This statement by the late Franz Rosenthal is, in a sense, the uniting theme of the present volume's 35 articles by renowned scholars of Islamic Studies, Middle ...

The early Muslim society took much of the scientific treasures from other civilizations, especially from ancient Greek. One of the scientific traditions taken from Greek is Hellenism. Using a historical approach, this article tries to assess the contiguity of Islam with the Hellenism. There are three points will be discussed: When has Islam met to the Hellenism in the first time? What are the factors that support the scientific contact between both of the civilizations? To what extent Hellenism influenced the (...) development of the scientific tradition in the early Muslim community? Our study shows that the Muslims have known the Hellenistic tradition since the 7th century in the Umayyad era, not the 8 century as some scholars claim. Second, there are three factors underlying early Muslim studied Hellenism Support from Qur’anic teachings, The need to argue with both of other Muslim groups and Non-Muslims community, The need of the Caliphs to legitimize their power. Third, when Muslims have known the Hellenism, they did not only adopt the Hellenism ideas, but also provide reviews, critical notes, and further more developed its own scientific tradition combined with the qur’anic teachings. (shrink)

The two important factors in science development are the social economy (gross domestic product, GDP) and freedom. In order to follow the development of science for both old Arabic-Islamic and Western civilizations, a statistical method is used to trace the variation of scientists' population with time. The analysis shows that: 1- There is a growth in Arabic-Islamic sciences for a period of three centuries (AD 700-1000). Then it is followed by period of declination. The decay time is about (...) of eight centuries. Major factor behind that decay in science activities and the block of the science thoughts may be attributed to religious thoughts domination, and cultural or thoughtful problems, in addition to the normal social problems like wars, disasters..etc. 2- The growth in western civilization started approximately in AD 1200 and remains in its growing. It looks that the wars, political problems have no serious effect in western sciences growth. The growth behaviour has a natural growth form. That may prove that, the secular society is quite perfect for such activities. For present time Arab-Islam societies have no distinguished contributions. The most important factor for that catastrophic retardation is the absence of the freedom of thought and believes. The obtaned curve has similarities with world GDP curve. (shrink)

In the article, the problem of the impact of Islamic factor on the events of the civil war in Kabarda and Balkaria is studied. During the civil war Islam has become a factor that unites Muslim population of Kabarda and Balkaria in the fight against the infidels. The author considers the religious policy of the Reds and Whites in the region, as well as, the role of Islam in the judicial and administrative practice and the political district of life. (...) In the district, where the majority of the population is Muslim, the clergy’s influence was enormous. Each of the warring sides used the Muslim dogma to gain support of the local population and strengthen their political power in the province. During this period, bright spiritual and political leaders stood out of the local population. With the support of the population, local leaders have created a military-political union Shariat. The author points out the positive role of religious advisory body unprecedented in the history of Kabarda and Balkaria - the Spiritual Council of Tausultan Shakmanov’s administration - in reconciling the warring parties. Support of the local clergy and the Muslim population, which grew into the Red Army, has greatly contributed to the victory of the Bolsheviks in the civil war in the neighborhood. After the victory of the Bolsheviks in the war and the establishment of Soviet power in Kabarda and Balkaria, most priests were physically eliminated, Shariat was proclaimed illegal, the Muslim education system was destroyed, and many mosques were closed. (shrink)

We provide evidence of the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate financial performance (CFP) in Palestine, a highly unstable political context. Annual reports of all firms listed on the Palestine Exchange (PEX) for the period 2016-2019 were manually content analysed. A checklist of reported CSR items is summarised into four areas: environmental information, human resources, community involvement, and product and customer service quality. Results indicate a robust positive connection between each of the four dimensions and the composite CSR (...) index with three performance indicators: ROA, ROE, and Tobins Q. Results also find better performing companies with a higher degree of community involvement being greatly appealing, while the environmental dimension was the least resilient. We discuss the significance of community engagement for an unstable context like Palestine from a community cohesion standpoint. (shrink)

Organisational citizenship behaviour towards the environment (OCBE) aids in both environmental protection and in harnessing sustainable competitive organisational advantage. This study proposed a conceptual research model which investigated managerial perceptions of the relationship between OCBE and economic cost performance (ECP) in the UAE hospitality sector, with green innovative behaviour (GIB) mediating and green training moderating the relationship. Drawing on the theory of planned behaviour and abilities motivation opportunity theory, the study administered 479 structured questionnaires to hotel managers in the UAE (...) using purposive and snowball sampling techniques. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was applied to test the hypotheses in SmartPLS3.3. Findings showed that OCBE had a direct and significant impact on ECP, with GIB emerging both as a direct and mediating predictor. Additionally, green training directly and significantly moderated the OCBE–cost performance relationship. These results evince the integration of sustainable philosophies with innovative mindsets to encourage green innovative endeavours among hotel managers. (shrink)

This study traces the history of the origin and development of Unanimedicine in the Islamic world and its later blossoming in Persia. Based mainly onArabic, Persian, Urdu and English sources, the study focuses on the intellectuallegacy of the Muslims in the development of Unani medicine and their interestin the progress of medical sciences, when a number of classical works wereproduced by great Muslim scholars during this period that provide evidenceof organized medical care that provided the basis for modern medicine (...) as itemerged from the 17th century onwards in Europe. The early Muslim scholars’works were focused on the integration or Islamicisation of human knowledgein the areas of medical and health-care sciences as well as those who seekto understand the role of moral values and Maqaṣid al-Sharīʿah in medical and healthcare practices in a more comprehensiveframework, exposing the dynamic contribution of Islamic civilization tomedical progress that was later obscured in modernity by Western ideologies. (shrink)

