ISLAM
DR. ARNOLD LEDER
Political
Science
4313
View Image Of: The
Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmet Mosque)/Istanbul, Turkey
Department Of Political Science/Texas State
University
http://www.polisci.txstate.edu/
Courses
for the B.A. in Political Science-Learning Outcomes
The online version of this syllabus can be accessed @
http://www.arnoldleder.com/4313.htm
For links to web syllabi for other courses taught by
Dr Leder see: http://www.arnoldleder.com/
Office: ELA 335
Office Hours: TBA & by
appointment
Texas
State University Academic Calendar
Texas State University Final Exam
Schedule
Selected Web Resources For Texas State
University
Texas
State
University Library
Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library
Citation
& Bibliographic Styles & Related Information
Selected
Web Resources For Political
Science
Portals
to the World Home Page (Library of Congress)
Internet
Political Science Resources-Extensive University Links/University Of
Michigan
The WWW
Virtual
Library:International
Affairs Resources
The
Ultimate Political Science Links Page
Web Resources For Islam
Internet
Sources On Islam/Fordham University
COURSE ORGANIZATION & STUDENT
RESPONSIBILITIES
Please see: Academic
Honesty Statement for Texas State University @
http://www.txstate.edu/effective/upps/upps-07-10-01.html.
An excerpt from this statement
can be found at the end of this syllabus.
Note On Course &
Syllabus
Materials: Students may find books, articles, links, websites, and
other materials provided in this syllabus useful and of interest. Their
listing in this syllabus, including those which are required and
recommended,
does not necessarily indicate endorsement of or agreement with any
views
or positions on any issues found in these materials, websites, or on
other
sites to which they may provide links.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course is a study of the origins, development,
divisions, law, and politics of Islam. Topics covered include Islamic
Law
and political institutions; the Arab and Persian roles in Islam; the
Islamic
Community as a political system; major points of the Islamic faith and
their political significance; the political and historical significance
of Islamic mysticism; the emergence of Islamism/radical Islam and the
challenges
of modernity; and the status of women in Islam.
PURPOSE OF COURSE
The purpose of this course is to acquire some
understanding
of Islam as a religious tradition, way of life, and attendant
perspectives
for political thought and behavior, and Islamic responses to modernity,
including the emergence of radical Islam.
Note On
Group
Distribution Requirements For
Political
Science Majors:
This course may be used to satisfy the Group IV
category
- Comparative Government - or- the Group I category - Political
Theory and Methodology - of the Group Distribution of Courses
requirement
for Political Science majors. For a list of
undergraduate courses in Political Science
by group, see: http://www.polisci.txstate.edu/courses/undergrad-courses.html.
GRADES:
Student grades for the course will be
based
on two or more exams which will consist of essay questions and
identification
and explanation of important concepts and
issues. No make-up
exams
will be given.
ATTENDANCE: Students with four (4)
unexcused
absences will have their final grade for the course lowered by one
grade.
Students with five (5) or more unexcused absences will have
their
final grade for the course lowered by two letter grades. No absences
beyond
five for any reason are permitted. Any student who has
more
than five absences is likely to fail the course and, therefore, should
withdraw from the course. Please note that the Instructor for the
course is not responsible for bringing students who have missed class
"up-to-date"
on missed material. Each student has the responsibility to remain
current with respect to class material.
REQUIRED BOOKS
A. J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted
A.
J. Arberry/The Koran Interpreted
Reza Aslan, No god but God: The Origins,
Evolution,
and Future of Islam (Random House 2005)
Reza
Aslan/No God But God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam
(Random
House 2005)
Fatima Mernissi, Beyond The Veil: Male-Female
Dynamics
in Modern Muslim Society (Indiana Univ. Press 1987)
Fatima
Mernissi/Beyond The Veil:Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society
(Indiana Univ. Press 1987 - first published in 1975)
Fazlur Rahman, Islam (Second Edition 2002)
Fazlur
Rahman/Islam (Second Edition-Univ. Of Chicago Press 2002 - first
published
in
1966)
Recommended
Books:
Mary Habeck, Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist
Ideology and the War on Terror (Yale Univ. Press 2006)
Mary
Habeck/Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror (Yale
Univ. Press 2006)
Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong?
Western Impact
&
Middle Eastern Response (Oxford 2002)
Bernard
Lewis/What Went Wrong? Western Impact & Middle Eastern Response
(Oxford
2002)
Joel S. Fetzer, J. Christopher Soper, Muslims
and
the State in Britain, France, and Germany (Cambridge 2005)
Joel
S. Fetzer, J. Christopher Soper/Muslims and the State in Britain,
France,
and Germany (Cambridge 2005)
Philip Carl Salzman, Culture
and Conflict in the Middle East (Humanity Books 2008)
Philip
Carl Salzman/Culture
and Conflict in the Middle East (Humanity Books 2008)
VIDEOS
Islam (The Smithsonian)
Women and Islam: Islamic Conversations/Leila
Ahmed
For a preview of "Women and Islam", see: http://www.films.com/id/7766/Women_and_Islam.htm
- Scroll to preview clip.
Islam:
Empire of Faith (PBS)
For a critical review of this PBS film, see: Martin Kramer, Islam
for Viewers Like You/The Middle East Quarterly/Winter 2002 Vol. IX: No.
1.
Return To Top
______________________________________________________________________________________
Course Title: Islam
Overview Of
Course
Topics
I. The Middle East: Culture &
History
II. The Origins of Islam
III. Islam as a Way of Life
IV. The Major Divisions in Islam
V. Islamic Mysticism/Sufism
VI. Issues in Contemporary Islam:
Islamism/Radical
Islam; Democracy
VII. Women in Islam
TOPICS FOR LECTURE & ASSIGNED &
RECOMMENDED
READINGS & WEB SITES
I. The Middle East: Culture
&
History
1. An overview of Middle Eastern Culture
2. The Pre-Islamic Period/Jahiliyyah
3. The Early Islamic Period
InternetSourcesOnIslam/FordhamUniversity(ComprehensiveSiteWithLinksForManyAspectsOfThe
IslamicExperience)
Maps
Relating to Islam's Historical Development
MiddleEastMapsUT
Library Online/Perry-Castaneda Map Collection/Middle East Maps
Map
Of Geographic Distribution Of Religions/MiddleEast
Readings:
Rahman, Introduction; Aslan, Prologue
and
Chapter 1.
For an analysis of the influence of Arab culture, the
principle of "balanced opposition", and tribal
organization on the
rise of Islam, see: Philip
Carl Salzman/The Middle East's Tribal DNA/Middle East Quarterly, Winter
2008, pp. 23-33. This article is drawn from his book
Culture
and Conflict in the Middle East (Humanity Books 2008).
