Global Shinqīṭ: Mauritania’s Islamic Knowledge Tradition and the Making of Transnational Religious Authority (Nineteenth to Twenty-First Century)

Today, Bilād-Shinqīṭ or Mauritania is often portrayed as an unparalleled center of classical Islamic tradition supposedly untouched by modernity. While previous scholarship has concerned itself mostly with Mauritania’s local intellectual history on one hand and its recent global fame on the other, in this paper, I document instead how, in less than two centuries, Mauritania has become not only a point of scholarly reference and symbolic/representational space of excellence in Islamic knowledge, but also one with an astonishing amount of global reach. Thus, I explore the ways in which Mauritania has continued to asserts its relevance and scholarly authority on a global scale. Drawing on a variety of historical, literary, and anthropological sources, I historicize the rise and mythologization of Mauritania as a peerless center of traditional sacred scholarship. I specifically examine how a number of widely different Muslim actors under changing circumstances continue to invoke, perform and re-invent Shinqīṭ/Mauritania. In documenting what I call Global Shinqīt over the longue durée, rather than simply illustrate how the so-called Muslim peripheries shape central traits of transnational normative Islamic authority, I argue instead that mobility, historical circumstances, and scholarly performance combined are at least as instrumental in the credible articulation of authoritative Islamic knowledge as normative discourses issued by supposedly central institutions, personalities, and religious bodies located in the so-called “heartland of Islam.” In so doing, I destabilize the center/periphery framework altogether in order to explore how Islamic religious authority is actually construed and operates under shifting cultural and political conditions.

Basis Transformasi Tradisi Pesantren Salaf di Era Modern (Kajian Semiotika Barthes dan Dekonstruksi Derrida)

Pesantren has contributed to a system of values of local wisdom that has become a tradition and is believed to be a core value and belief. However, not a few pesantren traditions are underestimated, valued by the Orientalists as old-fashioned, traditional, sincretic, etc. The existence of a shift in the view of the pesantren tradition, encourages authors to deconstruct salaf pesantren traditions using the study of Barthes's semiotics and Derrida's deconstruction theory analysis by: 1) Finding the meaning of denotation and connotation through signs, signifier and signified, 2) Tracing the elements of aporia (paradoxical meaning, contradictory meaning, and irony meaning), and 3) Reversing or changing the (conventional) meanings. The results of the study concluded that: 1) The traditions that have been developed in the Salaf pesantren are the accumulated interpretations that have been passed on by the ancestors as the treasures of human psychology (al-makhzun al-nafs) which act as guide tools in a boarding school environment; 2) analysis of the deconstruction of the salaf pesantren tradition is done by severing the epistemological relationship to all authorities that shape the knowledge tradition by overhauling the standard and frozen relations system into a fluid system of relations, further accounted for giving reasonable sides in all the traditions that developed within. Keywords: Semiotics, Roland Barthes, Deconstruction, Jacques Derrida, Pesantren Tradition Abstrak Pesantren telah melahirkan sistem nilai-nilai kearifan lokal yang menjadi tradisi dan diyakini sebagai nilai dasar (core belief and core values). Namun, tidak sedikit tradisi-tradisi pesantren dipandang sebelah mata, kolot, sinkretis, jumud dan kuno oleh kaum orientalis. Adanya pergeseran pandangan tersebut, mendorong penulis untuk mendekonstruksi tradisi pesantren salaf menggunakan kajian semiotika Barthes dan pisau analisis teori dekonstruksi Derrida dengan cara: 1) Mencari makna denotasi dan konotasi lewat tanda, penanda dan petanda, 2) Melacak unsur-unsur aporia (makna paradoks, makna kontradiktif, dan makna ironi), dan 3) Membalikkan atau merubah makna-makna yang sudah dikonvensionalkan. Penelitian kualitatif ini berlokasi di Pesantren Darussalam Mekar Agung Madiun. Melalui observasi, wawancara dan studi dokumentasi, disimpulkan bahwa: 1) Tradisi-tradisi yang telah berkembang di pesantren salaf merupakan akumulasi interpretasi yang telah diwariskan para leluhur sebagai khazanah kejiwaan manusia (al-makhzun al-nafs) yang menjadi pedoman dan piranti dalam lingkungan pesantren; 2) analisis dekonstruksi tradisi pesantren salaf dilakukan dengan memutuskan hubungan epistemologis terhadap segala otoritas yang membentuk tradisi pengetahuan dengan merombak sistem relasi yang baku dan beku, menjadi sistem relasi yang cair dan dinamis, dari yang mutlak menjadi relatif, dari ahistoris menjadi historis yang selanjutnya dipertanggungjawabkan untuk memberi sisi-sisi masuk akal (reasonable) dalam segenap tradisi yang berkembang. Kata Kunci: Semiotika, Roland Barthes, Dekontruksi, Jacques Derrida, Tradisi Pesantren.

