M.A. / By means of a conditional clause al-Tawbah 9:24 implicitly states that love for the Prophet (pbuh) alongside love for Allah and ‘jihad in His way’ must be greater than affection for family and relatives, and attachment to worldly property and possessions. Various words and concepts, found in the said verse, have become the concern of commentaries (tafsirs) on the Qur’an. For the purpose of the dissertation, ten consecutive ancient tafsirs are selected. They are those of al-Ṭabarī (d.310/922), al-Thaʿlabī (d.427/1035), al-Wāḥidī (d.468/1075), al-Baghawī (d.516/1122), al-Zamakhsharī (d.538/1143), Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d.606/1209), al-Qurṭubī (d.671/1272), al-Baiḍāwī (d.685/1286), Ibn Kathīr (d.774/1372) and Abū al-Suʿūd (d.982/1574). They cover a period spanning approximately seven centuries. For each commentary an English translation is given as well as a general discussion. Authorities referred to are chronologically specified. The commentaries are compared with regard to three foci, namely reason for revelation (sabab al-nuzūl), lexical contributions and interpretative approaches. As far as reason for revelation is concerned, the tradition strongly points to Hijra and the conquest of Mecca as historical orientation. The dissertation however shows that traditional material clearly reflects pre- and post-Hijra situations. Tafsirs lexically comment upon words in a variety of ways: e.g. providing synonyms, offering closely related words, providing definitions, showing the etymological origin or presenting poems to support the meaning. The interpretative approach demonstrates a practical and legal interest among commentators (mufassirs) in the case of love for Allah and His Messenger (pbuh) and an endeavour to assert the importance of 'jihad’ as expression of love for Allah and His Messenger (pbuh) and an attempt to stress the historical situation and threatening nature of the verse.

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An analysis of contemporary trends in the education of Muslim children in the U.K. indicates that in the 1960s and 1970s there was a strong emphasis on meeting the special needs of Muslim children, but these needs were neither defined by the Muslim community nor based on any framework of Islamic values. More recently, some education providers have sought to respond at least to some Muslim demands, and a notion of accountability to the Muslim community is developing in some quarters. Accountability, however, implies rights, and rights are usually understood from within a liberal framework of values. On a liberal view, the rights of Muslim parents to bring up their children in their own religion and the rights of the Muslim community to educate Muslim children in keeping with distinctive Islamic beliefs and values are constrained by the claim that the autonomy of the child must be vouchsafed in any form of educational provision. There is clearly a deep-seated clash of values between Islam and liberalism. From a sketch of fundamental Islamic values, an Islamic view of education may be developed which is in disagreement with liberal education particularly on three points: the need for critical openness, the need for personal and moral autonomy and the need to negotiate a set of agreed values if any common educational system is to be achieved. The search for sufficient common ground between liberals and Muslims is unsuccessful because Muslims insist on building their education around a set of religious beliefs which liberals believe schoolsh ave no businesst o reinforce, while liberals offend Islamic principles by insisting that religious beliefs, like all beliefs, must always be considered challengeable and revisable and should therefore be presented to children in a way which respects the ultimate freedom of individuals to make choices for themselves. The only way out of this impasse in practice is for liberals to back down from their insistence on a common education for all children, and to accept that Muslims should be allowed their own denominational schools. The danger that the Muslim community may become isolated and socially vulnerable may be reduced through increased co-operation with other faith communities, especially Christians. The dissertation thus consists of three intertwining strands: multi-culturalism in educational policy; applied social philosophy, especially relating to rights and liberal education; and Islamic theology. It begins with an examination of contemporary practice, moves to an analysis of the issues and principles underlying that practice, and then finally returns to practice with recommendations made in the light of the preceding discussion.