The engineering profession has experienced some ethical cases that were rarely reported, scrutinized, or discussed because: they did not necessarily represent violations of existing codes even if they breached ethical principles; those within the organization were not prepared to take steps to address the issues or impose sanction; an/or some of the personnel associated with these cases resorted to silence to avoid being labeled as trouble-makers in their organizations and, perhaps, more broadly, in society. The goal of this paper is (...) to heighten managerial awareness of ethical issues, interrelated ethical lapses, and appropriate responsive actions within professional engineering communities. As such, the authors reviewed recent well-known professional and organizational ethical cases including impact of leadership role and existing standards, and critically analyzed interrelated literature. The paper’s case studies exemplify that because ethical issues are complex, intricate, and nuanced; bylaws are insufficient for establishing the inclusive culture for handling potential ethical situations. In fact, through what is known as the codification of ethics, it is possible that someone’s conduct can totally fulfill all professional responsibilities but still be unethical. As such, ethical leadership is needed to provide the means for establishing appropriate norms so as to set the proper structures for addressing the diverse ethical matters. Perceptions about the responses of leaders to potential ethical lapses are a critical factor in formulating, changing, and maintaining ethical values at the individual and organizational levels. A leader’s passive attitude toward ethical issues can be the signal for the ignored lapses to become the norm at not only the organizational level but also the society. Guided by the new Code of Ethics by the American Society of Civil Engineers, this paper aims to trigger the proper ethical behavior and expectations for the welfare of the engineering profession both in the present and future. (shrink)

In this study, we examine investor and firm response to the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2010. The CTSCA requires large retail and manufacturing firms to disclose efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from their supply chains and is a rare example of mandated corporate social responsibility disclosure. Based on a sample of 105 retail companies subject to the CTSCA, we find a significant negative market reaction to the passing of the CTSCA. Furthermore, we find that the (...) reaction is significantly more negative for larger firms and companies facing greater supply chain risks, suggesting that investors place a negative value on exposure to legitimacy threats in the social domain. With respect to company disclosure response, we document relatively high compliance with the legislation, although we also find that the disclosure response appeared to be more symbolic than substantive in nature. Finally, our analysis indicates that both disclosure choice and disclosure extensiveness were significantly higher for the high-supply chain risk companies, suggesting that the response was influenced by concerns with strategic legitimation. Overall, the limited quality of disclosure suggests that, without additional rules and guidance, mandates alone may not lead to meaningful social disclosure. (shrink)

This study explores the direct and interactive effects of individual differences in interpersonal trust and negotiation style on ethical decision-making processes across commonly faced negotiation situations. Individual differences influence basic ideas about legitimate negotiating behaviors, affect behavioral intentions directly, and interact with the favorability of negotiating situations, resulting in direct, indirect, and interactive effects on ethical decision-making processes. Using a sample of 298 participants in executive education workshops, the study analyzes the relationship between interpersonal trust, competitiveness, moral judgment, and (...) behavioral intentions in different negotiating conditions through a series of structural equation models and regression analyses. Our results suggest that individual difference variables exert a significant influence not only on how managers assess the morality of ethically ambiguous negotiation practices but also directly on their behavioral intentions, and that this effect changed across specific negotiation situations. We discuss these results in terms of their usefulness in explaining ethical decision-making processes in negotiations. (shrink)

The question of whether Islamic philosophy can be considered as an authentic form of philosophy has been a subject of prolonged discourse. Various perspectives have emerged, presenting three distinct approaches to this matter. The first approach, primarily advocated by orientalists, contends that Islamic philosophy lacks authenticity. Contrarily, the second viewpoint asserts that while Islamic philosophy exhibits eclecticism, it represents a form of creative eclecticism. Finally, the third perspective posits that Islamic philosophy is unequivocally authentic, affirming its (...) rightful place within the realm of philosophical discourse. Regrettably, Islamic philosophy, despite its profound significance during the Middle Ages, has not received the recognition it truly deserves within the pages of philosophical history books. Authors have often allocated only brief sections to this rich philosophical tradition, overlooking its depth and influence. It is frequently emphasized that Islamic philosophy serves as a continuation of Greek philosophy, acting as a vital bridge that connects the realms of Ancient Greek philosophy and medieval Western philosophy. Orientalists regarded Muslim philosophers as mere interpreters of Ancient Greek philosophers, ignoring their philosophical authenticity. Recent studies have revealed that this prejudiced approach of the orientalists is fallacious. Medieval Islamic philosophy, which reached its golden age during the 9th-13th centuries, began to be rediscovered. Islamic philosophy introduced completely novel themes with Sufism and theology, and, developed fresh and innovative perspectives by integrating Greek philosophy. In particular, unique insights and movements have been put forward on subjects such as Ghazalism, Illuminationism, Eastern philosophy, occasionalism, methodical skepticism, the theory of creation ex nihilo, prophecy, the relationship between philosophy and religion, and critical analysis of the ideas put forth by ancient philosophers. While the Western world underwent a “dark age” during The Middle Ages; the Islamic world experienced a remarkable and intellectually vibrant “philosophical” movement. The movement, which can be called the “Miracle of the Muslims”, holds significant prominence within universal culture, in terms of both being an inseparable part of Islamic civilization and a crucial milestone in the development of Western philosophy. (shrink)

The earlier volume in this series dealt with two religions of Indian origin, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. The Indian religious scene, however, is characterized by not only religions which originated in India but also by religions which entered India from outside India and made their home here. Thus religious life in India has been enlivened throughout its history by the presence of religions of foreign origin on its soil almost from the very time they came into existence. This volume covers (...) three such religions—Zoraoastrianism, Judaism, and Islam. In the case of Zoraostianism, even its very beginnings are intertwined with India, as Zoroastrianism reformed a preexisting religion which had strong links to the Vedic heritage of India. This relationship took on a new dimension when a Zoroastrian community, fearing persecution in Persia after its Arab conquest, sought shelter in western India and ultimately went on to produce India’s pioneering nationalist in the figure of Dadabhai Naoroji ( 1825-1917), also known as the Grand Old Man of India. Jews found refuge in south India after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and have remained a part of the Indian religious scene since then, some even returning to Israel after it was founded in 1948. Islam arrived in Kerala as soon as it was founded and one of the earliest mosques in the history of Islam is found in India. Islam differs from the previously mentioned religions inasmuch as it went on to gain political hegemony over parts of the country for considerable periods of time, which meant that its impact on the religious life of the subcontinent has been greater compared to the other religions. It has also meant that Islam has existed in a religiously plural environment in India for a longer period than elsewhere in the world so that not only has Islam left a mark on India, India has also left its mark on it. Indeed all the three religions covered in this volume share this dual feature, that they have profoundly influenced Indian religious life and have also in turn been profoundly influenced by their presence in India. (shrink)

This collection of essays covers the classical heritage and Islamic culture, classical Arabic science and philosophy, and Muslim religious sciences, showing continuation of Greek and Persian thought as well as original Muslim contributions to the sciences, philosophy, religion, and culture of Islam.