Libraries, Archives, and Museums in Guam

Knowledge, tradition, culture, and arts are reflected in how the information is shared in the knowledge society. The new millennium looks into the practices of libraries, archives, and museums and moves forward to the issues, challenges, and opportunities. While competencies of the staff play an important role, information and communication technologies undeniably have also brought about the changes. This chapter provides an overview of the libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs) on the island of Guam, emphasizing the traditional roles and examining deeper into the issues and challenges on the impact of information and communication technologies. Convergence, specialized knowledge and a better framework to be adopted for development and growth that can contribute to the global knowledge society are the key points in the discussion.

How “Facts” Shaped Modern Disciplines

This history of the concept of fact reveals that the fact-oriented practices of German physicists and historians derived from common origins. The concept of fact became part of the German language remarkably late. It gained momentum only toward the end of the eighteenth century. I show that the concept of fact emerged as part of a historical knowledge tradition, which comprised both human and natural empirical study. Around 1800, parts of this tradition, including the concept of fact, were integrated into the epistemological basis of several emerging disciplines, including physics and historiography. During this process of discipline formation, the concept of fact remained fluid. I reveal this fluidity by unearthing different interpretations and roles of facts in different German contexts around 1800. I demonstrate how a fact-based epistemology emerged at the University of Göttingen in the late eighteenth century, by focusing on universal historian August Ludwig Schlözer and the experimentalist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. In a time of scientific and political revolutions, they regarded facts as eternal knowledge, contrasting them with short-lived theories and speculations. Remarkably, Schlözer and Lichtenberg construed facts as the basis of Wissenschaft, but not as Wissenschaft itself. Only after 1800, empirically minded German physicists and historians granted facts self-contained value. As physics and historiography became institutionalized at German universities, the concept of fact acquired different interpretations in different disciplinary settings. These related to fact-oriented research practices, such as precision measurement in physics and source criticism in historiography.

Philosophy as Conceptual Design

Philosophy, understood as the study or science of open questions and their answers, becomes primarily a form of conceptual design. This is what we are going to see in this chapter, which offers an account and a defence of constructionism, both as a metaphilosophical approach and as a philosophical methodology, with some references to the philosophical tradition that has inspired it, the so-called ‘maker’s knowledge’ tradition. Here, we shall see that such constructionism needs to be reconciled with naturalism (recall that philosophy as conceptual design may be critical but also respectful of the best knowledge and reasonings we may have).

Forskningens regionale betydning

This chapter addresses the regional impact of research. The chapter presents, and partly develops, a framework for analysing how research in a region impacts the knowledge forms in the region. In order to do so, the chapter both presents a systemic approach to the impact of research-based knowledge, defines itself within a sociology of knowledge tradition and also, based on that, uses a model of a regional knowledge system as a framework for analysing the impact of different kinds of regionally related research. This model divides the regional knowledge system into areas characterised by either institutions, norms, attitudes or rules. The chapter used this model of the regional knowledge system to map 55 different research projects that have been conducted in the Agder region of Norway over the last 15 years. The 55 projects represent a wide range of topics and disciplines. Based on this mapping, the chapter argues that a) the research projects have a clear strategy for the particular knowledge area in the region they are targeting and uses relevant methodologies for this purpose, b) research-based knowledge is supportive, helpful and critical in relation to existing regional knowledge, and c) research-based knowledge addresses a large spectrum of knowledge forms in the region. The chapter does not discuss the impact of this knowledge with respect to social change. Furthermore, a limitation of the study, as well as a suggestion for further research, is that it does not analyse how social change might be a result of parallel changes within several knowledge forms in the region.

