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Islamic World (islamic + world)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	71%

Selected Abstracts

Advances in Polychrome Ceramics in the Islamic World of the 12th Century AD

ARCHAEOMETRY, Issue 2 2001
R. B. Mason
As part of a multidisciplinary programme of research on Islamic glazed pottery, the development of polychrome decoration during the 12th century AD has been investigated by examining polished sections through glazed pottery in an analytical scanning electron microscope. The two main decorative techniques used were underglaze and overglaze painting. The results suggest that true underglaze decoration, involving the application of pigment without any associated slip, was first developed in Syria, from where it spread to Iran, on to China and ultimately across wide areas of the world. In contrast, the overglaze technique used on mina'i ware was both very short-lived and confined to Iran. The analytical results suggest that the probable explanation for this was the technical problems associated with maturing the overglaze paint and the consequent risk of unsatisfactory products. [source]

Selim's Sisters: Muslim Women in Novels by Uwe Timm and Hermann Schulz

GERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS, Issue 1 2010
Monika Albrecht
ABSTRACT Against the backdrop of the fact that German writers with a German background do not seem to be very interested in casting Germans with a migrant background as their literary characters, this paper focuses on two of the rare exceptions that deal with Muslim women of Turkish origin, Uwe Timm's,Rot,(2001) and Hermann Schulz's,Iskender,(1999). In discussing these novels, I am mostly interested in the way these writers take part in current debates on Muslims in Western societies and in how they engage in their specific vision of a multicultural Germany. The results are at least twofold; on the one hand one has to conclude that both Hermann Schulz and Uwe Timm are dividing Muslims into good and bad, desired and not desired; on the other hand their novels also provide facets of a counter image and introduce largely unfamiliar aspects , which can count as a major achievement in the light of the prevailing idea of the Islamic world in the imagination of the German public. Ethnische Minderheiten sind selten in Werken von einheimischen Schriftstellern zu finden. Vor diesem Hintergrund konzentriert sich der vorliegende Essay auf zwei der wenigen Ausnahmen, Uwe Timms Roman,Rot,(2001) and Hermann Schulz',Iskender,(1999), in denen türkisch-muslimische Frauen Teil des literarischen Ensembles sind. Das Interesse gilt insbesondere der Art und Weise, wie ihre Autoren an gegenwärtigen Debatten über Muslime in westlichen Gesellschaften Teil haben, und es wird nach ihrer Vision eines multikulturellen Deutschland gefragt, wie es in den Texten zum Ausdruck kommt. Dabei fällt auf, dass Muslime sowohl bei Hermann Schulz als auch bei Uwe Timm in gute und schlechte, erwünschte und weniger erwünschte aufgeteilt werden. Andererseits entwerfen die Romane jedoch auch Gegenbilder und beziehen Aspekte ein, die der Mehrheit der Deutschen nicht vertraut sind , was angesichts gängiger Vorstellungen über die islamische Lebenswelt als bemerkenswerter Beitrag zur Multikulturalismusdebatte gelten kann. [source]

Military pay and the economy of the early Islamic state

HISTORICAL RESEARCH, Issue 188 2002
Hugh Kennedy
This article examines the system of military payment in the early Islamic state (c. 650,900 A.D.) and its effect on the economy. It is argued that early Islamic armies were paid in cash salaries, rather than land grants or kind. This meant that a massive amount of coinage was put into circulation and spent by the soldiers in the markets of the developing towns of the Middle East. The system of military payment played an important part in creating the urban, cash based market economy of the early Islamic world which contrasts so sharply with the land and kind based economies of the contemporary Byzantine empire and Latin West. [source]

The Islamic View and the Christian View of the Crusades: A New Synthesis

HISTORY, Issue 310 2008
PAUL E. CHEVEDDEN
Conventional wisdom maintains that the Islamic world and western Christendom held two very different views of the crusades. The image of warfare between Islam and Christendom has promoted the idea that the combative instincts aroused by this conflict somehow produced discordant views of the crusades. Yet the direct evidence from Islamic and Christian sources indicates otherwise. The self-view of the crusades presented by contemporary Muslim authors and the self-view of the crusades presented by crusading popes are not in opposition to each other but are in agreement with each other. Both interpretations place the onset of the crusades ahead of their accepted historical debut in 1095. Both interpretations point to the Norman conquest of Islamic Sicily (1060,91) as the start of the crusades. And both interpretations contend that by the end of the eleventh century the crusading enterprise was Mediterranean-wide in its scope. The Islamic view of the crusades is in fact the enantiomorph (mirror-image) of the Christian view of the crusades. This article makes a radical departure from contemporary scholarship on the early crusading enterprise because it is based on the direct evidence from Islamic and Christian sources. The direct evidence offers a way out of the impasse into which crusade history has fallen, and any attempt at determining the origin and nature of crusading without the support of the direct evidence is doomed to failure. [source]

On the pedagogy of ,small wars'

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, Issue 1 2004
Tarak Barkawi
This article argues that flawed western strategies for ,small wars', those fought in the non,European world, have been informed by illusions concerning the cultural, military and political superiority of the West. With 9/11, such wars ceased to be small. The main threat to the western powers no longer emanates from other states organized along lines similar to their own, but from a transnational network enterprise that has its origins in the global South and the Islamic world. Nonetheless, old imperial and orientalist constructions continue to inform western and particularly US perceptions of the war on terror. ,Knowing thy enemy' and ,knowing thyself', Sun Tzu's formula for victory, requires abandoning flattering accounts of western identity and learning to empathize with those we call terrorists. [source]

The psychology and ideology of an islamic terrorist leader: Usama bin Laden

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOANALYTIC STUDIES, Issue 2 2004
Maria T. Miliora
Abstract This essay presents what the author proposes are the motivational bases for Usama bin Laden's avowed "holy war" against the United States. Bin Laden's biography is presented against the backdrop of the recent political history of the Middle Eastern Islamic world including the emergence of radical Islam. In assessing bin Laden's personality from the data that are available, three features are prominent: archaic narcissistic states (expressed as conscious and unconscious fantasies), paranoia and a Manichean sense of reality. It is shown that his ideology derives from his personality and his perception of and reaction to political events involving the United States and nations in the Middle East. The findings suggest that bin Laden imagines that he is walking in the shoes of the prophet Muhammad as he engages in an apocalyptic war to restore Islam as a potent force in the world. Usama bin Laden is compared to Hitler as a charismatic, messianic leader. Copyright © 2004 Whurr Publishers Ltd. [source]

Consumer attitudes towards debt in an islamic country: managing a conflict between religious tradition and modernity?

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSUMER STUDIES, Issue 3 2008
Alhassan G. Abdul-MuhminArticle first published online: 10 APR 200
Abstract Saudi Arabia is an important country in the Islamic world, and Islam prohibits the payment and receipt of interest, a key component of modern commercial bank loans. Yet the levels of commercial bank lending in the country for private non-commercial purposes has been rising sharply for the past decade. This study seeks an explanation for this increase by examining the nature of consumer attitudes towards debt in the country, and whether the increasing levels of consumer debt can be explained by existing positive debt attitudes. Using data from a convenience sample of consumers in the major cities of the country, the study finds general debt attitudes to be surprisingly positive, though tempered by the consumption purpose for which the debt is acquired. However, the positive attitudes are unrelated to actual debt acquisition. Rather, socio-demographic differences in attitudes are similar to those reported in the literature. Attitudes are generally more positive among young, highly educated Saudi males than other socio-demographic groups. This suggests a possible struggle to manage a conflict between the Islamic prohibition of interest-based borrowing and demands of the modern economy. [source]