accommodate the just demands and needs of both parties.Any attempt to seek a solution only in “apocalyptic terms” would undoubtedlylead to more conflicts and wars. Goldberg claims that religious differencesdid not originally loom large as a source of conflict in the Middle East.This may be true before 1967. But since the Israeli occupation of El-Quds,the religious dimension of the Arab-Israeli conflict has become equally, ifnot more, important than the political dimension. For Muslims throughoutthe world, the constant reminder that one of the three holiest places in theirreligious tradition is out of their reach cuts a deep psychological wound.Rabbi Goldberg believes that common to the three monotheistic faiths ofthe Middle East are “certain shared principles” that govern ethical behavior,recognize the rights of other people, and determine responsibilities ofgovernments. The logic of acknowledging and re-affirming these sharedprinciples may open new possibilities of conflict resolution and mutualunderstanding. Goldberg states: “As a Jew, therefore, I have no hesitationin asserting that the Palestinian right to self-determination is just as validas my insistence on Jewish self-determination.”Farhang Rajaee’s paper on “Religion and Politics in Islam: The IranianContext” is an important attempt to understand “the internal logic” of Islamwith regard to religion and politics or the relations between the secular andthe sacred. Rajaee argues that the aim of politics in Islam is identified withreligion. Seeing Islam as a systematic whole implies that “the distinctionand separation between various aspects of life make little sense.” Politics, ...

scholarly journals From Confusion to Conversion

Poetics Today ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-367
Author(s):  
Douglas Morrey
Keyword(s):  
Political Party ◽  
Religious Conversion ◽  
Political Islam ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Bad Faith ◽  
Intellectual Culture ◽  
National Pride ◽  
Unreliable Narrator ◽  
Role Of Religion

Submission (2015), a novel in which a Muslim political party is elected to govern France, has been widely interpreted as part of a ubiquitous discourse of “declinism” in contemporary French intellectual culture. The novel has been accused of complicity with a reactionary politics favoring a return to strong patriarchal authority and national pride, while the narrative of the triumph of political Islam is frequently interpreted as a thinly veiled act of Islamophobia. This ideological interpretation is, however, complicated by the bad faith of the novel’s unreliable narrator, and by the ironic treatment of his narrative voice. By taking the elusiveness of this narration more fully into account, it becomes possible to read Submission as a tentative — if never unambiguous — narrative of religious conversion. To this extent, the treatment of Islam in Submission can be seen as consistent with the persistent but ambivalent role of religion in Houellebecq’s wider work.

scholarly journals The Building of Main Character’s Self-Actualization through Religion in Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-184
Author(s):  
Ellychristina D Hutubessy
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
Humanistic Psychology ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Religious Activities ◽  
Self Actualization ◽  
Role Of Religion

The purpose of this study is to find out the role of religion in Siddhartha’s self-actualization process in Hesse’s Siddhartha. The analysis applies Rogers’ humanistic psychology focusing on self-actualization. The method used was qualitative with content analysis. The data were taken from the texts contained in the novel. Data analysis used triangulation techniques. The results showed that Buddhism and Hinduism had taught various things through religious activities conducted by Siddhartha to find out his actualization.

Sergei Bulgakov’s Intellectual Journey, 1900–1922

2020 ◽  
pp. 276-292
Author(s):  
Regula M. Zwahlen
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Development ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
Prodigal Son ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
Religious Worldview ◽  
Human Creativity ◽  
Modern Thought ◽  
Intellectual Journey ◽  
Role Of Religion

By analogy to Kant’s question ‘how is knowledge possible?’, Sergei Bulgakov was driven by the following questions: how are history, economy, art, and religion possible? Bulgakov explored the ‘truths’ of modern thought—human dignity (humanism), human dependence on the material world (materialism), social equality (socialism), and striving for a better future (idealism)—that became the cornerstones of his religious worldview. In Vladimir Soloviev’s footsteps, Bulgakov developed a ‘synthetic philosophy’ that would reconcile faith and reason, metaphysics and science, and motivate Christians to engage in politics in order to build just societies. With a focus on the interplay of social and economic teachings with religious movements, his early works contribute to ‘post-secular’ reflections on the crucial role of religion in societies. The paradigm of the ‘return of the prodigal son’ motivated both Bulgakov’s personal and intellectual development: in his view, the radical departure from God in the age of modernity is an important, if not necessary step on humanity’s way back to its Father’s house, and faith is a double-sided God–human act of human religious thirst and God’s response. Thus, Bulgakov’s early works dwell on culture and history as God–human synergy within the framework of the concept of Sophia. The latter is Bulgakov’s answer to the question as to how God’s revelation, divine-human creativity, and the world’s salvation are possible.

Maurice and Religion

2020 ◽  
pp. 154-174
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Fordoński
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
British Society ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Changing Role

This chapter explores the role and representation of religion in the text of Maurice and in critical readings of the novel. Concentrating primarily on the text itself, the chapter offers close readings of those parts of the novel where religion/religions play a part, stressing their importance in the structure of the novel. This analysis retraces the influence of religion (predominantly Christianity but also ancient Greek and pagan religious thought) on the main characters’ psychological development and behaviour, especially on the way they try to deal with irreconcilable demands of religion and their own psyche. The chapter thus reflects on Forster’s attitude towards religious institutions and the changing role religion played in early twentieth-century British society and among Edwardian writers. The chapter also considers the role of religion in the reception of the novel, both in scholarship and among twenty-first-century readers. The chapter concludes by considering questions of reception and the relevance of Maurice to twenty-first-century (queer) readers as concepts of homosexuality have undergone considerable changes in parts of the world.

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