EPISTEMOLOGI IRFANI (Sebuah Tinjauan Kajian Tafsir Sufistik)

Irfani Epistemology is one of reasoning system known in Islamic knowledge tradition, besides these are Baya>ni and Burha>ni. It is different with of baya>ni and burha>ni based on holy scripture and logic. Irfani is based on kasyf (Illuminative), overflowing knowledge by presence without through reason analytic. The way of reaching is the exercise of soul (hearth) through the steps of certain sprituality (maqamat) and the experince of certain devine inspiration (hal). ‘Irfani Epistemology in study of tafsir known by the Tafsir of sufistik, this consists of two tipologies or variaty of interpretation is tafsir of Nazari sufistik and Isyari sufsistik. Both these tipologies are to be discussed in this research, the first tafsir interpretes the teks of holy Qur’an by a mistical theory and the second of that is using a number of qalb means (inner meaning) because the Tafsir of sufistik explores the aspect of inner meaning in teks or scripture. Historically, the development of sufistik exegesis had expanded since the second century of Hijriyah to the present. The Tafsir of sufistik is by means of validity couldn’t be proved empirically, however the contex of sufistik (Irfan) is not based on external objection or logical sequence but it is by from itself, in fact the reality of self-consciousness in which is well-known in Sufistik (Inner experience) or Kasyf (Illuminative). Therefore it couldn’t be examined based on correspondent or coherent validity. Further the object is not only immaterial and essential characteristic, but also it is swa-objective (self-object-knowledge), so what the matter is known as objective is a characteristic of analysis and appeared in the act of recognizing itself.

Knowledge, Tradition, and Community Predict Success for BLM Wild Horse Adoptions in Colorado and Texas

With almost 50,000 wild horses in holding facilities and declining adoption rates, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s wild horse adoption program is in crisis. To improve our understanding of Bureau of Land Management wild horse adopters, we conducted three in-depth interviews with 52 adopters in Colorado and Texas, spaced over their first year of adoption. Questions sought information on the adopters, their adopted horses, and their adoption experiences. The participants who completed all three interviews were uniformly satisfied with their adoptions. We argue that three factors inherent to wild horse culture in these states supported adopter satisfaction: adopters’ previous knowledge about horses, a western North American tradition that values wild horses, and participation in wild horse organizations. A lack of this culture in other regions may explain why they are less welcoming to wild horses and have lower rates of adoptions.

WHEN THE PRESENT MISUNDERSTANDS THE PAST HOW A MODERN ARAB INTELLECTUAL RECLAIMED HIS OWN HERITAGE

The beginning of the 20th century has witnessed a significant development that has renewed and stimulated the long passionate historical relationship between two great civilisations which are traditionally known as the West and the East. Following their ancestors who cultivated the quest for knowledge tradition, some Arab scholars have come to leading European countries to learn the latest advancement in knowledge. They did not expect they would be confronted with what seems to be the poor showing of their scientific and cultural heritage according to the assessment that was carried out in the previous century by Western scholars and historians. The Western study of the Eastern heritage had such influence that it has generated new Arab intellectual elite which blames the past for the present difficulties. Following the discovery of major scientific Arabic works in the second half of the 20th century, some Arab scholars like Ibrahim Madkour realised that they had in fact just misunderstood their own tradition. What is the source of their misunderstanding? How did they become aware of it? And how can a better understanding of the past change present attitudes and guide future actions? By attempting to provide some answers to such questions, the aim of this paper is to shed light on what seems to be a turning point in modern Arabic intellectual history.