Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1982. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 765-779).

Followers of three world religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are waiting for the Messiah. Muslims are even waiting for aspiritual leader al-Mahdi. Two different persons claimed the title of al-Mahdi, at the end of the nineteenth century. Theyappeared almost at the same time, at the totally different places of the earth, with a completely different message and underthe rule of the British colonial power. The aim of the study is to compare the both religious figures, Mirza Ghulam Ahmadfrom India and Muhammad Ahmad from Sudan regarding their different messages, to illustrate the social, political andreligious factors that lead to the entirely different profile and image of these two men and how their organizations havedeveloped after their death up till today. The result shows that the Sudanese Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad claimed hisMahdiship in the year 1881. He became a political leader in a time when Sudan was under the rule of a colonial power. Hetook advantage of the religion for personal purposes and tried to liberate his native country Sudan. The contemporaryMuslim clergy criticized him for his claim because the content of the Hadith traditions did not support his claim ofMahdiship. He maintained his sole right for the interpretation of religion and of the laws of Sharia. He made changes even inthe chief pillars of Islam by asserting that Jehad with sword was more imperative than the pilgrimage journey to Mecca. Heasserted that the Prophet Muhammad himself had entrusted him to launch the holy war against the non-believers. He hadimmense ambitions which were never fulfilled since he suddenly died four years after his claim for Mahdiship, in June 1885.This day his followers are organized as a political party in Sudan with a modest roll in the Sudanese politics. The IndianMahdi Mirza Ghulam Ahmad claimed in 1889 to be Mahdi, Mujaddid, Muhaddas, Messiah and a Prophet at a time of socialand political peace, though Islam as a religion was firmly pushed by the Hindu and Christian missionaries. He had no politicalambitions at all and was utterly loyal to the British colonial power. His mission was to crush the Cross and to demonstrateIslam’s excellence over all the religions of the world through overwhelming arguments. He proclaimed that Jesus was humanand a Prophet and not the son of God. Jesus survived from the cross and died a natural death after he had lived for manyyears. Ahmad claimed that God had commanded him to put stop to the religious wars. The contemporary Muslim clergyblamed him for being an imposter, melancholic and hypochondriac who had self invented the divine revelations. He died year1908, nineteen years after his claim and the communion he found is established today in more than hundred countries of theworld. Reasons for the breakdown of mission of the Sudanese Mahdi were that his objectives were political and he challengedthe colonial power with the sword. Another decisive factor was his sudden death merely four years after the beginning of hismission. Reasons for the success of Indian Mahdi were that his objectives were purely religious and he was wholly loyal to theforeign government. He survived nineteen years after the beginning of his mission which made it possible for him to create acommunion based on solid grounds. His followers continued on the same path and never engaged in local politics where everthey lived. For further studies it will be of great interest to study the life of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and objectively examine thearguments he presented in support of his divine appointment. Furthermore it is enriching to study the organization andactivities of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community to explore if they are in accordance with the basic principles of Ahmad.