- Video: Islam:
Empire of Faith
- For a critical review of this PBS film, see: Martin Kramer, Islam
for Viewers Like You/The Middle East Quarterly/Winter 2002 Vol. IX: No.
1.
II. The Origins of Islam
1. Mohammed & The Holy Koran The
Koran-Browse
Recommended:
Toby Lester, "What Is The Koran?"(Three Part Series)
TheAtlantic/January1999
This article is accessible @ Locating Periodicals
@ Texas State University Library with a
valid Texas
StateUniversity
User Name and password.
Recitation of Sura Fatiha The
Opening @ http://www.islamworld.net/fathiha.au
by Shiekh Saad Al-Ghamdhi of Saudi Arabia.
2. Mohammed & the Arab Concept of History
Readings: Rahman, Chapters 1, 2; Aslan,
Chapter 2;
Arberry, The Holy Koran Interpreted, all,
including
Arberry's preface.
Khaleel
Mohammed/Assessing English Translations of the Qur'an/The Middle East
Quarterly/Spring
2005 Vol. XII No. 2.
Neil
MacFarquhar/New Translation Prompts Debate on Islamic Verse/NYT March
25, 2007
Video: Islam
Return To Top
Return To Overview
Of Course: Topics
III. Islam as a Way of Life
1. Perceptions of Allah
2. The Islamic Community
3. Major Points of Faith & their Political
Significance
4. The Pillars of Islam
The
Hajj at a Glance
Michael
Gilsenan/And you, what are you doing here?/Review Essay on Abdellah Hammoudi, A Season in
Mecca: Narrative of a Pilgrimage (2006)/London Review Of Books/)
October 19, 2006 Vol.
28, No. 20. See also: (Translation
Edition - Hill and Wang January 2006 - from the 2005 French original Une
saison à la Mecque)
"With all the contemporary media and political noise about Islam,
the
changing nature of the pilgrimage and the individual experience of
undertaking it are in danger of being lost or relegated to a few lines
in a local newspaper or glimpses of family videos and photos. How do
different pilgrims now live the pilgrimage, more than a century after
the Jeddah? What stories does a pilgrim tell of such a
regulated and, for many, exhausting as well as transcendent experience?
What kinds of reflection does the haj provoke after more than a hundred
years of transformation?
Abdellah Hammoudi’s narrative, A Season in Mecca,
offers one response. It is as much a subtle, complex meditation as it
is an example of the ‘art of reportage’ (for which it won a Lettre
Ulysses Award in Berlin in 2005). It is a commentary on one Arab
intellectual’s modern dilemmas as well as on the haj as he experienced
it in 1999 and as he continues to apprehend it in his writing. Perhaps
it would be better to say, as he struggles to apprehend it, because
this sense of struggle gives the writing much of its deep interest."
Hassan
M. Fattah/The Price of Progress: Transforming Islam's Holiest Site
(Mecca Journal)/NYT March 08, 2007
Thanassis
Cambanis/Celebration Marks End of Ramadan in Lebanon/NYT/October 13,
2007
5. The Shariya
Hadith
Database
Translation
of Sahih Bukhari
6. Shariya in Sunni Islam & Halakha in
Traditional
Judaism: A Comparative Note
7. Shariya in Islam & Sacred Texts & "The
Higher Criticism" in the Western Religious Experience: A Comparative
Note
See: Peter
Steinfels/[Beliefs]Differences in Biblical Approaches Are
Irreconcilable, Scholar Says/NYT September 15, 2007
David
Plotz/How to Read the Bible: A
skeptical believer reclaims the Good Book/International Herald
Tribune/September 14, 2007. This is a review
of: James
L. Kugel/How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now
(Free Press 2007). Read "Preliminaries",
an excerpt from this book.
Rebecca
Newberger Goldstein/The Political and the Divine/NYT Sunday Book Review
September 16, 2007 This is a
review of: Mark
Lilla, A Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West (Knopf
2007)
See also: Mark
Lilla/The Politics of God/NYT Sunday Magazine August 19, 2007.
This essay is also noted below in section VI. Issues in Contemporary Islam:
Islamism/Radical
Islam; Democracy of
this syllabus with an excerpt from the
essay.
Mosques
Around The World
Adhan (Call to Prayer) video clip @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2zL6CfwH98
Readings: Rahman, Chapters 3, 4, 6; Aslan,
Chapters 3, 5, 6.
Michael
Slackman/A Compass That Can Clash With Modern Life: Eygpt's Muslims
Seek Fatwas on Issues Great and Small/NYT June 12, 2007
Photo:
Consultation in the Al Azhar Mosque in Cairo (from Slackman article
above)
Lydia
Polgreen/In Nigeria, the Quest for a 'Humane Shariah' (photos)/NYT
December 1,
2007
IV. The Major Divisions in Islam
1. Sunni & Shi'a Islam
Interactive
Map:Sunni & Shia: The Worlds of Islam/pbs.org
Readings: Rahman, Chapter 10; Aslan,
Chapters 5
(revisited), 7.
Michael
Slackman/For Iran's Shiites, a Celebration of Faith and Waiting/NYT
August 30, 2007
V. Islamic Mysticism/Sufism
1. Mysticism: The Insights of Gershom Scholem
Gershom
Scholem
2. Sufism "Follow the path to Allah as a flower
leans to the sun." (A Sufi saying)
Sufis/SufiOrders
Whirling Dervishes: video clip @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6wLenLAdNs&search=Dervish
Sufi "Chant", video clip @
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUOqFhWGX_w&search=Sufi
Readings: Rahman, Chapters 8, 9; Aslan,
Chapter
8.
Return To Top
Return To Overview
Of Course: Topics
VI. Issues in Contemporary
Islam:
Islamism/Radical Islam; Democracy
1. Islam & Modernity
2. Islam & National Identity
3. Democracy, Religious Coexistence & Secularism
4. Jihad & Radical Islam
Readings: Rahman, Chapter 13 & epilogue;
Aslan, Chapters 4, 9, 10.
Mary
Habeck/Knowing the Enemy:Jihad and Jihadism/Australia-Israel Review
December 2006
Bernard
Lewis, "Freedom and Justice in the Modern Middle East", Foreign
Affairs, May-June
2005.
This article is accessible @ Locating Periodicals
@ Texas State University Library with a
valid Texas
StateUniversity
User Name and password.
Recommended:
Bernard
Lewis, "The Roots Of Muslim Rage", Atlantic
Monthly, September 1990-reprinted @ this location. (pdf)
Bernard
Lewis/The Revolt of Islam/The New Yorker December 19, 2001/reprinted
@aijac.org
Martin
Kramer/Coming To Terms:
Fundamentalists Or Islamists?/Middle East Quarterly/Spring 2003, Vol.
