Imam Muhammad al-Husayn al-Kashif al-Ghita (1294-Dhu al-Qi'dah 18, 1373/1877-July 19, 1954), an Iraqi Shi'ah distinguished marji' (highest authority in the Shi'ah religious hierarchy), was the first marji' who introduced religious reforms in the hawzah, the traditional Shi'ah religious school at Najaf. He also introduced political reforms in Iraq, demanding political rights for the Shi'is. Moreover, he was the first Muslim who succeeded in achieving reconciliation between the Sunnis and the Shi'is. He became the symbol of Islamic unity. This dissertation proposes to discuss and analyze the contribution of Imam Kashif al-Ghita to Shi'ah thought and the impact of his thought on Shi'ism and the Shi'is. This study is divided into four chapters. The first is about the life and works of Kashif al-Ghita. The second chapter deals with the development of Twelver Shi'ism and the hawzah, because Twelver Shi'ism has been in constant development within the context of the school. The third chapter discusses the role of Imam Kashif al-Ghita in the hawzah of Najaf (1344-1373/1925-1954) and his distinctive marji'iyyah, which was sharply different from that of his contemporaries. I will also discuss the roots of conflict between him and the conservative 'ulama, who had considerable power in the school. The fourth chapter discusses the social ideas of Shaykh Kashif al-Ghita as an Islamic thinker and social reformist. I will examine his views on the means of social reform and his point of view on different social issues, such as man, religion, ethics, and Islamic ethical covenant, and his special advice to the Arabs. This chapter also discusses the views of Kashif al-Ghita on the economy and his ideas about the role of woman in society. His views on politics in general and his role as an active religious leader will be analyzed in addition to this political reforms. I will examine his ideas on Islamic unity, and his position regarding Middle Eastern political issues.

The Ammonites were an ancient people who rose to become an important local kingdom on the Central Transjordanian plateau (Ammon) during the Iron Age (ca. 1200-550 BCE). By combining analysis of archaeological and textual materials, this study traces their development from a semi-nomadic tribal people into one of the region's first small-scale states. Beyond tracing their development, this study explores possible causes for the rise of the Iron Age states of ancient Palestine, such as Ammon. The key cause of this initial rise of states was the disruption of a long standing relationship between the tribal countryside, and the less kin-based urban centers, that was characterized by alternating periods of cooperation and conflict--oscillations described by Alexander Joffe in his 1993 study as "generation, resolution, and regeneration of contradiction between the rural and urban entities that occupied this region." The source of this disruption was external; after Egypt assumed control of Palestine during the Late Bronze Age, they initiated a policy of taxation and corvee that precipitated a final break between the local urban authorities and their subjects both in the towns and in the rural countryside. The tribal sub-structure that always existed among these people enabled them to form coalitions in the hinterlands (generally mountainous areas) that, in turn, facilitated their ability to support themselves and mount an effective campaign of resistance to the oppressive urban authorities. This resistance could take either an active (military) or passive (avoidance) form. After the local urban entities finally collapsed at the end of the Late Bronze Age, these tribal coalitions formed the foundation of a new type of polity--the Iron Age tribal kingdom of Palestine. Ammon, in the relative safety of the more distant central Transjordan highlands, was one of the first of these kingdoms to emerge.

The objective of this paper will be to demonstrate in what ways medieval women (the upper-class women) of the Middle East made themselves visible and wielded influence or power over affairs of the state. Because of the limiting aspect of the thesis, the area that I will discuss will be limited both in geography and time. This paper will concentrate on the eastern area of the Islamic world from approximately the eighth century to the thirteenth century. The main body of the paper will deal with this time period. However, first, I will need to discuss the situation of women before Islam, Islam's rise and the changes it brought to women in the early years of its existence. And then I will cover Islam's spread into other areas, how it changed there, and thus how women were able to exert their influence within the framework of these changes.