ICT for development projects often focus on integrating social factors in information systems design. A well-designed ICT4D solution must be tailored to the needs of the people who will use them and subsequently, requires an extensive understanding of the context and constraints in people’s lives. With an objective to explore how context-specific issues influence the conveyance of appropriate agricultural information to women, this paper uses PROTIC, a 5-year collaborative project between Monash University and Oxfam, as a case. PROTIC was (...) implemented in three climate vulnerable ecological zones of Bangladesh with an aim to overcome the agricultural information gap for rural women. Based on a study in mixed research method and triangulation, this paper brings evidence on the significance of considering context-specific attributes in designing effective and sustainable information services for marginalized women farmers in developing countries. The paper upfolds some significant recommendations which is expected to contribute to the domain of context-specific information system design in resolving socio-economic problems to pave the way of sustainable development. (shrink)

Numerous organizations have faced substantial environmental performance challenges resulting from more than a half-century of worldwide industrialization. Grounded in social learning theory and recourse-based view theory, this study explores environmental performance and its impact on employees and industry outcomes. Drawing on a cross-sectional online survey of 500 full-time employees working in the chemical industry in Lahore, Pakistan. The results revealed a significant positive influence of Green HRM practices on employees’ Green innovation as well as on environmental performance. Additionally, significant (...) influences of study variables were recorded on outcomes such as green compensation and reward, green performance management and appraisal, green training and development, and green recruitment and selection. Several key policy insights related to consumer resistance to innovation in low income societies and future research directions are suggested, along with theoretical and practical implications. (shrink)

The earlier volume in this series dealt with two religions of Indian origin, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. The Indian religious scene, however, is characterized by not only religions which originated in India but also by religions which entered India from outside India and made their home here. Thus religious life in India has been enlivened throughout its history by the presence of religions of foreign origin on its soil almost from the very time they came into existence. This volume covers (...) three such religions—Zoraoastrianism, Judaism, and Islam. In the case of Zoraostianism, even its very beginnings are intertwined with India, as Zoroastrianism reformed a preexisting religion which had strong links to the Vedic heritage of India. This relationship took on a new dimension when a Zoroastrian community, fearing persecution in Persia after its Arab conquest, sought shelter in western India and ultimately went on to produce India’s pioneering nationalist in the figure of Dadabhai Naoroji ( 1825-1917), also known as the Grand Old Man of India. Jews found refuge in south India after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and have remained a part of the Indian religious scene since then, some even returning to Israel after it was founded in 1948. Islam arrived in Kerala as soon as it was founded and one of the earliest mosques in the history of Islam is found in India. Islam differs from the previously mentioned religions inasmuch as it went on to gain political hegemony over parts of the country for considerable periods of time, which meant that its impact on the religious life of the subcontinent has been greater compared to the other religions. It has also meant that Islam has existed in a religiously plural environment in India for a longer period than elsewhere in the world so that not only has Islam left a mark on India, India has also left its mark on it. Indeed all the three religions covered in this volume share this dual feature, that they have profoundly influenced Indian religious life and have also in turn been profoundly influenced by their presence in India. (shrink)

The articles in this volume dedicated to Hans Daiber, one of the pioneering scholars in the history of Islamic thought in the Middle Ages, offer new insights into this field from a variety of perspectives: philological, philosophical, and historical.

Since the time of the Renaissance, it has been believed in the West that Greco-Roman Civilization developed solely between Athens, Rome and Paris. In so doing, we forget the detour that Greek culture took into Muslim culture over a period of several centuries, and the influence of this culture on Muslim philosophy and science. This assumption also fails to take note of Muslim influence on Europe, in which Andalusia and Sicily acted as intermediaries. In order accurately to (...) trace the spread of knowledge from Greece we must follow a path leading from Athens to Baghdad and Cordoba before reaching Paris. If we omit this historical reality, we underestimate the role played by Eastern Christians and Jews in the transmission of Greek knowledge to Islam, and from Islam to the West. (shrink)

Online social networks are highly dynamic and sparse. One of the main problems in analyzing these networks is the problem of predicting the existence of links between users on these networks: the link prediction problem. Many studies have been conducted to predict links using a variety of techniques like the decision tree and the logistic regression approaches. In this work, we will illustrate the use of the rough set theory in predicting links over the Facebook social network based on homophilic (...) features. Other supervised learning algorithms are also employed in our experiments and compared with the rough set classifier, such as naive Bayes, J48 decision tree, support vector machine, logistic regression, and multilayer perceptron neural network. Moreover, we studied the influence of the “common groups” and “common page likes” homophilic features on predicting friendship between users of Facebook, and also studied the effect of using the Jaccard coefficient in measuring the similarity between users’ homophilic attributes compared with using the overlap coefficient. We conducted our experiments on two different datasets obtained from the Facebook online social network, where users in each dataset live within the same geographical region. The results showed that the rough set classifier significantly outperformed the other classifiers in all experiments. The results also demonstrated that the common groups and the common page likes features have a significant influence on predicting the friendship between users of Facebook. Finally, the results revealed that using the overlap coefficient homophilic features provided better results than that of the Jaccard coefficient features. (shrink)