X:
No.2
Joel
S. Fetzer, J. Christopher
Soper/Muslims and the State in Britain,
France,
and Germany (Cambridge 2005)
Bernard
Lewis/What Went Wrong? Western Impact & Middle Eastern Response
(Oxford
2002)
For an overview of recent works on Islam and
democracy,
see: Arnold
Leder/Islam, Democracy, & the West: New Books & Divided Scholars
@
http://www.arnoldleder.com/new/blog/?itemid=12
Max
Rodenbeck/The
Truth About Jihad(Review essay on recent books related to
Jihad)/New York Review of Books/August 11 2005 Vol. 52 No. 13
Mark
Gould/Understanding Jihad/Policy Review/February 2005
David
Cook/Anti-Semitic Themes in Muslim Apocolyptic and Jihadi
Literature/Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs No. 56, May 01, 2007
Robert S. Leiken, "Europe's Angry Muslims", Foreign
Affairs, July-August 2005.
This article is accessible @ Locating Periodicals
@ Texas State University Library with a
valid Texas
State University
User Name and password.
Nina
Bernstein/In American Cities, No Mirror Image of Muslims of
Leeds/NYT/July
21 2005
Tamar
Lewin/Universities Install Footpaths to Benefit Muslims, and Not
Everyone Is Pleased/NYT August 07, 2007
Neil
MacFarquhar/At Harvard, Students' Muslim Traditions Are a Topic of
Debate/NYT March 21, 2008
Andrea
Elliott: An Imam In America- 3 Articles (links)/NYT/March 05 through
March 07, 2006
Andrea
Elliott/A Cleric's Journey Leads to a Suburban Frontier/NYT January 28,
2007
For critical comments on Andrea Elliott's reporting in the above
articles, see: Jonathan
Tobin/Another Pulitzer Prize Disgrace/jewishworldreview.com April 23,
2007
"The most
important was Elliot's failure to mention anything about the role of
the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge in the murder of 16-year-old Ari
Halberstam in a van filled with Jewish children on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Not one of her 11,000 words refers to the fact that it was this same
mosque that was the forum for the sermon that inspired one of its
congregants, Rashid Baz, to go out and try to murder as many Jews as he
could in March of 1994. ... How, you may ask, could one
write about any religious institution and ignore the most notorious
aspect of its recent history? ... In a subsequent article in The
New York Sun, Halberstam's mother, Devorah, related that she called
Elliot to ask why she had omitted the story of her son's murder from
the feature on the mosque. Elliot replied that 'she knew nothing about
it.' "
See also: Daniel
Freedman/For Ari Halberstam - Opinion Piece/New York Sun March 8, 2007
Gary
Shapiro/Pulitzer for Imam Feature Called 'Outrageous'/New York Sun
April 20, 2007
Neil MacFarquhar/A Growing Demand for the Rare American Imam/NYT June
01, 2007
Neil
MacFarquhar/Gay Muslims Find Freedom, of a Sort, in the U.S./NYT
November 7, 2007
Neil
MacFarquhar/Iraq's Shadow Widens Sunni-Shiite Split in U.S./NYT
February 04, 2007
Andrea
Elliott/Between Black and Immmigrant Muslims, an Uneasy Alliance/NYT
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Mark
Landler/German Judge Cites Koran, Stirring Up Cultural Storm/NYT March
23, 2007
Mark
Landler/After Lifetime in Germany, Turks Still Alone/NYT March 25, 2007
"Four decades after the first Turks arrived as guest
workers, they are reaching retirement in a land that still feels
foreign."
Jane
Perlez/Old Church Becomes Mosque in Uneasy Britain/NYT/April 02, 2007
"On a chilly night this winter, this pristine town in some of
Britain’s
most untouched countryside voted to allow a former Christian church to
become a mosque. ...
The narrow vote by the municipal authorities marked the end of a
bitter struggle by the tiny Muslim population to establish a place of
worship, one that will put a mosque in an imposing stone Methodist
church that had been used as a factory since its congregation dwindled
away 40 years ago."
Mark
Landler/Germans Split Over a Mosque (in Cologne) and the role of
Islam/NYT July 05, 2007
"Plans for what would be one of Germany’s largest
mosques are rattling an ancient city to its foundations."
For a comparative perspective with regard to Cologne and a Hindu
temple and a mosque in the Atlanta area, see:
Brenda
Goodman/In a Suburb of Atlanta, a Temple Stops Traffic/NYT July 05, 2007
"Sitting like a wedding cake atop a mound of red clay
in the suburb of Lilburn is a Hindu temple that shares an intersection
with a Publix supermarket and a Walgreens pharmacy."
Islam & Democracy
Ian
Buruma/Tariq Ramadan Has an Identity Issue: Is he an activist scholar
or an extremist in scholarly garb?/NYT Sunday Magazine February 04, 2007
For a critical, highly recommended, review of
this article by
Buruma and much more on Western intellectuals and radical Islam, see:
Paul
Berman, "Who's Afraid of Tariq Ramadan?: The Islamist, the journalist,
and the defense of liberalism", The New Republic, June 4,
2007, Vol. 236,
No. 4,814, pp. 37-63.
Berman's essay can be directly accessed here
and here.
This article can also be
accessed @ Locating
Periodicals @ Texas State University Library.
A valid Texas
State
University User Name and Password are required.
The Paul Berman essay can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.
Scroll
to the section labeled "Readings on Islam" and look for "Paul
Berman: on Tariq Ramadan". This
location is password
protected.
Password
and user name for access will be provided to students in the
course.
"The equanimity on the part of some
well-known intellectuals and journalists in the face of Islamist death
threats so numerous as to constitute a campaign; the equanimity in
regard to stoning women to death; the journalistic inability even to
acknowledge that women's rights have been at stake in the debates over
Islamism; the inability to recall the problems faced by Muslim women in
European hospitals; the inability to acknowledge how large has been the
role of a revived anti-Semitism; the striking number of errors of
understanding and even of fact that have entered into the journalistic
presentations of Tariq Ramadan and his ideas; the refusal to discuss
with any frankness the role of Ramadan's family over the years; the
accidental endorsement in the Guardian of the great-uncle who
finds something admirable in the September 11 attacks--what can
possibly account for this string of bumbles, timidities, gaffes,
omissions, miscomprehensions, and slanders? ... Two
developments account for it. The first development is the
unimaginable rise of Islamism since the time of the Rushdie fatwa. The
second is terrorism."
See also
this critical review of Tariq Ramadan's writings and views
by Malise
Ruthven:
Malise
Ruthven/The Islamic Optimist/The New York Review of Books/Vol. 54, No.
13, August 16, 2007
The Malise Ruthven essay can also be viewed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.
Scroll
to the section labeled "Readings on Islam" and look for "Malise
Ruthven: The Islamic Optimist". This
location is password
protected.
Password
and user name for access will be provided to students in the
course.