<p> My dissertation studies the uses of the notion of archive in post-war contemporary art practices around the Lebanese Civil Wars (1975-1990). After the wars, a group of artists from Lebanon began to collect data and produce documents that referenced the traces and memories of the conflict. These compilations metamorphosed into aesthetic projects that took archival-like forms. In this dissertation, I discuss the archival works of Walid Raad, Paola Yacoub/Michel Lasserre, Gilbert Hage, Jalal Toufic, Joanna Hadjithomas/Khalil Joreige, Lamia Joreige, Akram Zaatari, Rasha Salti/Ziad Antar and Marwan Rechmaoui. </p><p> This boom of art practices around memory and archives in Lebanon has opposed the politics of amnesia sponsored by the Lebanese state through the Amnesty Law of 1991. Post-war artists, however, have addressed this official amnesia not by seeking to reconstruct the historical facts and recover the real documentation of the wars; instead, they have activated the memories of the wars by exploring the very destruction of these memories. These artists have produced and at the same time deconstructed archives by assembling fragmented, fabricated, para-fictional, and decontextualized collections of photographs, videos, and everyday materials. I describe these practices as <i>ar(t)chive production</i> (or <i>archives-in-the-making</i>). </p><p> While the notion of archive is common in modern and contemporary art regarding trauma and memory, my hypothesis is that the archival works of these Lebanese artists are shaped by the new structural context of global war. Most European models of archive pursue a recovery of memory against the destruction in the total wars of the twentieth century, particularly exemplified by the artworks about the Holocaust. By contrast, the practices on the Lebanese Civil Wars engage in the logic of constructive destruction of what Carlo Galli has theorized as global war. Within this logic, violence is both destructive and productive. In this respect, instead of opposing the official amnesia by reviving the memories of the wars, the post-war Lebanese artists reflect on amnesia by showing the construction of the past by means of its own destruction.</p><p>

To the visitor, Istanbul, Turkey is flush with food. But food supply and access to food can be unrelated. Socioeconomic, demographic and development data suggest food security problems for a significant portion of the population. After World War II, migrants to Istanbul from Anatolia who built house gardens within their original squatter settlements (gecekondus) have sold their lands or turned them into apartments. Similarly, only fragments of the traditional network of commercial, intensive urban gardens ( bostans) in Istanbul remain. In addition, the expanding system of European style supermarkets and commercial production in the global marketplace are changing the traditional urban food networks built around such institutions as the neighborhood bazaar. To begin to understand the shifting components of Istanbul's food system, information from numerous sources was gathered and analyzed. The main field data of my research are interviews with Istanbul farmers and residents; interviews with government officials, academics, and professionals; official and unofficial statistics from governments and associations; and surveys. Supplementary information is from Turkish newspaper sources, library materials, and various books and maps. Through kinship relations, labor mobility, the availability of formal and informal economic and transportation networks and the persistence of small, family farms nationwide, food security in Istanbul is supported by food individually and communally transferred from the countryside. Subsistence agricultural production across rural Turkey appears to play a vital role in feeding the urban population through informal food delivery and distribution channels. Thus, despite reductions in rural populations and appearances that rural and agricultural communities are declining, their productivity may be as important as ever. With their emphases on resource use, adaptation, consideration of multiple scales, and the exercise of local agency within structures of power and wealth, political and cultural ecology provide perspectives from which to meaningfully analyze food security needs and practices in Istanbul. Such a framework is enhanced by contributions from research in food systems and food security. Time centered tactics, exchange entitlements and food accessibility within the city cannot be understood apart from its relationship to the countryside.

Since the late nineteenth century, modern Palestinian resistance poetry has been an expression of the Palestinian peoples' national culture and their historical struggle for self-determination and a homeland. This study examines Palestinian resistance poetry written during the ten year period following the June War of 1967, which tripled the land area of the state of Israel. English translations of three prominent Palestinian poets: Fadw a T uq an, Mahm ud Darwish, and Samih al-Q asim, are preceded by commentaries on the history of Palestinian poetry prior to 1967, and on the post-1967 occupation of Palestine. The poetry is analyzed according to four themes: the identity theme, the wound theme, the freedom fighters, and woman's place. Through the study of Palestinian resistance poetry in its historical context, the reader may develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between Palestinian national culture and the struggle for a homeland.

