In this project, I contribute to ongoing debates regarding proper conceptions of “political Islam” or “Islamism” by bringing greater attention to the roles that Islamic mysticism, or Ṣūfism (taṣawwuf), has played in shaping theories and practices of virtue and character formation in Islamist movements. I do so by undertaking a genealogical study of the discourse concerning the practice of “commanding right and forbidding wrong” in classical Islamic thought as well as in that of modern Sunnī Islamism. Figures such as medieval scholarly giant al-Ghazālī (d. 505/111), Ḥasan al-Bannāʾ (d. 1949), founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Saʿīd Ḥawwa (d. 1989), a leading thinker of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, and ʿAbd al-Salam Yassine (d. 2012), who established the Moroccan Justice and Spirituality Association, all appropriated the discourse of commanding and forbidding in differing ways and for differing reasons to put forward activist visions of Islam; however, they all stressed the need for spiritual and ethical formation (tarbīya) and relied on Ṣūfism to accomplish this. Attention to the ways in which this “Ghazalian” tradition of Islamist thought and practice adopted Ṣūfī organizational structures and models of ethical formation challenges conceptual frameworks which have described Islamist groups primarily as products of modernity or as political ideologies. Additionally, study of this Ṣūfi-centric Islamist tradition offers a contrast to scholarship which has focused almost exclusively on Islamism’s exoteric scripturalism and fixation on the law. Such insights are crucial when attempting to understand and engage Islamist actors for purposes ranging from scholarly enquiry to cross-cultural understanding to policy formulation. / A Dissertation submitted to the in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the 2017. / Spring Semester 2017. / March 20, 2017. / al-Banna, al-Ghazali, Islamist activism, Sufism, virtue ethics / Includes bibliographical references. / John Kelsay, Professor Directing Dissertation; Jeffrey Ayala Milligan, University Representative; Helen Boyle, Committee Member; Sumner B. Twiss, Committee Member; Adam Gaiser, Committee Member.

Muslims in Morocco and across the globe practice a form of healing and exorcism known as al-ruqya al-shar‘iyya. The primary technique in this system of healing consists of Qur’anic recitation. In order to understand the role of the Qur’an as a healing object, this project examines the history of Qur’anic healing, classification of disease in al-ruqya al-shar‘iyya, the steps of Qur’anic operations, and the development of healing networks. Drawing from ethnographic research conducted primarily in Fez, Morocco, I demonstrate that the Qur’an has material agency. Specifically, the Qur’an acts upon human and social bodies in order to heal them from a series of occult infections. I investigate the role of revelatory speech in Muslim societies and its relationship to individual human bodies. This investigation reveals not only information about how Muslims use the Qur’an in their daily lives, but also information about the relationship between the experience of human illness and a wider social environment. Al-ruqya al-shar‘iyya offers a book as a solution to these trials and tribulations. In the process, however, this system of healing demonstrates that the Qur’an in Muslim societies is a book that transcends both sound and page. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2019. / March 13, 2019. / Al-ruqya Al-shar'iyya, Islam, Morocco, Qur'an / Includes bibliographical references. / Adam Gaiser, Professor Directing Dissertation; Trevor Luke, University Representative; Joseph Hellweg, Committee Member; John Kelsay, Committee Member.

Robert Douglas was a Church of Christ missionary to Libya, Egypt, and Lebanon during the 1960s. Traveling during this period introduced Douglas to the reality of post-colonial context of the countries. He and his family lived as foreigners and missionaries in these countries, interacting with the American oil industry in Libya, Egyptian and Arab nationalism, and the impact of the Cold War on the Arab World. Although Douglas did not notice the Cold War around him, it impacted his time there in important ways. In all his travels, the United States and the Soviet Union struggled to gain influence over the young countries in which he resided. His religiosity encouraged him to travel to these countries under false pretenses. In Libya he could come in as a preacher to the American and British oil workers in Benghazi, but desired to be a missionary, while in Egypt he and his family came in as tourists and had to renew these visas but created a steady congregation of converts through missionary efforts. Both actions were illegal, due to laws in Libya and Egypt, and these laws led to the retraction of he and his family’s visas. He made his way to Lebanon where he constructed a missions’ school for recent converts. The Six Days’ War led to his leaving Lebanon and returning to the United States. Upon his return, he attended Fuller Seminary and the University of Southern California and became regarded as an expert in Muslim-aimed evangelism among Protestant evangelicals. His career challenges standard missionary narratives through his independent missionary activities, highlights American understandings and misconceptions of Islam, and the reality of the Cold War in the Middle East. All of this makes his journey into a historical narrative to challenge and address the larger macrohistories for American Christian missionaries abroad. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Spring Semester 2019. / April 12, 2019. / Christianity, Cold War, Islam, Missionary, Modernity, Nationalism / Includes bibliographical references. / Will Hanley, Professor Directing Thesis; Nilay Ozok Gundogan, Committee Member; Catherine Elisabeth McClive, Committee Member.