The idea of transferring and even imposing individual thoughts on others is as old as human history. Quran states that the first people were deceived by being influenced by the words of the devil. It is a known fact that the Prophet conveyed the message to guide people to the right path and was assigned to fulfill this duty. In fact, it is quite natural for this situation to happen wherever there are people. However, advances in the cultural and technological (...) fields throughout history have changed the tools used in the mentioned activities. For instance, with the ease of supply of writing materials and the developments in the field of printing, ideas were conveyed more in writing. When it comes to the modern era, visual programs have gained speed with the digital changes and transformations experienced by television, computers and the internet as their supporter. In this direction, television and subsequently digital broadcasting platforms became widespread, and with the increase in demand for digital platforms, a mandatory change was required in the media sector. Anticipating this change, Netflix is the largest digital broadcasting platform, which entered the digital broadcasting industry quickly and reached millions of subscribers. As it is known, the most important purpose of visual media civilization, if not the only one, is to obtain financial benefits. However, it is also certain that Netflix and similar companies deliberately or unintentionally impose their world of thought, ways of making sense of life, and even ideologies through their content. In this direction, TV programs, series and movies that carry religious images are given a great deal of places on digital platforms, because they attract the watchers and they have high potential to influence on them. Although, these programs sometimes lead people to reach the right information, they often cause false religious teaching to be conveyed. the Caliphate series, which is one of the most watched content on the mentioned platform in recent days and tells the drama-filled story of a family who went to Raqqa from Sweden within the borders of the so-called Islamic State, directs its viewers about Islamic teachings in various ways. In our study, Islamic images in this series will be analyzed through topics such as religious abuse and Islamophobia, and it will be focused on how digital platforms shape the perception of religion. In addition, the transformation of media and digital platforms, the compatibility of the series with its aims and objectives, and how the minds of ISIS militants overlap with the main teachings of Islam will also be touched upon. After all these, the creation of perception will be emphasized in the media sector in general, and digital platforms in particular. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill's best-known work is On Liberty. In it he declared that Western society was in danger of coming to a standstill. This was an extraordinarily pessimistic claim in view of Britain's global dominance at the time and one that has been insufficiently investigated in the secondary literature. The wanting model was that of China, a once advanced civilization that had apparently ossified. To understand how Mill came to this conclusion requires one to investigate his notion of the (...) stages from barbarism to civilization, and also his belief in imperialism as part of the civilizing process. Here India plays a central role, as both Mill and his father worked for the East India Company. This study, then, investigates the relationship between Mill's liberalism and his justification of imperialism. It takes us into the Utilitarianism of his family background, and such other influences as Romanticism, Scottish political economy and such key French thinkers as Saint- Simon, Guizot, Comte and Tocqueville. Mill, then, provides the focus of a debate on the origins, meaning, and consequences of Western civilization. It encompasses discourses on colonialism and orientalism, on Enlightenment optimism and conservative despair, on the need for leadership and the advance of democracy; in short, on the blessings, curses and dangers of modernization from approximately the time of the American and French revolutions to that of the so-called mid-Victorian calm in which On Liberty was written. Furthermore, current political issues concerning the West and Islamic countries have heightened interest in just the kind of question that this book discusses: that of how the West relates to, and assesses, the rest of the world. (shrink)

Very few studies are available to understand the philosophical views of Rabindranath Tagore in the light of his attitude and realization of Islam vis-à-vis idea of universalism. Fact remains that the Islamic civilization has thoroughly been recognized in the academic circles but its depth and learning have not been studied up to expectation. European historians and philosophers seem to be hesitant to acknowledge the contribution of Islamic civilization over the centuries. Even a majority of Eastern scholars (...) are critical about welcoming the actual merit of Islam. Rabindranath Tagore being one of the brightest stars in the galaxy of poets and writers made a serious study on the philosophy and writings of many Muslim thinkers and ultimately brought to our notice an extraordinary feeling about Islamic ideas and philosophy. Rabindranth Tagore seems to have sought the inner meaning of Islam and developed a kind of value- based attitude towards human life and the universe. It is likely that through his Gitanjali and Religion of Man in particular were presented with an objective to stimulate and guide men in search of Ultimate Truth and Oneness of God. It is said that Rabindranth Tagore was acquainted with the verses of the Qur‟an in his childhood and in this respect his father Maharishi Devendranath Tagore imbibed in him many theological aspects of Islam as a religion. The paper intends to explore how Tagore was influenced by Islam and as a poet-thinker he nurtured the idea of eternal truth from the Upanishads, the Tripitakas as well as the Bible and through a particular discipline and inner uplift he came to the conclusion that aggregate of essentials of diversity cannot be judged in the light of mere logic and arguments. This feeling seems to have prompted Tagore to find out the inner truth of the universe and side by side to propagate the idea of universal humanism throughout the world. Philosophy and Progress, Vol#61-62; No#1-2; Jan-Dec 2017 P 53-66. (shrink)

This study proposes a reassessment of the social and political thought of Ziya Gökalp, the most influential ideologue of Turkish nationalism. Challenging the still ubiquitous trend which emphasizes the influence of Western ideas to explain the dominant intellectual currents of the late Ottoman Empire, this article locates Gökalp’s thought in the continuity of Ottoman-Islamic intellectual tradition. Indeed, Gökalp’s thought incorporates and appropriates many concepts, arguments and definitions present in that tradition as well as the tensions existing in the (...) historical narratives of Ottoman and Islamic history. As evidence of this continuity, the first part focuses on the dual concepts of medeniyet and hars in Gökalp’s thought and demonstrates his use of traditional vocabulary and the historical tension between Sufi Islam and orthodox-legal Islam in defining these two categories. Gökalp’s idealism and his celebration of Durkheimian sociology also rest on a particular interpretation of Sufi tradition. Accordingly, the second part deals with the political concepts Gökalp uses, particularly tecdîd, and demonstrates how Gökalp’s usage is comparable to other Ottoman authors from the eighteenth century onwards, and reflects the quest for the qualities that once made the Empire great. In the light of these findings, the article proposes a dynamic and inclusive concept of tradition and concludes with some methodological reflections on the practice of intellectual history in the late Ottoman context. Keywords: Ziya Gökalp, Sufism, Islamic revivalism, tradition, impact of the West, Ibn Khaldun, culture and civilization. (shrink)

