Modern Western Critical Discourse on Seerah Sources

Seerah of the Prophet falls mainly under Orientalist studies evolving from an early skeptical normative to revisionism, higher criticism, biblical literary criticism and Hagarism. This perpetual change of Western academic methodology seems to indicate their fragile and non-traditional academic approach. The Orientalists like Goldziher and Schacht have been able to transform skeptical theories considerably to the extent ‘revisionist’ theories have emerged. In this paper, a critical review of modern Western critique has been discussed while conjecturing about its lacunas at the same time.

A Dyadic Investigation of Depressed Affect and Interspousal Behavior in Couples With Chronic Back Pain

Background Depression and marital discord are characteristic not only of individuals with chronic low back pain (ICPs) but also of their spouses. Purpose We examined actor–partner interdependence models to evaluate associations among depressed affect and criticism and support of partners at the same time point (concurrent effects) and 3 hr later (lagged effects). Fully dyadic models were used to account for both within-person and cross-spouse associations among depressed affect, criticism, and support for ICPs and spouses. We also examined the direction of the relationships (depressed affect predicting behavior and behavior predicting depressed affect) all while controlling for pain intensity, pain behavior, and the prior dependent variable. Methods ICPs (n = 105) and their spouses completed electronic diary measures of depressed affect and behavior (criticism and support) five times a day for 2 weeks. Hierarchical linear modeling with person-mean centering was used for data analysis. Results Within the same 3 hr epoch, more depressed affect was related to higher criticism and generally less support. Lagged analyses suggested bidirectional relationships between spouse’s own depressed affect and spouse’s own criticism of ICPs. Spouse depressed affect was also associated with decreased support received from ICPs. Pain behavior and pain intensity were also related to depressed affect, criticism, and support especially concurrently. Conclusions Theories and interventions need to address not only ICP depressed affect but also spouse depressed affect, as spouse depressed affect may be a stress generating precursor to criticism and support.

Detecting Sparse Microbial Association Signals Adaptively From Longitudinal Microbiome Data Based on Generalized Estimating Equations

Background: The relationship between the compositions of microbial communities and various host phenotypes is an important research topic. Microbiome association research addresses multiple domains, such as human disease, diet and medicine. Statistical methods for testing microbiome-phenotype associations have been studied recently to determine their ability to assess longitudinal microbiome data. However, existing methods fail to detect sparse association signals in longitudinal microbiome data. Methods: In this paper, we developed a novel method, namely, aGEEMiHC, which is a data-driven adaptive microbiome higher criticism analysis based on generalized estimating equations, to detect sparse microbial association signals from longitudinal microbiome data. aGEEMiHC adopts a generalized estimating equations framework that fully considers the correlation among different observations from the same cluster (individuals) in longitudinal data, and it integrates multiple microbiome higher criticism analyses based on generalized estimating equations by setting different working correlation structures. Thus, the proposed method is robust to diverse correlation structures for longitudinal data.Results: The proposed method shows a stable performance for diverse association patterns in both sparsity levels and phylogenetic relevance. Extensive simulation experiments demonstrate that it can control the type I error correctly and achieve superior performance according to a statistical power comparison. In our simulation, we applied aGEEMiHC to longitudinal microbiome data with various types of host phenotypes to demonstrate the stability of our method. aGEEMiHC is also utilized for real longitudinal microbiome data, and we found a significant association between the gut microbiome and Crohn's disease. Conclusions: aGEEMiHC is a statistical method that facilitates association testing for sparse microbial association signals from longitudinal microbiome data, and it can be applied to situations in which the true underlying correlations among different observations from the same cluster in longitudinal data are unknown. It is worth noting that our method also ranks the significant factors associated with the host phenotype to provide potential biomarkers. The R package GEEMiHC is available at https://github.com/xpjiang-ccnu/GEEMiHC.

Networks of worry—towards a connectivity-based signature of late-life worry using higher criticism

Severe worry is a complex transdiagnostic phenotype independently associated with increased morbidity, including cognitive impairment and cardiovascular diseases. We investigated the neurobiological basis of worry in older adults by analyzing resting state fMRI using a large-scale network-based approach. We collected resting fMRI on 77 participants (>50 years old) with varying worry severity. We computed region-wise connectivity across the default mode network (DMN), anterior salience network, and left executive control network. All 22,366 correlations were regressed on worry severity and adjusted for age, sex, race, education, disease burden, depression, anxiety, rumination, and neuroticism. We employed higher criticism, a second-level method of significance testing for rare and weak features, to reveal the functional connectivity patterns associated with worry. The analysis suggests that worry has a complex, yet distinct signature associated with resting state functional connectivity. Intra-connectivities and inter-connectivities of the DMN comprise the dominant contribution. The anterior cingulate, temporal lobe, and thalamus are heavily represented with overwhelmingly negative association with worry. The prefrontal regions are also strongly represented with a mix of positive and negative associations with worry. Identifying the most salient connections may be useful for targeted interventions for reducing morbidity associated with severe worry in older adults.