For another
perspective on Islam and democracy and the views of Tariq
Ramadan and other contemporary Muslim thinkers, see:
Mark
Lilla/The Politics of God/Sunday Magazine NYT August 19, 2007
"... we must somehow find a way to accept the fact that, given
the immigration
policies Western nations have pursued over the last half-century, they
now are hosts to millions of Muslims who have great difficulty fitting
into societies that do not recognize any political claims based on
their divine revelation. ... the Muslim Shariah
is meant to cover the whole of life, not some arbitrarily demarcated
private sphere, and its legal system has few theological resources for
establishing the independence of politics from detailed divine
commands. It is an unfortunate situation, but we have made our bed,
Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Accommodation and mutual respect can
help, as can clear rules governing areas of tension, like the status of
women, parents’ rights over their children, speech offensive to
religious sensibilities, speech inciting violence, standards of dress
in public institutions and the like. Western countries have adopted
different strategies for coping, some forbidding religious symbols like
the head scarf in schools, others permitting them. But we need to
recognize that coping is the order of the day, not defending high
principle, and that our expectations should remain low. So long as a
sizable population believes in the truth of a comprehensive political
theology, its full reconciliation with modern liberal democracy cannot
be expected.
...
... a number of Muslim thinkers around the world have taken to
promoting a 'liberal' Islam. What they mean is an Islam more adapted to
the demands
of modern life, kinder in its treatment of women and children, more
tolerant of other faiths, more open to dissent. These are brave people
who have often suffered for their efforts, in prison or exile, as did
their predecessors in the 19th century, of which there were many. But
now as then, their efforts have been swept away by deeper theological
currents they cannot master and perhaps do not even understand. The
history of Protestant and Jewish liberal theology reveals the problem:
the more a biblical faith is trimmed to fit the demands of the moment,
the fewer reasons it gives believers for holding on to that faith in
troubled times, when self-appointed guardians of theological purity
offer more radical hope. Worse still, when such a faith is used to
bestow theological sanctification on a single form of political life —
even an attractive one like liberal democracy — the more it will be
seen as collaborating with injustice when that political system fails.
The dynamics of political theology seem to dictate that when
liberalizing reformers try to conform to the present, they inspire a
countervailing and far more passionate longing for redemption in the
messianic future. That is what happened in Weimar Germany and is
happening again in contemporary Islam.
The complacent liberalism and revolutionary messianism we’ve
encountered are not the only theological options. There is another kind
of transformation possible in biblical faiths, and that is the renewal
of traditional political theology from within. If liberalizers are
apologists for religion at the court of modern life, renovators stand
firmly within their faith and reinterpret political theology so
believers can adapt without feeling themselves to be apostates.
...
Today, a few voices are calling for just this kind of renewal of
Islamic political theology. Some, like Khaled Abou El Fadl, a law
professor at the University
of California,
Los Angeles, challenge the authority of today’s puritans, who make
categorical judgments based on a literal reading of scattered Koranic
verses. In Abou El Fadl’s view, traditional Islamic law can still be
applied to present-day situations because it brings a subtle
interpretation of the whole text to bear on particular problems in
varied circumstances. Others, like the Swiss-born cleric and professor
Tariq Ramadan, are public figures whose writings show Western Muslims
that their political theology, properly interpreted, offers guidance
for living with confidence in their faith and gaining acceptance in
what he calls an alien 'abode.' To read their works is to be reminded
what a risky venture renewal is. It can invite believers to participate
more fully and wisely in the political present, as the Protestant
Reformation eventually did; it can also foster dreams of returning to a
more primitive faith, through violence if necessary, as happened in the
Wars of Religion.
Perhaps for this reason, Abou El Fadl and especially Ramadan have
become objects of intense and sometimes harsh scrutiny by Western
intellectuals. We prefer speaking with the Islamic liberalizers because
they share our language: they accept the intellectual presuppositions
of the Great Separation and simply want maximum room given for
religious and cultural expression. They do not practice political
theology. But the prospects of enduring political change through
renewal are probably much greater than through liberalization. By
speaking from within the community of the faithful, renovators give
believers compelling theological reasons for accepting new ways as
authentic reinterpretations of the faith. Figures like Abou El Fadl and
Ramadan speak a strange tongue, even when promoting changes we find
worthy; their reasons are not our reasons. ...
... We have little reason to expect societies in the grip of a
powerful political theology to follow our unusual path, which was
opened up by a unique crisis within Christian civilization. This does
not mean that those societies necessarily lack the wherewithal to
create a decent and workable political order; it does mean that they
will have to find the theological resources within their own traditions
to make it happen."
For a detailed examination of "the Islamic
foundations for
affirming on
principled grounds residence, political obligation, and loyalty to a
non-Muslim state" and, in the author's view, evidence for the existence
of "firm and culturally authentic Islamic values ... which can ground
Islamically a social contract between Muslims and a non-Muslim liberal
democracy", see:
Andrew F. March, "Islamic
Foundations for a Social Contract
in
non-Muslim Liberal Democracies", American
Political Science Review,
Vol. 101, No. 2, pp. 235-251, May 2007.
This article by Andrew March can be accessed @ http://www.arnoldleder.com/readings/index.html.
Scroll
to the section labeled "Readings on Islam" and look for "Andrew
March: Islam in non-Muslim Liberal Democracies".
This
location is password
protected.
Password
and user name for access will be provided to students in the
course.
This article by Andrew March can be directly accessed @ this
location (pdf).
See also: Mark
Gould/Islam, the Law, and The Sovereignty of God: Accomodating Qur'anic
principles to the civil religion/Policy Review, June-July 2008
"... the absorption of Muslim communities into liberal democracies
may facilitate the transformation of Islamic norms into principles
consistent with constitutionalism.
...
Where Muslims cannot expect to enforce Shari’a
they will, hopefully, work to accommodate Islam to the civil religion
we find, for example, in the United States. In this civil religion,
moral precepts from many denominations are found, but they are
abstracted from the denominational precepts that may be in force for
believers, precepts that are not enforced politically. The resources
for such an accommodation can be found in Islam, in its concern for
equality and social justice. If this accommodation occurs in the United
States, perhaps it will have an effect on the larger umma, spurring an understanding of Islam that
will enable its development in a way to facilitate the construction of
viable constitutional states in Muslim majority countries".
"It is absurd to think that Islam cannot
accommodate democracy or that
democracy cannot accommodate Islam. It is not Islam per se, but
religion tout court that stands in some tension with secularism and
with democracy – a tension that is healthy rather than unhealthy in a
free society. Like Christianity and other religions, Islam is a
religion practiced in many cultures and societies, sectarian,
stratified, schismatic and pluralistic. To the degree Islam is
fundamentalist, so is religion in many places, because in our secular
age religion is under siege and fundamentalism is above all a reaction
to religion under siege".