The early Muslim society took much of the scientific treasures from other civilizations, especially from ancient Greek. One of the scientific traditions taken from Greek is Hellenism. Using a historical approach, this article tries to assess the contiguity of Islam with the Hellenism. There are three points will be discussed: When has Islam met to the Hellenism in first time? What are the factors that support the scientific contact between both of the civilizations? To what extent Hellenism influenced the development (...) of scientific tradition in early Muslim community? Our study shows that the Muslims have known the Hellenistic tradition since the 7th century in Ummayyad era, not the 8th century as some scholars claim. Second, there are three factors underlying early Muslim studied Hellenism Support from Qur’anic teachings, The need to argue with both of other Muslim groups and Non-Muslims community, The need of the Caliphs to legitimize their power. Third, when Muslims have known the Hellenism, they did not only adopt the Hellenism ideas, but also provide reviews, critical notes, and further more developed its own scientific tradition combined with the qur’anic teachings. (shrink)

The search for cultural sociology -- New intellectual concepts for cultural sociology -- Social sciences need for the HS paradigm -- Theory of HS and the rules of collective behavioural patterns of influence on people's behaviors -- Culture profile from a different Islamic view -- The Aql-Naql theory of human symbols and the making of cultural sociology -- HS behind human longer lifespan -- Social science illiteracy of the other underdevelopment in post-colonial societies -- The Arab Muslim world (...) set to dialogue with the West : a cultural perspective. (shrink)

Islamic fundamentalism (Islamic neo-traditionalism) is an important component of Islamic identity struggles in the three South Asian nations of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The contested role, status, and legal rights of women provide a focus for comparative study, and the treatment of women in the courts showcases the problematic relation of religious and civil law. The cases of Shah Bano in India and Safia Bibi in Pakistan display (1) the radically different ways fundamentalism influences judicial processes; (2) (...) the varying challenges that confront Muslims in different polities (in India, the maintenance of Islamic identity; in Pakistan and Bangladesh, the evolution of a just and democratic Islamic state); and (3) the fact that the single gravest problem confronting Muslims regardless of political frontiers and varying structures of civil government is whether piety requires that religious law formulated in premodern cultures be regarded as fixed and binding today. (shrink)

In industrial societies where civil law and state institutions have become well established secular vehicles for governing the populace, it is widely assumed that the state no longer has an interest in fortifying the religious sector as a complementary source of social control. Thus, a distinction is drawn between the Islamic state that is ruled by religious law and the secular state of Western industrial societies in which religion is deemed to have lost its influence in the public (...) sphere. This dissertation argues that civil law is not religiously neutral and thus challenges a central premise of secularization theory. Introducing a new theoretical model that classifies civil law on the basis of its purpose-to protect religious liberty, engage or fortify the religious sector, or to advance universal norms-the author examines the impact of the three different types of legislation upon religious freedom and the individual autonomy of religious minorities in Sweden, an aggressively secularized industrial society. The author concludes that, viewed from the standpoint of a religious nonconformist, there is no discernible difference between living in a society that is overtly ruled by religious law (e.g., an Islamic state) and living in a "secular” society that is ruled by civil law either embedded with religious norms or designed to facilitate state appropriation of the religious sector as a complementary means of social control. In either environment, the author argues, the religious nonconformist will be forced to conform to the religious norms of the predominant religious group. (shrink)

Islamic ethics; Islamic civilization; Western influences.

Traditionally dated from the 8th to the 14th century, historians generally agree on the period of the golden age of Islamic civilization. They count that the keys to this civilizational achievement laid on the flourishing educational institutions, scientific findings, and the births of influential Muslim scholars. This article tries to reframe the significance of education in the creation of Islamic golden age and offer a brief reminder to the importance of education for contemporary Muslim societies. It is (...) a bibliographical study for the materials for the discussion are taken from books, journal articles, and other written sources related to the topic. The collected data were then analyzed by content analysis. This article argues that the state policies on education is the key for the past Muslim golden age. Scientific culture ranging from namely research tradition, translation tradition, reading tradition to scientific habitus are essential in the making of Muslim golden age. This historical records reserves as a reminder for contemporary Muslim to reestablish the past golden age that lies on the reformation of educational system. (shrink)

In the early 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and with the easing of East- West tensions, Samuel Huntington presented his theory of a “clash of civilizations.” He announced that conflicts between ideologies had come to an end and were to be replaced by a new kind of confrontation, this time between cultures and religions. This essay attempts to show how misled Huntington’s thesis can be by referring to forms of humanism from Africa as well as to some (...) ideas developed in Arabian-Islamic philosophy. In the early 1930s, African intellectuals such as Léopold Sédar Senghor or Aimé Césaire already tried to oppose their own conception of humanism to Western individualistic humanism. The distinction can be found in the concept of Ubuntu, or “African humanism,” which incorporates notions of respect for the other, collective responsibility and solidarity. The Arab-Islamic world has also had similar concerns from an early stage. Its heritage from classical Greek philosophy, which placed human being at the centre of its thinking and ethical acting, came indeed under the significant influence of Islamic values, such as equality, fraternity and the community. Thus the essay offers an alternative to Huntington’s post-modern model of “clash of civilizations” beyond the frontiers set by Western humanism and that is more relevant to our current globalising world – a new trans- and intercultural humanism that favours the ways human beings can relate to each other as persons regardless of race, culture and religion. Human dignity and respect for the “other,” including the environment, are therefore central to this new humanism. (shrink)