This dissertation has sought to illuminate the characters of Richard the Lion Heart and Salah Ad-Din Al-Ayyubi (Saladin), and the meaning of chivalry as a concept in Western history, through a comparative "parallel biography" of the two men. It is hoped that this parallel biography of the two most notable figures of the crusading era further illuminates the crusading movement and the encounter of the Western and Islamic worlds in Syria from the end of the eleventh through the end of the thirteenth centuries. / Chapter one examines the childhood, the adulthood, society and the career of Richard I prior to his departure on the third crusade. / Chapter two focuses on the childhood, the adulthood, and society of Salah Ad-Din Al-Ayyubi. Attention is given to his career in the years before he directed his principal energies against the Franks in Syria. / Chapter three examines the Battle of Hittin, which sealed the fate of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem and ultimately of the crusading cause as a whole. Emphasis is placed upon the developments that led up the battle, and the subsequent course of the war that led to the fall of Jerusalem and other inland Christian strongholds. / Chapter four focuses on the political and military encounter of Richard I and Saladin in the third crusade, which resulted in the achievement of Saladin's key objectives, and the departure of Richard from Syria without regaining Jerusalem nor restoring the Frankish position in Syria to a viable condition. / Chapter five discusses the evolution of the images of Richard and Saladin between the twelfth century and the present day. The development of the writing on these two legends shows that with the familiarity of Richard in the West, Saladin has remained in the popular western imagination as one of the most familiar of all Muslim historical figures and a model of moderation, mercy and values of chivalry. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-08, Section: A, page: 3162. / Major Professor: Paul Strait. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1993.

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<p> Since the beginning of the twentieth century, Pentecostalism has started to reshape global Christianity. Many scholars argue that Pentecostalism, including its different waves of renewal, is the world&rsquo;s fastest-growing movement. Numerous studies were dedicated during the previous decades to examining the spread and characteristics of Pentecostalism in different countries around the world. Nevertheless, little attention has been given to Pentecostalism in Egypt. </p><p> This dissertation examines Egyptian Pentecostalism. It presents a historical perspective on Pentecostalism in Egypt and offers a theological analysis of various movements and waves of Egyptian Pentecostalism. Taking into consideration plurality in the Egyptian society, this study situates different permutations of Egyptian Pentecostalism within a wider sociocultural and religious context. Through the examination of Egyptian Pentecostalism, this dissertation fills a notable gap in Pentecostal scholarship and contributes to the historical and theological understanding of global Pentecostalism. </p><p>

The role of British officials from the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in the Military Administration of British-occupied Palestine during and after World War I is examined. Particular focus is given to the administrative structures, personnel, and concerns faced by this Occupied Enemy Territory Administration. Emphasis is placed upon the officers themselves, their backgrounds and their political and administrative functions in Palestine, out of which precedents were established for subsequent British, Jewish, and non-Jewish relationships in the region. Consideration is also given to Britain's overall political interest in the region, and the changes in Britain's political emphasis regarding the Middle East which occurred in the immediate postwar period. / While the focus of the study is on Palestine, it begins with a brief look at British involvement in Egypt and the Sudan before World War I. The role of British officials in Cairo and Khartoum as architects of Britain's postwar policy for a "Middle Eastern Empire" is then examined. After the capture of Jerusalem, many of them were posted to Palestine. Their subsequent role in creating the basic structures and policies for the Military Administration is considered at length. Anglo-Egyptian Sudanese influence is reflected in the areas of personnel, expectations, initiatives and prejudices. The increasingly close relationship of Palestine to the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, in spite of attempts by London to prevent it, is also traced. By late 1919, with officials in Palestine still working for realization of wartime policies by then abandoned by London, confrontation was inevitable; the resulting collapse of the Military Administration is followed. Lastly, the ways in which Anglo-Egyptian Sudanese influence continued into the Mandate and later periods are identified. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-03, Section: A, page: 0927. / Major Professor: Peter P. Garretson. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.