Tamara Cofman Wittes/Islamist
Political Parties: Three Kinds of Movements, Journal of
Democracy, Vol. 19, No. 3, July 2008 (pdf)
See also: Tamara
Cofman Wittes/Categories of Islamism/Middle East Strategy at Harvard
(MESH), July 30, 2008
For comments on Tamara Cofman Wittes' analysis of Islamist political
parties, see:
Michele Dunne on Categories
of Islamism
Steven A. Cook on Categories
of Islamism
Lee Smith on Categories
of Islamism
Khaled
Abou El Fadl/Islam & The Challenge Of Democracy/Boston
Review/April-May2003
Ten Responses
Practice and Theory John L.
Esposito
Change from Within Nader A.
Hashemi
The Best Hope Noah Feldman
Democracy and Conflict Jeremy
Waldron
The Priority of Politics M.A.
Muqtedar Khan
The Importance of Context A.
Kevin Reinhart
Questioning Liberalism, Too Saba
Mahmood
Too Far from Tradition Mohammad
H. Fadel
Popular Support First Bernard
Haykel
Islam Isn't the Problem William
B. Quandt
Khaled Abou El Fadl Replies
Link To These Responses &
Fadl's Reply: Ten Responses to
Fadl/Boston Review/April-May2003
Religious
Coexistence in Islamic Spain: Enlightened Tolerance or Distorted
Utopian Image?
Edward
Rothstein/Was the Islam Of Old Spain Truly Tolerant?/NYT September 27,
2003
"... a retrospective utopianism. Islamic Spain has been hailed for its
''convivencia'' -- its spirit of tolerance in which Jews, Christians
and Muslims, created a premodern renaissance. Córdoba, in the
10th
century, was a center of commerce and scholarship. Arabic was a conduit
between classical knowledge and nascent Western science and philosophy.
The ecumenical Andalusian spirit was even invoked at this summer's
opening ceremony for the new mosque. ...
... That heritage, though, can
be difficult to define. Even at the mosque, the facade of liberality
gave way: at its conference on ''Islam in Europe,'' one speaker praised
al-Andalus not for its openness but for its rigorous fundamentalism.
Were similar views also part of the Andalusian past? The
impulse to idealize runs strong. If Andalusia really had been an
enlightened society that combined religious belief with humanism and
artistry, then it would provide an extraordinary model, offering proof
of Islamic possibilities now eclipsed, while spurring new
understandings of the West. ...
... A more scholarly paean is offered in The
Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a
Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain (Little, Brown, 2002)
by Maria Rosa Menocal, a
professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University. Ms. Menocal
argues that Andalusia's culture was ''rooted in pluralism and shaped by
religious tolerance,'' particularly in its prime -- a period that
lasted from the mid-eighth century until the fall of the Umayyad
dynasty in 1031. It was undermined, she argues, by fundamentalism --
Catholic and Islamic alike.
... But as many scholars have argued,
this image is distorted. Even the Umayyad dynasty, begun by Abd
al-Rahman in 756, was far from enlightened. Issues of succession were
often settled by force. One ruler murdered two sons and two brothers.
Uprisings in 805 and 818 in Córdoba were answered with mass
executions
and the destruction of one of the city's suburbs. Wars were accompanied
by plunder, kidnappings and ransom. Córdoba itself was finally
sacked
by Muslim Berbers in 1013, its epochal library destroyed.
... Andalusian governance was also based on a religious tribal model.
Christians and Jews, who shared Islam's Abrahamic past, had the status
of dhimmis -- alien minorities. They rose high but remained
second-class citizens; one 11th-century legal text called them members
of ''the devil's party.'' They were subject to special taxes and,
often, dress codes. Violence also erupted, including a massacre of
thousands of Jews in Grenada in 1066 and the forced exile of many
Christians in 1126."
Religious
coexistence - Muslims
and Christians in contemporary Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East:
Michael
Slackman/As Tensions Rise for Egypt's Christians, Officials Call
Clashes Secular/NYT August 2, 2008
A rash of violence that has been described as “open
season” on the nation’s Christians is actually a series of unrelated
incidents, according to security officials.
"Christian Arabs have increasingly complained of being marginalized in
the Middle East, with large numbers leaving over the decades. Now it
appears that pressure on these communities is spiking, whether in Iraq,
Syria, Lebanon, Jordan or the West Bank. In each, Christians speak of
specific national behavior that has made them feel less welcome."
Additional Materials on Islam
and
Democracy:
Calvin
Sims/Indonesia: Gambling That Tolerance Will Trump Fear/NYT Sunday Week
in Review April 15, 2007
Photo:
In Banda Aceh, Indonesia, women are caned under local Islamic law/NYT
April 15, 2007
See: Calvin
Sims/Indonesia: Gambling That Tolerance Will Trump Fear/NYT April 15,
2007
Peter
Gelling/Indonesian Village Struggles With Ban on Muslim Sect/NYT, June
11, 2008
A day after Indonesia issued a decree
calling on 200,000 adherents of a 130-year-old Muslim sect to cease
practicing their faith or face arrest, the country braced for protests.
Craig
S. Smith/North Africa: Under Attack, and Relying on Repression/NYT
Sunday Week in Review April 15, 2007
James Traub of the NYT provides an
informative, and, on occasion, cautiously accepting or sympathetic look
at the activities of the Muslim Botherhood in Egypt in recent years in
the context of the larger question of "Islamic democrats". He concludes
with the suggestion that America engage the Muslim Brotherhood as a
"moderate Islamic body". See: James
Traub/Islamic Democrats?/NYT sunday Magazine April 29, 2007.
For a very different view of the compatibility of Islam and
democracy, see:
David
Bukay/Can
There Be an Islamic Democracy?/Middle East Quarterly Spring 2007, Vol.
XIV, No. 2.
"Are Islam and democracy compatible? ... Many Muslim
intellectuals seek to prove that Islam enshrines democratic
values. ... For Islamists, though, the motivation is to
remove suspicion about the nature and goals of Islamic movements such
as the Muslim Brotherhood ... ."
Thanassis
Cambanis/Jordan's Islamists Seek Offices Their Allies Scorn/NYT
November 16, 2007
Sabrina
Tavernise/Turkish City (Konya) Counters Fear of Islam's Reach/NYT May
15, 2007
Sabrina
Tavernise/A Secular Turkish City Feels Islam's Pulse Beating Stronger,
Causing Divisions/NYT June 01, 2007
Sabrina
Tavernise/In Turkey, Bitter Feud Has Roots In History/NYT June 22, 2008
Michael
Slackman/Molding the Ideal Islamic Citizen (Iran)/NYT-Week in
Review/Sunday, September 09, 2007
Michael
Slackman/Arrests in Egypt Point Toward a Crackdown/NYT June 15, 2007
"The authorities have been referring to the family as Koranists, a
derogatory label in the context of the faith, suggesting allegiance to
a cultlike organization."