This comprehensive historical exploration investigates the intricate relationship between religion and the evolution of civil laws. Throughout human history, the interplay between religious beliefs and legal systems has profoundly shaped societies and governance structures. From ancient civilizations to the modern era, religious authorities and teachings have acted as catalysts in shaping civil laws, often with the goal of promoting social justice. This article embarks on a journey through time, unraveling the multifaceted connections between religion and the development of legal frameworks. (...) In numerous societies, religious doctrines formed the cornerstone of civil laws and regulations. The majority of civilizations witnessed priests assuming pivotal roles as lawmakers, effectively coupling civil laws and religious practices. By examining various historical civilizations, this study illustrates how religious norms and practices were intertwined with legal codes, revealing instances where religious teachings played a crucial role in promoting adherence to laws. The transition to modern times witnessed the emergence of alternative means for law enforcement, yet religion’s role persisted as an internal driving force for fostering law-abiding behavior. Drawing from examples such as the Code of Hammurabi, Islamic legal traditions, and the Roman Twelve Tables, this article showcases historical instances where religious values contributed to legal principles centered around equity, justice, and morality. Additionally, the study explores how religion’s influence shifted over time, from early religious leaders acting as legislators to the establishment of more secular legal systems. (shrink)

The emphasis that the modernity gives to disengagement and beginning leads one to think that the modernity itself is in fact a culture that initiares crisis. Even if there is no initial crisis, it can be created through the ambivalent nature of modernity. Behind the concept of crisis lies the notion that history is a continuous process or movement that opens the door to nihilistic understanding which stems from the idea of contemporary life and thought alienation through the pessimistic meaning (...) of the word. There is a dialectical relationship between the ideas of modernity and progress, and the decadence, and the main theme of Nietzsche's philosophical career. Since the death of Hegel, who made the idea of crisis plausible, everything is nothing but a counter-movement not only in Germany, but also in Europe. The first of these counter-movements is romanticism with its objection to the mind which is liberated from the bonds of tradition. The main thesis of the present article is, between reactiveness of romanticism -on the surface- and the modernity; from one side romanticism's consuming modernity, which is its mirror image, while at the same time feeding from it and modernity's manipulating the ideas developed against it and monopolizing them thanks to its ambivalent nature. For this purpose, following an an anti-enlightenment thinker Nietzsche's, anti-romantic footsteps which at the same time feeds from the romantic heritage, an attempt will be made to analyze the relationship between modernity and romanticism. Another goal of this article is to allow a comparison of how the intellectual development in the West finds its response on the modernization process of our country by probing how the modernization experience of early period Islamist's who experienced this process in a feeling of "backwardness" and with a wounded consciousness and anxiety has led to a shallow romantic worldview. SummaryRomance and romanticism are the main topics of this article. Romanticism is a period, whereas romance is a spiritual attitude not limited to this period, therefore, even today it’s existence is felt. In other words, it is not specific to the Germans. This term is often used to correspond to certain aspects of European intellectual life in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, for instance between 1790 and 1850. In its extremely diverse definitions, the most "romantic" definition in our opinion, belongs to Novalis: “I'm romanticizing by giving a high meaning to ordinary things, a mysterious reputation to the ordinary, the honor of the unknown to the known, an infinite look to the finite.” The rejection of existing social reality, the experience of loss, the melancholic longing and the search for loss are the main components of the romantic motive. This study is based on the argument that there is a dialectical relation between romanticism and modernity, which is known as an opposing movement against enlightenment thought. The intellectual feature, which contains the opposite of modernity itself, makes this argument plausible. In addition, the view of modernity as a crisis culture due to the emphasis on disengament and beginnings offers us the possibility to establish a relationship between modernity, which accepts itself as decadence, and romance. Behind the concept of crisis lies the idea that history is a continuous process or movement opening the door to the nihilist understanding in which modern life and thought are alienated in a pessimistic sense. Thus, Allan Megill defines historicism as a prerequisite for nihilism. According to the author, Prophets of Extremity, if the history has no direction to be changed, maintained or lost when wandering in history, it also cannot have a "crisis". The suggestion of "God is dead" is the most concise expression of this crisis. In this crisis state of nihilism, it is a completely forlorn condition of living in the present. Today, which is in the absolute forlorn state; the savior declares his belief that he is devoid of all sorts of features, things that let us reconcile with the current situation of things. In the face of this situation, when people see that the present becomes completely forlorn, they move in two opposite directions with a desire to regenerate culturally: They either have to go back to the past or head for the future. However, every attempt to determine what the future or the past posess will require them to be real, belonging to the present. This will return us to the forlorn state. Nietzsche embraces both opposing sides, but does not attempts choose between them. This is the place where Nietzsche dictates that today is corrupt taking a radical attitude against romanticism fed by the notion of crisis. The fact that modernity has given up its critique of reason, which is revealed by its dialectic, had a great influence on Nietzsche's putting distance between himself and romantics. That is to say, in response to enlightened thought, although romantics speak of unity, apparently, they could not prevent emergence of emotion against mind, local against the universal, individual against social, in other words, the emergence of the second values, which they believed that these were belittled and despised by Enlightenment. Therefore, romantics seem like they could not save themselves from being caught in the web of dialectics in the account they entered that is based on the subject-object distinction in cartesian thought. It is because modernity acts with the consciousness that the life is established on the occurrence and decadence. Based on this, we can say that decadence is inevitable. This decadence (distortion) from the outside may be through movements developed against it, or experienced within itself (even if no one attempts to destroy it). Modernity, with the awareness that it cannot escape from the decadence, wants to arbitrate itself by turning this decadence in its favor by manipulating it. In other words, the modernity dramatizes the feeling of crisis considering itself decadence and the seemingly contradictory ideas of avant-garde and decadence become almost synonymous. It must be the reason why Nietzsche identifies modernity with decadence Modernity manages to put the decadence in its body at the center of attraction by producing self-opposing movements, monopolizing and manipulating. In short, both romanticism and avant-garde movements are the movements that are emerged not against modernity but from itself. Just like an apple worm, they both consume modernity and feed on it. They act as a mirror. Although they seem to criticize, as movements that have emerged from it, they allow the modernity to complete and correct the deficiencies. As a result of this, we can say that romantic critical movements are developed against the world and are shaped by modernity, beginning with the idea of enlightenment, and moved forward in the track of modernity.While romanticism developed in the West as opposed to modernity, in Ottoman-Turkish thought, it was seen as the rhetoric of retardation and regretting of backwardness from civilization. It is inevitable that the experience of modernization in a sense of backwardness, with a wounded consciousness and urgency, will open up space for romance. In our modernization adventure starting with Tanzimat, it is a fact that there has not been a drastic reckoning due to Enlightenment on an intellectual basis, industrialization on an economic basis, programs of revolutionary and nationalist formations on a political basis. Therefore, in Turkish thought, it is not possible to talk about a critical tradition developed against modern paradigm. The status of being audience to what was being experienced in Europe, resulting from superiority was transformed into grudge due to the defeats in the military field. Due to the decadence experienced in the present, inability to find the solution to the problems of its age, melancholic state of mind because of being stuck in the golden age experienced in the past, in the case of a preference, led to a romantic world view because of the appeal of its simplicity to imitate what was once lived in the past. Thus, it is very natural that the direction of Namık Kemal, the cult personality of Islamist-Turkish thought, is towards the past even when talking about progress and civilization. Seeing the 19th century Europe as a re-implementation of ideas and institutions that are actually Islamic, Namık Kemal, in our opinion, showed us a clear example of a typical Islamist romanticism and an example of occidentalist approach regarding that the West learned the civilization from Muslims. In fact, the exact equivalent of this approach displayed in Turkish cogito without even knowing that it is romantic, emerging in the personality of Namık Kemal and in the feeling of backwardness,with a hectic and injured consciousness, is kitschization. So much so that, the state of being kitsch also explains the current situation of Islamic geography which is far from creating a tradition for at least a century, and it clearly tells the usual romantic end. (shrink)