Thesis (M.A. in Security Studies (Homeland Security and Defense))--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2006. / Thesis Advisor(s): Christopher Bellavita. "March 2006." Includes bibliographical references (p.95-100). Also available online.

Thesis (M. A.)--University of Canterbury, 2008. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-158). Also available via the World Wide Web.

In 1918, Serbs, Croats and Slovenes established a kingdom called "Yugoslavia." Serbs were considering this state as the state of Serbs. Bosnia Hercegovina's community or political powers did not help the establishment of Yugoslavia. The official ideology considered Muslims as the heir of the Ottoman occupiers in the Balkans. In the first Yugoslavia, Bosnian Muslims were under pressure and they were attacked by Serbs who had the official support of the administration. In time those attacks turned into ethnic cleansing. Bosnian Muslims were pushed out of the government bureaucracy and their lands.

In the context of my involvement with the CASHSS Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities’ research programme, I chose Ghazali’s autobiography, and in particular his “crisis of indecision,” as an example of a pre-modern negotiation of the boundaries of religion at the micro level. The research programme suggests employing the analytical concept of secularity to investigate both non-Western and pre-modern forms of secularity, in terms of conceptual distinctions and institutional differentiations between religious and non-religious social spheres. In this essay, I would like to propose a method of pursuing these goals from my own theoretical perspective. More specifically, I will argue that in Ghazali’s reflections on spiritual religiosity, theology, philosophy and science, we can discern the individual engagement of a prominent Muslim thinker with emerging communicative realms. In the Modern Systems Theory of Niklas Luhmann, these realms are taken to represent functionally differentiated subsystems of modern society.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Despite the fact that Islam remains a powerful social force in the lives of many of its adherents, contemporary scholars lament the silence of Muslims on the environmental question. However, closer scrutiny reveals a burgeoning green movement amongst Muslims the world over. While scholarly works initially elucidated the scriptural basis for Islamic ecological ethics (ecoethics), efforts are now centred on translating the ecoethics of Islam into practice. The educational landscape of Islam is frequently put forward as the primary arena for imparting its ecological teachings. This thesis examines the connections between Islam, ecology and education, and investigates the revival of Islamic ecoethics by way of environmental education in the educational landscape of Islam broadly, and the maktab in particular. The maktab, the foundational educational establishment in Islam, remains underutilised despite its important place in the educational life of Muslims. A liberation ecotheology research framework was employed to display the richness of traditional resources and institutions in meeting contemporary environmental challenges. Through a conceptual analysis of sacred texts, traditions and contemporary thought on Islam, ecology and education, this thesis constructs an eco-justice ethic of Islam and draws out the pedagogical implications for implementing this ecoethic. Content analysis, of environmental education activities in the broader educational landscape of Islam, provides insights into environmental teaching and learning. Environmental education in the maktab, which plays a pivotal role in imparting the elementary teachings and values of Islam, is brought into focus by way of a curriculum review which examines the environmental elements encapsulated in two maktab curricula produced in South Africa. Implications for environmental teaching and learning in the maktab, are then extracted. This thesis affirms the important position of religious thought as a determiner of environmental action. It presents, from within a liberatory tradition of Islam, a theocentric eco-justice ethic which is based on the sovereignty of God, the responsible trusteeship of humankind and the