This research project is focused on contemporary identity issues facing Muslim Mainlanders in Taiwan. Muslim Mainlanders are an ethnic subgroup of the Mainlanders who fled to Taiwan after the communist take-over of China. This project argues that multiple communal identities interact and are pragmatically used by Muslim Mainlanders depending on social context. Specifically, ethnicity, nationality and religion are identities which individuals understand according to unique social experiences. This research provides an opportunity to update the literature on the Islamic community in Taipei. The thesis argues that global processes are causing an Islamic revival. This transformation is occurring alongside the movement of Mainlanders to identify as Taiwanese. Both movements are nationalistic because they provide opportunities to move beyond a heritage which originates in China. Ce projet de recherche se concentre sur les questions d'identité auxquels est confrontée la Continentaux musulmans à Taiwan. Continentaux musulmans sont un sous-groupe ethnique des Continentaux qui ont fui à Taiwan après la prise de contrôle communiste de la Chine. Ce projet fait valoir que plusieurs identités communautaires interagissent et sont utilisés de façon pragmatique par Continentaux musulmans selon le contexte social. Plus précisément, l'origine ethnique, la nationalité et la religion sont des identités dont les individus comprennent selon les expériences sociales uniques. Cette recherche offre la possibilité de mettre à jour la documentation sur la communauté islamique à Taipei. La thèse soutient que les processus mondiaux sont à l'origine d'un renouveau islamique. Cette transformation se produit aux côtés du mouvement des Continentaux à s'identifier comme taiwanais. Les deux mouvements sont nationalistes, car ils offrent des possibilités d'aller au-delà d'un patrimoine qui est originaire de Chine.

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This research effort will analyze the level of female political participation within the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) before and after the January 25 revolution, and whether it has changed with the transformation of Egypt’s political climate, governing system and ruling elite. An assessment of the level of female participation within the MB and its political party will occur to determine which significant factors - such as governing regime, cultural influences, security issues - have attributed to the magnitude and level of the Muslim Sisters’ political exposure and electoral activities. More specifically, this research aims to ascertain if the Muslim Sisters experience their full rights as citizens under the leadership of the MB, and whether the MB’s willingness to nominate women is a step towards achieving equality or ‘complementarity’ within its ranks, or the process of fielding female candidates is nothing more than a “democratic façade.” Or is the issue more deeply rooted within the Egyptian, and predominantly Muslim, state and society, and its social norms and existing political structures? The historical context of post-colonial politics and the crisis of authoritarian secular politics will be reviewed as well, as it has contributed to the phenomenon of reinventing the rigid influence of tradition and religion.

The present study provides an understanding of how married, tertiary educated and employed Muslim females negotiate their identities across contexts within a multicultural environment, such as post-1994 contemporary Johannesburg. An additional facet of this study was to gain insight into the construction of Muslim female identity by the husbands of the women in the study. The commonly portrayed images of Muslim women are unflattering and ill-conceived and depict the Muslim woman as one who is veiled, oppressed, secluded and submissive. In South Africa however, Muslim women have been able to participate in secular education and employment opportunities and practice their religion within a democratic dispensation that is responsive to issues of gender. In order to obtain an understanding of the nuances that underpin Muslim female self-constructions and constructions by their husbands, the study was approached from a social constructionist epistemology. It is the assumption of the researcher that identities are thus in part created discursively, and for the purpose of this study, the constructions of identity of the participants were analysed using a discourse analysis methodology. Interviews were conducted with four Muslim couples. Social facets such as gender, race, religion and globalisation were used as topics in order to understand how participants constructed Muslim women’s identity. The Muslim women who participated in the study appear to inhabit different subject positions in their daily lives. The study highlighted that identity may not be fixed or stable, rather a function of relational or contextual positions. Both the women and men in this study emphasised an Islamic identification while distancing themselves from a cultural identification. The oppression of Muslim women was relegated to the realm of culture. In prioritising an Islamic identity the participants have created a space where they are able to construct an alternative identity for Muslim women that enables them these women the freedom to access secular spaces or what may be viewed as the public sphere of men.

In this narrative study, I explore the transformative visual cultural dialogue behind the sight of the veil or veiled women in Denton, Texas as a Western culture. The narrative is constructed from the experiences of three Western non-Muslim women participants who wore the veil publicly in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, especially Denton, Texas, for about two weeks, in the spring of 2014. The main question for this study is: How do veiled Western women incite transformative visual cultural dialogue and ideas concerning veiled women? To gather rich data to answer the study's question, I utilized qualitative narrative inquiry to explore the transformative dialogue that the veil, as a visual culture object, can incite in non-Muslim Western women's narratives. The study involves three participants who are non-Muslim American women who voluntarily wore the veil in public and recorded their own and other's reactions. The participants' interviews and diaries demonstrated that the veil incited a particular perceptive dialogue and often transferred negative meanings. For example, the sight of the veil suggested the notion of being Muslim, and consequently, the ideas of not belonging. The reactions the participants received were either negative verbal interactions or physical ones, both of which are limited in this study to face gestures or some form of negative body language that is meant to be a message of disliking. In summation, this study shows that the women's veil is a visual culture symbol that transfers negative meaning in the DFW area in Texas.