Michael
Slackman/Memo From Egypt: Fashion and Faith Meet, on Foreheads of the
Pious/NYT December 18, 2007
It has become popular among men to have
a circle of callused skin on the forehead, which emerges when
worshipers press their heads to the ground for prayer.
Michael
Slackman/With a Word, Eygptians Leave It All to Fate/NYT June 20, 2008
Nazila
Fathi/Despite President's Denials, Gays Insist They Exist, if Quietly,
in Iran/NYT/September 30, 2007
Islam and Science:
Pervez
Amirali Hoodbhoy/Science and the Islamic World-The quest for
rapproachment/Physics Today, Vol. 60, August, 2007
Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy, chair and professor in the department of
physics at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan, in his
article in Physics
Today, the flagship publication of The
American Institute of Physics, contends: "Internal
causes led to the decline of Islam's scientific greatness long
before the era of mercantile imperialism. To contribute once again,
Muslims must be introspective and ask what went wrong."
From the article by Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy:
Image
of 16th Century Muslim Astronomers: Ottoman Empire astronomers working
in 1577 at an observatory in Istanbul
This painting accompanied an epic poem that honored
Sultan Murad
III, who ruled from 1574 to 1595. The observatory was demolished in
1580 after astronomers sighted a comet and predicted a military victory
that failed to materialize. The poem was published a year later. (For
more on ancient Islamic astronomy, see the American Institute of
Physics online cosmology exhibit @ http://www.aip.org/history/cosmology/tools/tools-nakedeyes.htm#astrolabe.)
Additional Recommended Readings (various):
Christopher
Caldwell/Allah Mode: France's Islam Problem/The Weekly Standard/July
15, 2002
Christopher
Caldwell/Veiled Threat: Can French Secularism Survive Islam?/The Weekly
Standard/Jan. 19, 2004
NeilJ.Kressel/The
Urgent Need to Study Islamic
Anti-Semitism/The Chronicle Of Higher Education/March12, 2004
Robert
F. Worth/Languishing at the Bottom of Yemen's Ladder (with slide
show)/NYT February 27,
2008
"They are known as 'Al Akhdam' — the servants. Set apart by their
African features (see photo),
they form a kind of hereditary caste at the very
bottom of Yemen’s social ladder". (boldface added)
Bruce
Bawer/Tolerating Intolerance: The Challenge of Fundamentalist Islam in
Western Europe/Partisan Review/July19, 2002
Bernard
Lewis/Muslim Anti-Semitism/The MiddleEast Quarterly/June 1998
V. S.
Naipaul/Our Universal Civilization/The 1990 Wriston
Lecture/manhattan-institute.org/html/wl1990.htm
Hesham
Samy Abdel-Alim/Hip hop Islam/Weekly.Al-Ahram/7-13 July 2005
VII. Women in Islam
1. Contested Memory: Sunni-Shi'a Perspectives &
the Figure of Aishe
2. Sexuality & Women's Rights
Photo:
In Banda Aceh, Indonesia, women are caned under local Islamic law/NYT
April 15, 2007
See: Calvin
Sims/Indonesia: Gambling That Tolerance Will Trump Fear/NYT April 15,
2007
Rasheed
Abou-Alsamh/Ruling Jolts Even Saudis: 200 Lashes for Rape Victim/NYT
November 16, 2007
Rasheed
Abou-Alsamh/Saudi Rape Case Spurs Calls for Reform/NYT December 1, 2007
"The case of a 20-year-old woman who was sentenced to be lashed after
pressing charges against seven men who raped her and a male companion
has provoked a rare and angry public debate in Saudi Arabia, leading to
renewed calls for reform of the Saudi judicial system.
... The woman, known here only as “the Qatif girl, ” was
initially
subjected to 90 lashes for being alone with a man to whom she was not
married.
... Her outspoken human rights lawyer appealed the sentence and
brought
down the wrath of the court, which doubled the woman’s sentence and
stripped her lawyer of his license to practice."
Neil
MacFarquhar/Abused Muslim Women in U.S. Gain Advocates/NYT January
6, 2008
Sara
Corbett/A Cutting Tradition (w/slides)/NYT Sunday Magazine January 20,
2008
Robert
F. Worth/Voice for Abused Women Upsets Dubai Patriarchy/NYT March 23,
2008
Sharla Musabih, an American-born Emirati citizen,
has founded the Emirates’ first women’s shelter and earned many enemies
in the process.
Steven
Erlanger/A Daughter of France's 'Lost Territories' Fights for Them/NYT
June 14, 2008
Fadela Amara, one of the highest-ranking Muslim
women in France, is responsible for bringing hope to the poor, angry
suburbs that burst into flames three years ago.
Katrin
Bennhold/A Veil Closes France's Door to Citizenship/NYT July 19, 2008
Elaine
Sciolino and Souad Mekhennet/Operation Lets Muslim Women Reclaim
Virginity (Europe)/NYT, June 11, 2008
Readings: Mernissi, Beyond The Veil,
the
entire book; Aslan, pp. 68-74.
A Variety
of Views on Women and Islam
Carla
Power/A Secret History (On rediscovering female Islamic scholars of the
Middle Ages)/NYT Sunday Magazine February 25, 2007
"In the Middle Ages, many Islamic scholars were women. Will their
redicovery have an effect on Muslim women today?"
Neil
MacFarquhar/New Translation Prompts Debate on Islamic Verse/NYT March
25, 2007 (revisited)
Lauren
Weiner/Islam and Women/Policy Review/October 2004
Nilufer
Gole/Visible Women: Actresses in the Public
Realm/New Perspectives Quarterly/Spring 2004
Lila
Abu-Lughod/The Muslim Woman: The power of images and the danger of
pity/Eurozine/September 01, 2006
"In the common Western imagination, the image of the
veiled Muslim woman
stands for oppression in the Muslim world. This makes it hard to think
about the Muslim world without thinking about women, sets up an "us"
and "them" relationship with Muslim women, and ignores the variety of
ways of life practiced by women in different parts of the Muslim world.
Anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod emphasizes that veiling should not be
confused with a lack of agency or even traditionalism. Western
feminists who take it upon themselves to speak on behalf of oppressed
Muslim women assume that individual desire and social convention are
inherently at odds: something not borne out by the experience of
Islamic society."
Lorraine
Adams/Beyond the Burka - an essay/NYT Sunday Book Review January 6, 2008
Muslim women’s voices are being heard as never before. But which
ones?
Jane
Perlez/Muslims' Veils Test Limits of Britain's Tolerance (with slide
show)/NYT June 22,
2007
Photo: A young British Muslim woman wears a full-face veil. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/06/17/world/19veil5.jpg
Mariam
Lau/Stepping out of the fire (On the rights of
Muslim/Turkish women in Germany)/signandsight.com/features/937.html/Sep't.