intrinsic value of Creation. It puts forward an activist, transformative approach to environmental education, premised upon an integrated knowledge structure and educational objectives which require reflective and critical engagement with all ecological knowledge, responsible environmental action, and social transformation. And it proposes a transformative approach to environmental education to bring the liberatory intent of the Islamic environmental tradition into focus, both in the broader educational landscape of Islam, as well as the maktab. Muslims own a fair share of the global concern around the earth’s health and wellbeing. To varying degrees, they continue to draw upon religious teachings to shape their values, beliefs and attitudes towards life - including the environment. Revitalizing ecological ethics in the educational establishment of Islam provides an impetus to not only uncover Islam’s environmental tradition, but to affect Muslim awareness and action on the ecological question. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Ondanks die feit dat Islam ‘n sosiale krag in die lewens van baie van sy aanhangers is, beklaag hedendaagse geleerdes die stilte van Muslims op die omgewings-vraag. Nadere ondersoek toon egter ‘n ontluikende groen beweging onder Muslims die wêreld oor. Terwyl navorsing tot dusver die skriftuurlike basis vir die Islamitiese ekologiese etiek (ekoetiek) verklaar, is pogings nou gevestig op die omskepping van hierdie ekoetiek in die praktyk. Die opvoedkundige landskap van Islam is dikwels na vore gebring as die primêre arena vir die oordra van sy ekologiese leerstellings. Hierdie tesis ondervra die verband tussen Islam, ekologie en opvoeding, en ondersoek die herlewing van die Islamitiese ekoetiek deur middel van omgewingsopvoeding in die opvoedkundige landskap van Islam in die algemeen, en die maktab in die besonder. Die maktab, die belangrikste grondlegging-stigting in Islam, bly onderbenut ten spyte van sy belangrike plek in die opvoedkundige lewe van Muslims. ‘n Bevrydings-ekoteologie navorsing raamwerk was in diens geneem om die rykdom van die tradisionele middele en instellings van die Islamietise ekoetiek na vore te bring. Deur middel van ‘n konseptuele analise van heilige tekste, tradisies en hedendaagse denke oor Islam, ekologie en opvoeding, bou hierdie tesis ‘n ekogeregtigheids etiek van Islam, en ontrek die pedagogiese implikasies vir die uitvoering van hierdie ekoetiek. Inhoud analise van omgewingsopvoedingaktiwiteite in die breër opvoedkundige landskap van Islam bied verder insigte tot omgewingsopvoeding praktyke aan. Omgewingsopvoeding in die maktab, wat ‘n belangrike rol speel in die oordra van die basiese leerstellings en waardes van Islam, is by wyse van kurrikulum-hersiening ondersoek. Hierdie hersiening ondersoek die omgewings-elemente vervat in twee maktab kurrikulums wat in Suid-Afrika geproduseer is. Implikasies vir omgewingsopvoeding in die maktab word dan ontrek. Hierdie tesis bevestig die belangrike posisie van godsdienstige denke as ‘n bepaling van omgewings-aksie. Dit bied, binne ‘n bevreiheids-tradisie in Islam, ‘n teosentriese eko-geregtigheids etiek aan wat baseer is op die opperheerskap van God, die verantwoordelike herderskap van mensdom en die innerlike waarde van die skepping. Dit poneer ‘n transformatiewe benadering tot omgewingsopevoeding wat berus op ‘n geïntegreerde kennis struktuur en opvoedkundige doelwitte wat reflektiewe en kritiese omgang met ekologiese kennis vereis; verantwoordelike omgewings-aksie; en sosiale transformasie. Dit bied ook aan dat die Islamitiese omgewings-tradisie deur middel van ‘n transformatiewe benadering tot omgewingsopvoeding, beide in die breër opvoedkundige landskap van Islam sowel as die maktab, na vore gebring kan word. Muslims besit ‘n groot deel van die wêreldwye besorgdheid oor die aarde se gesondheid en welstand. Tot wisselende grade, gaan hulle voort om hulle waardes, oortuigings en houdings teenoor die lewe, insluitend die omgewing, op godsdienstige leerstellinge te baseer. Om nuwe lewe in die ekologiese etiek van Islam in die opvoedkundige vestiging te blaas, bied ‘n geleentheid aan om nie net Islam se omgewings-tradisie te ontbloot nie, maar ook om die bewustheid en optrede van Muslims op die ekologiese vraag te beïnvloed.