Introduction

This chapter explains the book’s central arguments, provides background, and theorizes its approach to literature. It shows how Old Testament wisdom philosophy informs Melville’s response to the manifold crises of modernity, specifically the loss of religious certainty and biblical authority. It explicates the book’s argument that Melville’s response can help us understand the dynamics at play in this crisis by providing historical and contextual background: first, it inscribes Melville into a transnational theological conversation about biblical interpretation that lasts from the early eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century; second, it outlines the American reception of new analytical methods such as higher criticism, surveys America’s intellectual infrastructure, and discusses how romantic literature fills the interpretive lacuna left by theological scholarship. Finally, it defines “wisdom” and “religious skepticism” and explains its approach to literary criticism as informed by a hermeneutic theory of contemplation (theology) and by postsecular as well as postcritical approaches (literary studies).

In the Christian Archives: Sacrifice, the Higher Criticism, and the History of Religion

Much recent scholarship has shown just how indebted the secular sciences of religion were to the Protestant world from which they grew. Yet this “Protestant world” is typically described schematically, as if Protestantism offered a coherent worldview or even a consistent set of doctrines. A different picture emerges if we deepen our historical horizon, and explore the reflexes, aspirations, and norms that have found a home in the Christian (in this case, Protestant) theological imagination. This “Christian archive” was a heterogeneous place, with room for many things that we would now call secular or even profane. Protestant reform in fact began by condemning this heterogeneity, insisting that much of what the church had come to see was sacred was, at best, only and all too human. Yet centuries of conflict in Europe over the truth of Christianity only pluralized this archive further. The nineteenth-century history of religion grew less out of “Protestantism,” in other words, than out of the sedimented mixture of theological, historical, philological, and anthropological materials inherited from these earlier moments. It was, moreover, also an intellectual project that discovered new uses for these materials and thereby opened new horizons of humanistic inquiry. This article makes this argument with reference to sacrifice—a theological challenge for Christian thinkers from the outset of the tradition, but especially for Protestants; a magnet for diverse historical, anthropological, and theological reflections; and a productive zone of inquiry for the nineteenth-century German philosophers, philologians, and “higher critics” of the Hebrew Bible who together helped create the modern history of religion.

Alkitab Sebagai Buku Pegangan Orang Kristen (Ketidakbersalahan Alkitab)

Ada orang Kristen yang mempercayai Alkitab sebagai pegangan hidup yang tidak memiliki kesalahan, namun sebagian orang Kristen memiliki keraguan akan hal tersebut. Perdebatan ini muncul setelah adanya kelompok-kelompok yang memberikan kritik kepada Alkitab, yang kemudian disebut sebagai kelompok Kritik Tinggi (Higher Criticism) dan Kritik Rendah (Lower Criticism). Dari kritik-kritik yang ditujukan kepada Alkitab ini, maka munculah keraguan dan sikap terhadap Alkitab, bahwa Alkitab memiliki kesalahan. Pada makalah ini penulis hendak memberikan paparan tentang ketidakbersalahan Alkitab atau dalam ilmu teologi lebih dikenal dengan istilah Ineransi Alkitab agar orang Kristen memiliki keyakinan yang teguh terhadap buku pengangan yang harus dipercayai yaitu Alkitab. Dalam makalah ini penulis menggunakan metode penelitian kualitatif dengan menggunakan pendekatan studi pustaka. Penulis berusaha memaparkan bahwa Alkitab yang dipercayai sebagai buku pegangan orang Kristen adalah kebenaran Allah yang harus dipercayai dan diterima dengan iman.

Contributions and Criticism of Western Scholars on Islamic inheritance (An Analytical Study)

In this paper, the criticisms and contributions of Western Scholars and their impacts on society have been discussed. To study the civilization‘s heritage, history, language, literature, fine arts, sciences, and sociology, of the people of East, by the westerns, is called Orientalism. In the ancient Arabic dictionary, the term “orientalism” is not present. In Europe, after the Renaissance, to introduce the East in the West, and to point out the expected interests of the West in the East, the Western Scholars performed their duty elegantly. All of the ancient and modern western scholars wrote about the Holy Qur‘an, and almost all of them neglected its present order and tried to determine the order of revelation of Qur’anic verses according to their own mind. Torrey of Yale spent his whole life to find out contradictions in the book of God. Bell of Edinburgh applied the rules of higher criticism on Qur’anic injunctions. Many other orientalists as Arthur Jeffery, A.T.Welch, J.D.Pearson, Montgomery Watt and Karen Armstrong are also written about the Qur’an and biography of the prophet (PBUH). Western scholars also have a great role in denouncing the history of Islam. It is the need of the era to go through their literary efforts to explore their objectives and outcomes. It is also essential to study their struggle to prove about their right and wrong points. At a time, the Orientalists gained popularity among all schools of thought of different religions. This study is necessary and beneficial for all students, teachers and research scholars of every field of life.