Thesis--Wisconsin. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 197-204).

<p>The present thesis deals with Qur'anic Studies among Turkish immigrants inSweden. The aim is to investigate the significance of Qur'anic Studies forMuslims in a country like Sweden. This thesis also highlights the role ofthe Turkish state in encouraging and funding Qur'anic Studies in Sweden.I have carried out a case study on a Mosque outside Stockholm, where anImam, sent by the Turkish government, is in charge of the Qur'anic Studies.It is found that Qur'anic Studies is important for Muslims in Sweden in theirefforts to preserve their religious identity. The results also indicate thatQur'anic Studies also has an ideological dimension insofar as it is a meansfor Islamic governments, groups and individuals to further the interests of political Islam.</p>

The present thesis deals with Qur'anic Studies among Turkish immigrants inSweden. The aim is to investigate the significance of Qur'anic Studies forMuslims in a country like Sweden. This thesis also highlights the role ofthe Turkish state in encouraging and funding Qur'anic Studies in Sweden.I have carried out a case study on a Mosque outside Stockholm, where anImam, sent by the Turkish government, is in charge of the Qur'anic Studies.It is found that Qur'anic Studies is important for Muslims in Sweden in theirefforts to preserve their religious identity. The results also indicate thatQur'anic Studies also has an ideological dimension insofar as it is a meansfor Islamic governments, groups and individuals to further the interests of political Islam.

The gathered texts and letters from Ali Ibn Abi Talib, found in the book Nahjul Balagha,constitute one of the most important writings of Shiite Islam, next the hadits and the Quran.Imam Ali´s ethics and moral approach in Nahjul Balagha, is considered by imam Ali, to beseen as a guideline for both individual purposes as for any kind of governance. The esotericteachings, about truth and justice in Nahjul Balagha, should therefore probably have been of agreat concern to Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic revolution.This essay will from an deductive approach, on a relatively contemporary historic event, try toanalyze Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini´s interpreting on imam Ali´s texts and preaching inNahjul Balagha. The Islamic revolution, as the Islamic Republic of Iran, led by AyatollahKhomeini, was confirmed as both brutal and violent. My ambition in this essay, will there forconcern a possible interpreting on justice and political rule, from Ayatollah Khomeini and theIslamic Republic of Iran, on imam Ali´s teachings in Nahjul Balagha.

As the Twelver Shi'a coalesced into an increasingly distinct community between the 10th and 12th centuries CE, a new type of religious literature emerged. Writers began to collect narratives of the lives and deaths of the twelve infallible imams into single works. This study analyzes these early works, which have served as a template for similar Shi`i compilations written in the centuries since. The goal of this analysis is to shed light on how the historical narratives of a given community emerge in relationship to the ways in which that community construes religious meaning. I focus on five formative Arabic works from this period: [1] <italic>Ithbat al-wasiya</italic> attributed to al-Mas'udi; (d. 345/956); [2] <italic>Kitab al-irshad</italic> by al-Mufid (d. 413/1022); [3] <italic>Dala'il al-imama</italic> attributed to Ibn Jarir (d. early 5th/11th c.); [4] <italic>I'lam al-wara'</italic> by al-Tabrisi; (d. 548/1154); and [5] <italic>Manaqib Al Abi Talib</italic> by Ibn Shahrashub (d. 588/1192). As the first study to isolate and analyze collective biographies of the imams, this dissertation discusses unique structural and thematic patterns in these early works that were related to the concerns of the writers' community--patterns that helped produce generic expectations that remain in place to the present day. Grouping these texts into one genre allows us to better discern the religious vision upheld by this literature. My analysis begins with birth narratives, showing how these symbolic and fantastic stories highlight concrete and practical concerns of the writers. Second, I explore the importance of the imams' bodies, which function as sites of both intense devotion and great anxiety. The final two chapters explain the many and varied forms of betrayal suffered by the imams in relationship to the pervasive social grievances that are a subtext to the biographies. The memory of the imams cultivated in this literature and the emotional sensibilities projected through it provide insight into how systems of meaning are constructed. The Shi'i community used this literature to stake religious claims on the cosmic meaning and the eternal relevance of all aspects of the imams' lives, claims that made remembering their stories of critical importance.