English summary: Questions about the origins and reality of good and evil and about their mutual relationship play a central part in the history of philosophy and religion from their very beginning. Giving answers to these questions had a decisive influence on how the world and its civilization(s) as well as human beings and their ethics were perceived in their relations to higher beings (god or gods). The contributions within this conference volume illustrate which concepts regarding these questions (...) were developed in ancient civilizations around the Mediterranean, from the early literatures of Egypt and Mesopotamia, Iran and Greece to biblical, Qumranic and ancient Christian texts as well as the writings of the Manichaeans and the Quran. Thus this volume gives a representative overview of the responses of the ancient world to one of the fundamental questions of mankind. German description: Die Frage nach Herkunft und Wirklichkeit des Guten und des Bosen sowie nach ihrem Verhaltnis zueinander hat in der Philosophie- und Religionsgeschichte von Anfang an eine zentrale Rolle gespielt. Ihre Beantwortung hatte entscheidenden Einfluss darauf, wie man Welt und Kultur, Mensch und Ethik in der Beziehung zu Gott bzw. den Gottern wahrnahm. Die Beitrage des Konferenzbandes stellen dar, welche Auffassungen hierzu in Altertum und Antike entwickelt wurden. Dabei reicht der Bogen von den fruhen Literaturen aus Agypten und Mesopotamien, Iran und Griechenland uber biblische, qumranische und antik-christliche Texte bis zu dem Werk Manis und dem Koran. So vermittelt der Band einen reprasentativen Eindruck von den Antworten der alten Welt auf eine Lebensfrage der Menschheit. Mit Beitragen von: Wilhelm Blumer, Devorah Dimant, Jan Dochhorn, Therese Fuhrer, Philip Kreyenbroek, Catherine Mittermeyer, Angelika Neuwirth, Bernd Schipper, Konrad Schmid, Markus Stein, Martin Tamcke, Ulrich Volp. (shrink)

Islamic civilization; civilization, Arab; Western influences.

There is a considerable scholarly discussion regarding how Islamic values influence CSR, but prior studies remain fragmented and scattered across several fields. This paper, therefore, aims to offer a more comprehensive understanding of the impacts of Islamic values on CSR by conducting a systematic literature review of 84 relevant publications from 1995 through 2020. The results of a thematic analysis show that there are four underlying themes to consider when explaining the influence of Islamic values (...) on CSR: (1) Islamic narratives promoting CSR, (2) Islam-based CSR, (3) Islamic financial institutions as enablers of CSR, and (4) stakeholders’ perspectives on how Islamic values influence CSR. This study contributes to the CSR literature by providing a systematic understanding of how Islamic values influence CSR and by identifying current challenges and promising directions for future exploration along this line of inquiry. (shrink)

Modernity believed that processes of secularization and rationalization are universally applicable. What is taking place in the 21st century, however, suggests that the reverse, a process of de-secularization, is becoming the hallmark of the present age. In the case of Islamic civilization, in which law is shari'a, the challenge to secularization takes the form of a process of shari'atization. This is not the traditional or inherited shari'a, restricted to civil matters and to a penal code, but an invented (...) shari'a, one which also claims to be a constitutional law. Moreover, the constructed shari'atized constitutional law, in conflict with secular constitutionalism and appearing to offer no middle way, has been universalized to engender an international conflict between secularization and de-secularization. Since, for most Muslims, Islam without shari'a is unthinkable, this article examines the potential for religious reform of the shari'a in the direction of cultural change, freedom and democratic constitutionalism. (shrink)