06, 2006
"Having been violently attacked by the
husband of one of her
clients, Berlin lawyer and Islam critic Seyran Ateș has closed her
legal practice. A fighter for human rights resigns."
Christopher
Caldwell/Where Every Generation Is First-Generation (Turkish women
& assimilation issues in
Germany)/NYT Sunday
Magazine, May 27, 2007
"Marriage is not just an aspect of the immigration problem in
Germany;
to a growing extent, it is the immigration problem. Starting in
the
1960s, millions of Turkish “guest workers” were imported to provide
manpower for the German economic boom. The guest-worker program
was
ended in 1973, the year of the first oil crisis, but large-scale
immigration from Turkey has scarcely abated since.
... This leaves open only one avenue for non-European men and
women who
want to enter Germany legally: marriage to someone with legal residency
in the country. Fortunately for would-be immigrants, young ethnic
Turks
in Germany have a strong tendency to marry people from the home
country. Exact statistics are hard to come by, but it is possible
that
as many as 50 percent of Turks (a word that in common parlance often
includes even those with German citizenship) seek their spouses abroad
... . For most of the past
decade, ... between 21,000 and 27,000 people a
year have successfully applied at German consulates in Turkey to form
families in Germany. (Just under two-thirds of the newcomers are
women.) That means roughly half a million spouses since the
mid-1980s,
which in turn means hundreds of thousands of new families in which the
children’s first language is as likely to be Turkish as German.
... Binational
marriage alarms many Germans for two reasons. First, it allows
the
Turkish community to grow fast at a time when support for immigration
is low. The Turkish population in Germany multiplies not once in
a life
cycle but twice — at childbirth and at marriage. Second, such
marriages
retard assimilation even for those Turks long established in
Germany. You frequently hear stories from schoolteachers about a
child of guest
workers who was a star pupil three decades ago but whose own children,
although born in Germany, struggle to learn German in grade
school.
After half a century of immigration,
every new generation of Turks is
still, to a large extent, a first generation. (boldface
added) ... Turkish marriages
are seldom Western-style love matches. They are often arranged by
parents. A 2003 study by the Federal Ministry of Family found
that a
quarter of Turkish women in Germany hadn’t even known their partners
before they married. ... The
tragedy of imported brides, Necla Kelek writes, is
that they will live in
Germany but never arrive
there." (boldface added)
Nicholas
Kulish/Gay Muslims Pack a Dance Floor of Their Own (in Berlin)/NYT,
January 1, 2008
Irshad
Manji/Confessions of a Muslim Dissident: Why I Fight for Women, Jews,
Gays,
and Allah/Audio
Irshad Manji addresses the ideas in her international
best-seller, "The Trouble with Islam Today:? A Muslim's Call for Reform
in Her Faith".
April 19, 2005 at the Goldman School of Public Policy
at UC Berkeley
Irshadd Manji's website: http://muslim-refusenik.com/
Interview
with Ayaan Hirsi Ali on National Public Radio (NPR)/May 9,
2006-Includes Backgrounder on Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Christopher
Hitchins/The Caged Virgin: Holland's shameful treatment of Ayaan
Hirsi Ali/slate.com/May 8, 2006
An Interview with Ayan-Hirsi-Ali-video clip @ http://hotair.com/archives/the-blog/2006/05/10/audio-ayaan-hirsi-ali-at-harvard/
Ayaan
Hirsi Ali/Islam's Silent Moderates/NYT December 7, 2007
Barry
Gewen/Muslim Rebel Sisters: At Odds With Islam and Each Other/NYT Week
In Review Sunday, April 27, 2008
Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji are
two of the most prominent and outspoken critics of what they and others
see as “mainstream Islam,” but their approaches couldn’t be more
different.
Rebecca
Hillauer/On Fadela Amara & young Muslim women in the working class
suburbs of France/signandsight.com/features/288.html
Neil
MacFarquhar/To Muslim Girls, Scouts Offer a Chance to Fit
In/International Herald Tribune/November 28, 2007
The Headscarf Debate @
http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-549/i.html
Interactive
Map: Headscarf Headlines Around the World/pbs.org
Joseph
Berger/'My War at Home': A Muslim Woman's Critique of Custom/NYT/March
25, 2006
Beverly
M. Weber/Revealed by the Veil:
Undertanding France's Headscarf Debates/Humanities and Social
Sciences Net Online April, 2008 A review of
Joan
Wallach Scott/The Politics of the Veil (Princeton University Press 2007).
Rayyan
Al-Shawaf/Covering Up: What to learn
from the French debate over
headscarves/Christianity Today, May-June 2008 A review
of John
R. Bowen/Why The French Don't Like Headscarves (Princeton University
Press 2007) and Joan
Wallach Scott/The Politics of the Veil (Princeton University Press 2007).
Neil
MacFarquhar/As Barrier [between men and women] Comes Down, a Muslim
Split Remains/NYT June 25,
2006
Katherine
Zoepf/Islamic Revival Led by Women Tests Syria's Secularism/NYT August
29, 2006
Katherine
Zoepf/A Dishonorable Affair/NYT Sunday Magazine September 23, 2007
("Honor killings" in Syria)
"Zahra died from her wounds at the hospital the following morning, one
of about 300 girls and women who die each year in Syria in so-called
honor killings, according to estimates by women’s rights advocates
there. In Syria and other Arab countries, many men are brought up to
believe in an idea of personal honor that regards defending the
chastity of their sisters, their daughters and other women in the
family as a primary social obligation. Honor crimes tend to occur,
activists say, when men feel pressed by their communities to
demonstrate that they are sufficiently protective of their female
relatives’ virtue. Pairs of lovers are sometimes killed together, but
most frequently only the women are singled out for punishment.
Sometimes women are killed for the mere suspicion of an affair, or on
account of a false accusation, or because they were sexually abused, or
because, like Zahra, they were raped.
...
Some advocates claim that Syria has an especially high number of
honor killings per capita, saying that the country is second or third
in the world. In fact, reliable statistics on honor killing are nearly
impossible to come by. The United
Nations Population Fund
says that about 5,000 honor killings take place each year around the
world, but since they often occur in rural areas where births and
deaths go unreported, it is very difficult to count them by country.
Some killings have been recorded in European cultures, including Italy,
and in Christian or Druse communities in predominantly Muslim
countries. But it is widely agreed
that honor killings are found
disproportionately in Muslim communities, from Bangladesh to Egypt to
Great Britain. (boldface added)
The Grand Mufti Ahmad Badr Eddin Hassoun, Syria’s highest-ranking
Islamic teacher, has condemned honor killing and Article 548 in
unequivocal terms. Earlier this year, when we met for a rare interview
in his spacious office on the 10th floor of Syria’s ministry of
religious endowments, he told me, “It happens sometimes that a
misogynistic religious scholar will argue that women are the source of
all kinds of evil.” In fact, he said, the Koran does not differentiate
between women and men in its moral laws, requiring sexual chastity of
both, for example. The commonly held view that Article 548 is derived
from Islamic law, he said, is false.
