| 1. |
- Ataseven, Ilhan
(author)
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The Alevi-Bektasi Legacy: Problems of Acquisition and Explanation
- 1997
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Mystics and amateur politicians in the margin of Turkish society. The specific case of marginalisation in the specific context of my choice provides a wealth of details to be accounted for. All details taken together are real life itself and can thus not be accounted for in a book. Enough can be said, however, about marginalisation in general in order for a meaningful discussion to take place. But generalisations make the problem of choosing and interpreting information poignant. I have dealt at length with this problem. Also when one talks about real life, instead of living it, the problem of talking in a meaningful manner comes to the fore. One might wonder what it is that makes statements meaningful and if meaning is static. And is it more meaningful to talk from a marginal position than from the center? Do the Alevis gain from their marginal position when they speak their (collective) mind? Why do the Bektasis feel they gain from their marginal position even if they keep silent? These questions, and others, are not answered in this thesis, but I have provided som arguments for a set of ideas concerning these questions and also concerning how to deal with these questions.
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| 2. |
- Schmidt, Garbi
(author)
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American Medina: A Study of the Sunni Muslim Immigrant Communities in Chicago
- 1998
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Sunni Muslims have immigrated to and lived in Chicago for more than a hundred years. In her book Schmidt seeks, on basis of two periods of extended fieldwork, to provide a description of some activist strata of these religious communities. The description is framed by the portrayal of a number of Muslim institutions existing within the city and the interpretation of Islam that takes place within them. Accordingly, the book grants us a view of the life and activities of a number of Chicago’s Muslim Sunday Schools, full-time schools, Qur’anic schools, Muslim colleges, students’ associations, major Muslim centers, and “paramosques”, as they appear by the late 1990s. The following analysis focuses, from a theoretical point of view, on the dynamics of knowledge production and objectification of knowledge within and directed from these Muslim institutions. Who are considered able to present “authoritative” interpretations of Islam, and how do they obtain this status? Who is their audience? How do such interpretations relate to the diverse ethnical background of the community’s members and the powerful “other” of the United States? Is it at all possible to talk about an “American Islam” and where and how, by whom and for whom, is it formulated?
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| 3. |
- Stenberg, Leif
(author)
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The Islamization of Science: Four Muslim Positions Developing an Islamic Modernity
- 1996
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis analyses a contemporary debate on the Islamization of science. The four persons discussed here are individuals belonging to a Muslim intellectual elite: the French convert and physician Maurice Bucaille, the Persian-American scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the British-Pakistani author Ziauddin Sardar and the Arab-American scholar Ismail Raji al-Faruqi. They represent four positions in the contemporary understanding of Islam and they all have an influence among other Muslim intellectuals. The debate on the role and function of a specifically Islamic form of science has intensified during, the last 25 years. It can be seen as a part of a broader discussion, where the overall question concerns the function of Islam in relation to modernity. This thesis presents their perspectives on the Islamization of science and points at central elements and patterns in their respective positions. From a theoretical point of view, this thesis is both a study of the history of certain ideas, and an analysis founded on methods within the social sciences. The most central concept in the analysis is "discourse". The word is here used as a technical term denoting the practice that shapes different statements, a practice concerned with power. "Islam" is seen as one such discourse: a field where many Islams fight to become the One Islamic tradition. Different trends are engaged in struggle, and the successful contender becomes, for the time being, the established tradition, until it is challenged by yet another trend. In the analysis, it is shown how the four positions attempt to find their respective ways of acheiving a balance between modern science and Islam, and thereby shape a distinctly Islamic modernity.
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| 4. |
- Wiig, Arne
(author)
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Promise, Protection, and Prosperity. Aspects of the "Shield" as a Religious Relational Metaphor in an Ancient Near Eastern Perspective. An Iconographical and Textual Analysis
- 1999
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis discusses the religious metaphorical use of different words for "shield" in the Hebrew Bible and Egyptian and Assyrian literature. The literary contexts in the analysis are delimited based on the observation that they share a similar view of divine intervention in war and an analogous view of the enemy. Using the defensive weapon that we today call the "shield" often meant the difference between life and death for soldiers in the ancient Near East. The primary use of the shield metaphor is primarily is as an effective "border" between "us" and "them." A god "being" his worshipper’s shield is a relational metaphor. Previous research on shields in the ancient Near East concentrated on cultural, philological, and archeological aspects. No researchers have performed a separate, monographical analysis of the shield metaphor. The purpose of this thesis is to broaden the modern reader’s perspective in understanding the original intent and understanding of the shield metaphor. The theoretical and methodological basis of this study is modern metaphor theory, particularly Eva F. Kittay’s perspectival theory, which is a further development of the interaction theory. The intratextual placement of the shield metaphor in the context is studied from a narrator-listener perspective to glean the narrator’s original intent. In particular, the study analyzes how a metaphor generates extratextual, or realitybased, and intertextual associations and connotations, and how a narrator’s awareness of these metaphorical effects control his choice of metaphor in a specific intratextual context. Another focus is the individual reader’s personal understanding, or implicit context, which always colors one’s understanding of a text. This study goes from practical shield use, to theoretical metaphor use, which means that we must first study the shield from a religious and cultural context. Then, the study examines perceptions of protection in general and military aspects of shield use. Both symbolic motifs on shields and iconographical depcitions of shields are analyzed. The text interpretations in this study center in particular on the practical use of shields as a "visual" example for the literary depiction of the interaction between god and man. The study concludes with an analysis of parallel metaphors and parallel metaphorical motifs in connection with the shield metaphor, highlighting central metaphorical concepts.
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