Translation teaching touches upon many issues that demand investigation and discussion in detail. This thesis examines the teaching of translation at undergraduate level in Saudi Arabia through a study of the programmes in language and translation being offered by some Saudi Universities. Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University is taken as an example. The aim is to identify some of the problems inherent in translation teaching to suggest strategies for improvement of these programmes. The following approach was adopted: (a) a thorough study of the existing programme, (b) two questionnaires personally administered to the teachers and students and ( c) identification of the main translation problems by analysing more than 1500 translations produced by the students from nine source texts. The thesis consists of six chapters, the first of which is an introduction. The second chapter is devoted to reviewing some related literature on aspects of translation teaching, such as university training, the ideal translator, the ideal translation teacher, the curriculum content of a translation teaching programme and an overview of translation teaching models. The third chapter is a study of the existing programme at Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University. The opinions of teachers and students on the programme at the University are analysed in Chapter four. Chapter five discusses the main problems revealed by the students' translations of the given texts, including: (I) comprehension problems of words, phrases, idioms and fixed expressions, and sentences, (2) problems of rendering at the lexical, syntactic, discourse and stylistic levels, and (3) problems related to reproducing and re-expressing texts in Arabic. Chapter six deals with suggestions and recommendations and concludes the study.

<p>Syftet med föreliggande uppsats är att studera tre svenska imamers syn på hur sharia ska förstås, tolkas och tillämpas i Sverige. Vi utgår från aktuell forskning och litteratur i ämnet. I uppsatsens teoretiska bakgrund presenteras begreppet sharia som muslimsk lag, levnadsregler och personlig moral. Förhållandet mellan sharia och nationell lagstiftning diskuteras med hjälp av exempel från olika länder. Dessutom beskrivs förhållandet mellan sharia och den svenska lagstiftningen. Empirin i uppsatsen består av kvalitativa intervjuer med tre svenska imamer. De tre imamerna är överens om att sharia är viktigt eftersom det styr människans handlingar, som i sin tur påverkar livet efter döden. Sharia ska enligt respondenterna förstås som en oföränderlig lag med gudomligt ursprung. De är dock överens om att sharia måste tolkas, både av den enskilda muslimen och av religiöst lärda. Vidare menar alla imamerna att sharia ska tillämpas på ett sådant sätt att föreskrifterna till viss del anpassas till det land man bor i. Imamerna anser att sharia i stor utsträckning går att förena med svensk lagstiftning, även om det finns enstaka områden där sharia kolliderar med svensk lag. En slutsats är att samtliga respondenter kan sägas förespråka en modernistisk tolkning av sharia där den gudomliga lagen ligger till grund för en lagstiftning som samtidigt anpassas efter var man befinner sig. Imamerna menar också att sharia i sin helhet endast kan införas i ett perfekt muslimskt samhälle.</p>

Syftet med föreliggande uppsats är att studera tre svenska imamers syn på hur sharia ska förstås, tolkas och tillämpas i Sverige. Vi utgår från aktuell forskning och litteratur i ämnet. I uppsatsens teoretiska bakgrund presenteras begreppet sharia som muslimsk lag, levnadsregler och personlig moral. Förhållandet mellan sharia och nationell lagstiftning diskuteras med hjälp av exempel från olika länder. Dessutom beskrivs förhållandet mellan sharia och den svenska lagstiftningen. Empirin i uppsatsen består av kvalitativa intervjuer med tre svenska imamer. De tre imamerna är överens om att sharia är viktigt eftersom det styr människans handlingar, som i sin tur påverkar livet efter döden. Sharia ska enligt respondenterna förstås som en oföränderlig lag med gudomligt ursprung. De är dock överens om att sharia måste tolkas, både av den enskilda muslimen och av religiöst lärda. Vidare menar alla imamerna att sharia ska tillämpas på ett sådant sätt att föreskrifterna till viss del anpassas till det land man bor i. Imamerna anser att sharia i stor utsträckning går att förena med svensk lagstiftning, även om det finns enstaka områden där sharia kolliderar med svensk lag. En slutsats är att samtliga respondenter kan sägas förespråka en modernistisk tolkning av sharia där den gudomliga lagen ligger till grund för en lagstiftning som samtidigt anpassas efter var man befinner sig. Imamerna menar också att sharia i sin helhet endast kan införas i ett perfekt muslimskt samhälle.

A slight abbreviation of the author's Habilitationsschrift Ruhr-Universität, Bochum, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [414]-446) and index.

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