In the middle of the 17th century, Sheikh Wang Daiyu was one of China’s most famous Muslim scholars after Muhammad bin Abdullah bin Elias in China in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. and at a time when the sheikh lived, Islam in China was evolving progressively after it had had a weak presence, so Sheikh Wang Daiyu started writing books and scholarly articles in which he employed some Confucian terms... to explain Islamic ideas from the Holy Qur’an (...) and the Sunnah of the Prophet. He thus took upon himself the role of missionary caller to Islam, as well as the mission of spreading its culture by aiming to reconcile Confucian ideas with Islamic ones. The Sheikh systematically presented his ideas about the progress of Islam at that time in China. The present study mainly focuses on the biographical account of the Sheikh, on his scholarly and non-scholarly works, and on how he sought to reconcile Chinese culture with Islamic culture. We hereby seek to demonstrate that, during his time and owing to his efforts, Islam gained momentum in China, and that this momentum was achieved through the accommodative and integrating approach of Sheikh Wang Daiyu between the Arabo-Islamic culture and Chinese culture. Also, this study aims to get the world to understand China better, and thus musters the national advocacy of "Chinese storytelling" approach, in introducing the Chinese Muslim scholars who, for over a millennium, advocated Islam and strove to spread it and its culture, and, thus, we hope to draw attention to the contributions they have made within the national legacy of China. And in order to be able to conduct this research as fully as possible, we used the historical method and the analytical method, and the study is committed to covering and encapsulating the following: An examination of the Sheikh’s biographical account and his scholarly writings; A study of the challenges that Islam faced during his time; And an assessment of the Sheikh’s approach in fusing together Chinese and the Arabo-Islamic Civilizations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 117 of both. He is free to turn from things to their ideas, from objects to concepts. This turn is the soul's movement towards itself and the noetic. It is free from empirical reality; its reflections start from hypotheses making use of the sensible as symbol only. In this way it links the sensible to the intelligible and forces, so to speak, their relation to each other. (...) This type of life is conscious of itself as its own inner activity but it suffers from the dualities of its world and does not make the effort to transcend them. Thus it is "mixed," torn between good and bad and remains in time. To reach the "pure life" or consciousness of being, man has to abandon any relation to the sensible world. For man, as Plotinus says, participates in being, he is being. Real life is the life of the loges and of eternity and the noetic part of his soul reawakens his consciousness of these. When all "outer voices" are stilled, freed from the elements of perception, belief and reflection (dianoia), the soul follows the loges. In its ascent to Nous and the One dialectics is its helper and leads it to the insight that thought, life, and being are identical and that this identity is the lifegiving force to all else. The final aim and the highest experience of the soul is its union with the One. The means towards this are the soul's catharsis through the virtues, its fulfillment through science and knowledge, and its striving (eros) toward the beautiful and the Good. The wise man is the one who travels this, of necessity, solitary road. He alone has the strength and the will to turn all the powers of his soul into such intense noetic activity that what his soul once knew and forgot is restored to it in the vision of the identity of subject and object, of the beholder and what he beholds, of itself with the One. This is the mystic ecstasy, the unity of the human with the divine, which Plotinus describes as the "flight of the alone to the alone." It is life in truth and its highest bliss. Mr. Kostaras' look at the last of the great classical thinkers is a fruitful and refreshing one. By placing the concept of life at the center of Plotinus' thought, it seems to me, that he places man there also. All great philosophy starts from the life of man and after all its meanderings comes back to where it began. And since all systems are relative to certain purposes, is Plotinus' metaphysics a means towards helping man to find his true being? Is it a framework within which man is able to reach a degree of awareness undreamed of before in Greek philosophy, making it possible for him to experience the "eternal Now" within the succession of fleeting moments, to have an unclouded vision (theoria) of being in the midst of becoming, of the divine at the heart of the human? Once man has reached this experience, he is no longer in need of the metaphysical framework and the question of its objective validity becomes quite irrelevant. Mr. Kostaras does not commit himself to this view, but this reader wishes that he had. RIA STAVRIDES Temple Buell College Themes of Islamic Civilization. By John Alden Williams. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1971. Pp. viii+382. $11.75) There are few published anthologies on Islamic civilization. Most of the available books on this topic are straightforward descriptive analyses of the intellectual development of Islam; the majority of these books tend to be repetitious in content. What is unique, however, about J. A. Williams' Themes of Islamic Civilization is the methodological approach adopted by the author. The editor has compiled for the reader a number of essays, drawn from various Islamic writings such as history, philosophy, 118 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY jurisprudence, ethics, poetry. Most of the compiled essays have been carefully edited and well translated from Arabic into English for the first time. Also included in this reader are the editor's numerous commentaries which help to shed much light... (shrink)

Farabi defines “Ilm al-Hiyal” in Ihsa al-Ulum as “knowing a way by which, human can adjust all of the concepts that have been proved in mathematics with verification to exotic objects, and helps their states in exotic objects to be carried”. He believes this will be recognized and be attained by craft. This was the common view in Islamic wisdom and philosophy in third and fourth Hijra centuries. Researchers believe that the unique emphasis on parallelism between theoretical science and (...) practical work is an important feature of Baghdad school and affected Islamic visual culture. Baghdad school had been affected by translation. In this way, Ikhwan-al-Safa, whom wrote the first encyclopedia of science in Islamic culture, had a very efficient role. They devised geometry into intellectual and sensual ones in the second part of their book, al-Rasa-el, and considered intellectual geometry as one of the middle philosophy and recognition and understanding factor for meaning of sensual geometry evidences. They insisted on basic situation of intellectual geometry in guidance of whom, want to learn intellectual things from sensual ones. They knew intellectual geometry as the factor for requiring skill in scientific crafts, and sensual geometry as the factor of practical crafts, and made a vast relation between them. They also defined end of intellectual geometry understanding the base of all sciences and the main factor of wise, essence of self. Important feature of Ikhwan-al-Safa’s wisdom is omitting the gap between theory and practice, making a vast relation between them, which affected the meaning of crafts in Islamic culture, and rendered a spiritual feature to crafts and arts. It seems this relation has created the concept of traditional arts, and integrating wisdom and crafts in Iranian-Islamic culture constructed all of the Fotowat-Nam e. This article reviews the concept, which affiliates theory and practice in third and fourth centuries and has a deep effect on recognition of art and craft in Islamic culture. (shrink)

To assert that a 'clash of civilizations' follows inexorably from the different religious convictions at the foundations of Western Judeo-Christian and Arabic-Islamic cultures means to deny that a common political rationality can articulate genuinely universal, albeit culturally situated values. The eleven contributions to the present volume take up this controversy by challenging its premise that the heritage of classical Greek thought is exclusively part of Western political identity. By exploring the tradition of Platonism informing both Arabic-Islamic and Western (...) political thought and intellectual history in key stations in their history, the contributors show how Platonic political theory can still bear fruit in the present day, especially in the context of dialogue between cultures. (shrink)