This thesis examines a selection of verses taken from the Urdu divan of Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib. Ghalib is considered by many to be the preeminent writer of the classical Urdu ghazal (circa 1750-1850). Although the examination is restricted to Ghalib's verse, the problem it investigates is broader in nature and involves questions which some aspects of the ghazal raise with respect to the reader's involvement. An essential feature of the ghazal form is the fact that, although the ghazal poem consists of a set of couplets, each couplet of a ghazal is itself a complete text with respect to its content The question, then, is "how does the reader become involved in a form limited to two lines of text?" This thesis discusses the question from a narratological perspective: the couplet involves the reader by telling a story. The narrative of the couplet differs from what one normally thinks of as narrative in that the significance of its plot is derived, not from a series of episodes arranged in chronological order, but from a thematic continuity which links couplet to couplet within the tradition as a whole. The world of the ghazal is inhabited by a few characters, the principal being the lover and the beloved, whose behaviour and attitudes are determined largely by a set of well-defined conventions. The characters who appear in the individual couplet are already familiar from the dramas to which these characters have been subjected in previous readings of other couplets. However, unlike the characters in a traditional novel whose histories connect a great variety of events within a chronological framework, the couplet is extremely limited in term of the number of chronological connections it can establish. The depiction of time in the ghazal is radically different from the often elaborate histories presented in forms such as the novel. The world of the ghazal is merely suggested. Consequently, the reader's role in reconstructing the world of the text is of particular importance in compact forms such as that of the ghazal. The contention of this thesis is that the restrictions imposed by the couplet on plot structure has been compensated for by the cultivation of a narrative style in the ghazal text which often forces the reader to become aware of the process of discovering the drama of the text. The first chapter begins with an introduction to the thesis, and is followed by an introduction to the formal features of the ghazal text and some of the important themes of the tradition. The second chapter presents a review of critical writings in English on the Urdu ghazal. The third chapter presents a discussion of methodology. In this chapter I use Peter Rabinowitz' analysis of the reader's beliefs in my attempt to define what I mean by the reader's involvement in the world of the text. According to Rabinowitz, a fictional work invites its reader to pretend that its plot is a historical account, even though the reader knows that the world of the text is imaginary. To account for the reader's dual role, Rabinowitz divides the reader's beliefs into what he calls the "authorial audience" and the narrative audience." Briefly, the authorial audience can be viewed as the competent reader, the one who possesses the required knowledge to understand the text, to decipher its allusions, but who knows the world of the text is a fiction. The narrative audience sees the fictional text as a description of events that "really" happened. My investigation of the reader's attempt to discover the world of the text is from the point of view of the narrative audience. The third chapter attempts to apply Rabinowitz' views to some general features of the plot structure in the ghazal text. The fourth and final chapter examines the ways in which the ghazal text forces the reader to become aware of the process of discovering the world of the text. / Arts, Faculty of / Asian Studies, Department of / Graduate

This thesis examines the Persian ghazal poetry of Mirza Ghalib. It does so in the light of the corpus of critical literature in Urdu, Persian, and English that concerns both the poetry of Ghalib as well as the poetry of the so-called “Indian Style” of Persian poetry. Poems by Ghalib and his literary forebears, including Fighani, Naziri, ‘Urfi, Zuhuri, Sa’ib, and Bedil are offered in translation; critical commentary follows each text. The thesis explicates the ways in which each of these authors engaged in an intertextual dialogue, here called javaab-go’ii, or appropriative response-writing, with his forebears, and argues that the dynamics of this intertextual dialogue contribute significantly to the poetry’s aesthetics. These “aesthetics of appropriation” are discussed, analyzed, and evaluated both in the light of Ghalib’s writings on literary influence and Persian poetics, as well as in the light of the aforementioned corpus of critical literature. / text

Ni80Fe20 and Ni80Fe20/NiO films and nano-stripes were characterized magnetically through AC and DC susceptibility measurements, and hysteresis loops as a function of field and temperature. While the near-pattern films were characterized in the in-plane configuration only, the nano-stripes were characterized in parallel, transverse and the perpendicular field configurations. The effects of the constrained geometry on the coercivity, exchange bias field, and the superparamagnetic blocking temperature were studied. It was determined that the coercivity, exchange bias field and the superparamagnetic blocking temperature can be controlled, not only by using a patterned media instead of a plane film, but also by the orientation of that pattern.

Ni80Fe20 and Ni80Fe20/NiO films and nano-stripes were characterized magnetically through AC and DC susceptibility measurements, and hysteresis loops as a function of field and temperature. While the near-pattern films were characterized in the in-plane configuration only, the nano-stripes were characterized in parallel, transverse and the perpendicular field configurations. The effects of the constrained geometry on the coercivity, exchange bias field, and the superparamagnetic blocking temperature were studied. It was determined that the coercivity, exchange bias field and the superparamagnetic blocking temperature can be controlled, not only by using a patterned media instead of a plane film, but also by the orientation of that pattern.