The politics of gender segregation and women's access to higher education in the Islamic Republic of Iran: the interplay of repression and resistance

One of the significant achievements of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been the increasing access of women to all levels of education. This paper focuses on women's access to higher education and its unexpected and paradoxical outcomes. Today women in Iran represent over 60% of university students at the undergraduate level. Against the dominant social imaginary of Muslim women, this paper explores how the contradictions and complexities of politics within the Islamic Republic impact women's lives and how women themselves have been able to bring gender justice to the core of Iranian politics.     

Shaping futures and feminisms: Qur’anic schools in West African francophone fiction

This article examines the representation of female education in Qur’anic schools in a selection of West African francophone novels. I argue that in being the earliest form of education for most Muslim women and also a neglected topic of scholarly interest, the Qur’anic school shapes their feminisms in more significant ways than has been acknowledged since scholarly attention to Islamic education in West Africa has mostly focused on the experience of boys in Qur’anic schools, and since theories on feminism in Islam have primarily articulated feminism as a politically oriented project. Using Islamic feminism as a disposition that is not always coterminous with activist objectives within the sociohistorical context of Islamic education in West African Muslim societies, this paper emphasizes the need to focus on forms of female literacy other than secular education.     

论回族文化中的佛教文化因素

在历史进程中,为了适应中国已有的文化格局,也为了伊斯兰教在中国的发展,回族对佛教文化中的某些“非典型性因素”进行了吸收和改造。回族对佛教文化的吸收,是在不违背伊斯兰教基本信仰的前提下,对中国传统文化的一种适应,也是伊斯兰教中国化的一种表现。     

伊斯兰原教旨主义起源探析

对当前国际局势影响巨大的伊斯兰原教旨主义，其出现与发展决非偶然，而是有着深刻的政治，经济和历史根源，中东各国在现代化进程中的问题与挫折使伊斯兰复兴主义全面兴起，原教旨主义对本土传统化和宗教价值观的高扬在伊斯兰世界有广泛的群众基础，同时，伊斯兰源教旨主义的兴起也是伊斯兰明受到西方明冲击从而产生对立冲突的结果和中东和平进程迟滞不前的产物，大国强权政治和霸权主义扩张导致了反抗外来压迫的民族激进主义潮流。     

‘We are equals’; datum or delusion: perceptions of Muslim women academics in three Malaysian universities

Islam underlines equality between women and men regarding their spiritual and intellectual potential. However, given interpretations of religious texts are often availed to suppress women in most Muslim societies, with serious implications for gender equality in the domestic and the professional spheres. This article draws on data from a study of Muslim women academics from three Malaysian universities to highlight the impact of dominant discourses on these women’s professional lives and their perceptions of gender equality, and discusses its implications for their professional journeys. The article argues that the feudal patriarchal structures of most Muslim societies, reinforced by vested interpretations of religious texts, validate a powerful discourse of male authority which contributes to the perception that submitting to male authority is a Muslim woman’s religious obligation. The seductive power of these discourses couched in religious authority influences the terms of their professional engagement and their conceptualisations and understanding of gender equality.     

A place for informal learning in teaching about religion: The story of an experienced non-Muslim teacher and her learning about Islam

Teacher learning about religion has remained an under-researched topic in spite of the professional accountability placed on teachers to teach about religion in a constitutionally permissible and pedagogically sound way. Using data collected from interviews, the purpose of this study is to describe and examine how and what an experienced Non-Muslim teacher of the world’s religions learned about Islam in today’s climate of accountability and negative imagery of Islam. The findings of this study suggest that informal learning through independent reading and interaction with a local Muslim community can be a means to enculturate teachers of world religions into ways of learning about Islam.     

试论伊斯兰教的产生与阿拉伯统一国家形成的关系

伊斯兰教的产生是７世纪阿拉伯半岛政治、经济发展的产物。它的诞生不仅以严格的一神信仰,结束了半岛分裂割据局面,而且还以宗教为纽带,将分散的阿拉伯诸部落统一成为强大的穆斯林国家,从而使默默无闻的阿拉伯人走向世界。伊斯兰教亦由半岛的民族宗教发展为今天的世界三大宗教之一。     

Conversion Anxieties in the Crown of Aragón in the Later Middle Ages

The conversion of Christians to Islam caused significant anxiety in the Crown of Aragón in the later middle ages. Some of this fear was caused by genuine concern over the eternal salvation of the convert, but there were other reasons as well. This article looks at three distinct causes that served to foster and maintain this fear of conversion. First, Christian authorities sometimes purposefully used the spectre of Christians converting to Islam to galvanise support for some of their political, diplomatic, and military initiatives. Secondly, apostates posed a significant spiritual danger to those Christians who lived as minorities in Muslim regions. Finally, converts presented a danger to the Crown of Aragón from a practical and military point of view.     

Challenging Authority: Al-Balādhurī and al-Ṭabarī on Khārijism during the Reign of Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān1

ABSTRACT

Khārijite resistance to Umayyad authority during the caliphate of Mu?āwiya b. Abī Sufyān (r. 661–680) is represented in detail in the works of the early Muslim scholars A?mad b. Ya?yā al-Balādhurī (d. c. 892) and Mu?ammad b. Jarīr al-?abarī (d. 923). While the Khārijites are overwhelmingly depicted by both authors as religious fanatics whose excessive piety caused widespread bloodshed and who thus should be condemned, a closer look reveals that Khārijites serve specific and distinct narrative purposes: al-Balādhurī uses them mainly to illustrate Umayyad tyranny, while al-?abarī addresses the consequences of Khārijite revolts for communal and imperial stability. The latter's work is also marked by a dichotomy between activist and quietist Khārijism, implying that al-?abarī is not so much opposed to Khārijism as a set of “heretic” religious ideas, but rather to its violent expression of politico-religious opposition.     

Behind the Curve: Bulliet and Conversion to Islam in al-Andalus Revisited

This article seeks primarily to call for a reappraisal of Richard Bulliet's well-known “curve of conversion” and of its interpretation, for it has been largely misinterpreted. It is argued, with particular reference to the Christian experience in al-Andalus, that reading the data as Bulliet intended could have a significant effect on how we view the historical process of conversion in the early Islamic world. Thus, since Bulliet's data do not support the prevailing view regarding Christianity's survival under Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula, it is proposed that the evidence available in the particularly weak historical record for this period and place is enough to warrant reconsideration of the nature and length of that survival.