With his tightly wound white turban and giant pearl ring, the grand
mufti is one of Syria’s most recognizable public figures. He is a
charismatic and generally popular sheik, but because he is appointed by
the state, many Syrians believe that his views reflect those of the
ruling party, and they may find his teachings suspect as a result. In
downtown Damascus, one man I interviewed on the street declared that
the grand mufti was not a “real Muslim” if he believed in canceling
Article 548. “It’s an Islamic law to kill your relative if she errs,”
said the man, who gave his name as Ahmed and said that he learned of
Zahra’s story on Syrian television. “If the sheik tries to fight this,
the people will rise up and slit his throat.”
There are religious figures who defend the status quo. At a
conference on honor killing held this year at Damascus University,
Mohammed Said Ramadan al-Bouti, one of Syria’s most esteemed clerics,
maintained that the laws should not be changed, defending them on the
principle in Shariah law that people who kill in defense of their
property should be treated with lenience (he is believed to have
moderated his stance since). When, at an earlier conference, the grand
mufti announced that he didn’t believe protecting a woman’s virginity
was the most important component of honor, many attendees were upset.
In response, a group of about a dozen women, all dressed in the long
black abayas that in Syria are usually worn by only very conservative
women, walked out of the room".
Katherine
Zoepf/Love on Girls' Side of the Saudi Divide (with photos)/NYT, May
13, 2008
Michael
Slackman/Molding the Ideal Islamic Citizen (Iran)/NYT-Week in
Review/Sunday, September 09, 2007 (revisited)
Photo
from Slackman NYT article immediately above with caption: "CULTURE
BLEND Islamic strictures met Persian love of pleasure in a Tehran shope
in 2005 when a head scarf was pulled back to show some hair."
Recommended:
Azar
Nafisi/Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
Firoozeh
Papan-Matin/Reading (and Misreading) Lolita
in Tehran, The Common Review, Summer 2007, Vol. 6, No.1.
Azadeh
Moaveni (link to bio), "Seeking
Signs of Literary Life (in Iran)"/NYT Sunday Book Review
May 27, 2007
"Forget reading Lolita in
Iran. In the officially vetted edition of Madame Bovary, even adultery is off
limits."
Additional writings of Azadeh Moaveni can be found on her website @ http://www.azadeh.info/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1.
See also: Nazila
Fathi/In Iran, Tactics of Fashion Police Raise Concerns/NYT May 04, 2007
Michael
Slackman/Cultural Collisions in the Slow Lane to Modernity (w/photo of
separate sections for men & women at a McDonald's in Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia)/NYT May 09, 2007. The caption below the photo reads: "At
a golden-arched symbol of globalization in Riyadh, modernity yields
to tradition with separate sections for men and completely covered
women."
Michael
Slackman/A Quiet Revolution in Algeria: Gains by Women/NYT May
26,
2007 (with photos depicting Algerian
women’s growing participation in society). "In
this tradition-bound nation scarred by a brutal
Islamist-led
civil
war that killed more than 100,000, a quiet revolution is under way:
women are emerging as an economic and political force unheard of in the
rest of the Arab world."
Michael
Slackman/In Egypt, a Rising Push Against Genital Cutting/NYT September
20, 2007 (includes photo slide show)
"'The Koran is a newcomer to tradition in this manner,' she
said. 'As
a male society, the men took parts of religion that satisfied men and
inflated it. The parts of the Koran that helped women, they ignored.'
...
It is an unusual swipe at the Islamists
who have promoted the
practice as in keeping with religion,
especially since the government
generally tries to avoid taking on conservative religious leaders. It
tries to position itself as the guardian of Islamic values, aiming to
enhance its own wilted legitimacy and undercut support for the Muslim
Brotherhood, the banned but popular opposition movement.But the
religious discourse concerning genital cutting has changed, ... "
(boldface added)
Michael
Slackman/Dreams Stifled, Egypt's Young Turn to Islamic Fervor (with
photos)/NYT
February 17, 2008
Across the Middle East, many
people are
forced to put off marriage, the gateway to independence. In their
frustration they turn to religion for solace.
Video: Women &
Islam
Web sites For Perusal
Feminist Islam @ http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-307/i.html
Women
In The Arab World/Al-Bab
Woman
In Islam/jamaat.org
Zan/Women In Iran
Muslim Women's League
**********************************************************************************
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Of Course: Topics
Academic Honesty
Statement
Learning and teaching take place best in an
atmosphere
of intellectual freedom and openness. All members of the academic
community
are responsible for supporting freedom and openness through rigorous
personal
standards of honesty and fairness. Plagiarism and other forms of
academic
dishonesty undermine the very purpose of the university and diminish
the
value of an education.
Academic Offenses
Students who have committed academic dishonesty,
which
includes cheating on an examination or other academic work to be
submitted,
plagiarism, collusion, or abuse of resource materials, are subject to
disciplinary
action.
a. Academic work means the preparation of an essay,
thesis, report, problem assignments, or other projects which are to be
submitted for purposes of grade determination.
b. Cheating means:
1. Copying from another student?s test paper,
laboratory
report, other report or computer files, data listing, and/or programs.
2. Using materials during a test unauthorized by
person
giving test.
3. Collaborating, without authorization, with
another
person during an examination or in preparing academic work.
4. Knowingly, and without authorization, using,
buying,
selling, stealing, transporting, soliciting, copying, or possessing, in
whole or part, the content of an unaministered test.
5. Substituting for another student?or permitting
another person to substitute for oneself in taking an exam or preparing
academic work.
6. Bribing another person to obtain an
unadministered
test or information about an unadministered test.
c. Plagiarism means the appropriation of
another's
work and the unacknowledged incorporation of that work in one's own
written
work offered for credit. (Underline Added)
d. Collusion means the unauthorized collaboration
with another person in preparing written work offered for credit.
e. Abuse of resource materials means the mutilation,
destruction, concealment, theft or alteration of materials provided to
assist students in the mastery of course materials.
Penalties for Academic Dishonesty
Students who have committeed academic dishonesty may
be subject to:
a. Academic penalty including one or more of the
following
when not inconsistent:
1. A requirement to perform additional academic work
not required of other students in the course;
2. Required to withdraw from the course with a
grade of F. (Underline Added)
3. A reduction to any level grade in the course, or
on the exam or other academic work affected by the academic dishonesty.
b. Disciplinary penalty including any penalty which
may be imposed in a student disciplinary hearing pursuant to this Code
of Conduct.
****************************************************************************************************