This thesis sets out to provide what is perceived as the nature of Islam and background that inform the interpretation of the two novels ofMariama Ba as well as that of selected works by fellow Muslim writer, N awal El-Saadawi. Although the question of gender is carefully addressed, the principal viewpoint is Islamic theocratic rather than purely feminist. This study surveys the struggle of these two women writers to claim public space in a dominant patriarchal society. It examines the socio-political conditions affecting women in the Arab peninsula before the rise of Islam, also called Jahiliyyah, from Islam's inception (622 AD). It notes that the principle of equality of all the believers was established by the injunction in the Qur'an, and endorsed by Muhammad, the Prophet, after whose death, manipulation of the sacred texts, especially of the Hadiths, took place. This led to opposition to gender equality; while fitna (civil war) in Medina, led the Prophet to re-institute the hijablveil, in order to protect women from being sexually harassed. The significance of the hijab is then explored, and Fatima Mernissi's text Women and Islam (1987; 1992) is used as seminal to the argument that the hijab was not instituted to put a barrier between men and women. The question of how the Islamic tradition succeeded in transforming the Muslim woman into a submissive, marginal creature, one who once buried herself behind a veil, is considered in the light of feminist theory and practice in both the Third and Arab worlds as well as in terms of the postcolonial notion of 'writing back'. The works of Ba and El-Saadawi, chosen for discussion in this thesis, examine these common issues, and underscore the entitlement of women to equality. The proposition, that Muslim women talk/write back, is epitomized in Ramatoulaye's forceful wordsuttered after thirty years of silence and harassment: 'This time I shall speak out' (So Long a Letter, 1980; 1989: 58). This study also shows that both Ba and El-Saadawi (by employing the journalisme-verite approach) move beyond gender and cultural issues to explore the universal nature of man and woman, and that in accordance with Muslim theocracy, these writers ultimately advocate the notion of redemption through humanity, coincidentally expressed in the Wolofproverb: 'Man, man is his own remedy!' (Scarlet Song, 1981; 1994: 165). Furthermore, within the context of these concerns, a few speculative remarks on the likely future ofMuslim women in the Arab and African world are made, arguing that had Ba's life not been cut short so tragically, it is reasonable to suppose that she would, like ElSaadawi, have continued to advocate a holistic, healthy Muslim society, in which the humane treatment of women would prevail. Finally, in terms of the title Beyond the veil: Muslim women write back, an attempt has been made to show how both Ba and El-Saadawi strive by 'writing back' to move 'beyond' the veil, speaking out on behalf of fellow Muslim women in Africa. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 1999. / gm2014 / English / unrestricted

In this paper I research healing rituals in Morocco, their functioning and their socio-cultural context. The main attention is focused on night possession ritual (lila) of three mystical brotherho- ods - sufi tariqas ʿIsāwa, Hamadsha, and the Gnāwa brotherhood. Most of the members of the lat- ter are descendants of former black slaves, and their culture has a strong heritage of "black" Africa's cults - especially a very specific way of "working" with spirits. The essence of lila ritual lies in the (not always explicitly admitted) harmonization of relation with the possessing spirit. This possession is a kind of a cultural metaphor for signifying a number of mental and psychosomatic problems, which stem from tensions, created by socio-cultural pat- terns in Muslim society (above all the husband-father dominance in the family). During my fieldwork research in Morocco (2016) I collected ethnographic material from the rituals of the three above mentioned brotherhoods, which I present in my thesis and which I compare with substantial secondary literature for each of the brotherhoods. What becomes apparent is how these brotherhoods influence each other in terms of the pantheon of invoked spirits or in terms of musical and kinetic forms of the ritual. A research question resounds throughout the thesis:...

In this paper I give biographical sketches of a thirteen century Egyptian poet, best known as al- Busiri, the original composer of Kasidatul Burdah in Arabic and the Swahili translator of the said epic best known as Sheikh Muhammad Mshela, from Shela in Lamu, Kenya. Kasidatul Burdah (The Mantle Ode) or Kasida ya Burudai, in Swahili, is the most famous qasida in the Muslim world. I transcribed this qasida from Arabic to Roman script and analysed it (wa Mutiso 1996). My intention is to show how these poets share the same world view concerning Sufism and Islamic culture in particular

Katika makala hii nitazungumzia tarehe na kazi za al-Busiri mshairi wa kisufii maarufu katika fasihi ya kiislamu na ambaye baadhi ya kazi zake zimetarjumiwa kwa Kiswahili. Mojawapo ya kazi hizi ni Kasida ya Hamziyyah, ambayo ni maarufu sana hususa kwa Kiswahili cha zamani kiitwacho Kingozi. Kazi yake ya pili mashuhuri sana ni Kasida ya Burudai, kasida ambayo ndiyo maarufu zaidi katika ulimwengu wa kiislamu. Mshairi huyu ingawa ni mashuhuri, ni mgeni sana kwa wasomi wengi wa fasihi ya Kiswahili.

Abdullah Shah (1680-1757) was the birth name of the boy who would later become one of the most eminent Sufi poets of South Asia, and the master of Sufi lyrics in Punjabi—Bulleh Shah. Living during times of strife and major conflict between the Sikhs and the crumbling Mughal Empire, Bulleh Shah wrote poetry with an underlying humanist and tolerant philosophy that challenged the turmoil of his times. Blind to the bounds of religion and caste in an increasingly divided India, Bullah’s spiritual philosophy and his message of equality found voice in his kafis—a genre of poetry indigenous to the Indian subcontinent that can be seen as a form of folk ballad. This project offers translations of 15 kafis from his identifiable corpus, preceded by a substantial introductionFurthermore, the project is accompanied. Each kafi is presented in three translations—literal, functional, and oral. The selected kafis draw on the three dominant themes in his work—Ishq, rebellion, and freedom. Scans of the original kafis in Shahmuki script Punjabi have been provided. Furthermore, the project is accompanied by an interpretive composition of the translated kafi “What Times, What Strange Times,” which was a collaboration between the author of the thesis, Akshaya Tucker, and Jacob Scharfman.

This research examines the effects of a daily, ritualistic, intentional practice of Sufi meditation Tamarzok, Sufi Zikr and art making in the life of a female art therapist graduate student, in a transitional professional and developmental stage of life. The general psychology and art therapy literature were examined to look at contemporary understanding in the integration of spirituality and art in mental health. A lack of information in the art therapy literature prompted the interest in the development of this study to respond to this inquiry. This art-centered research informed by a heuristic, phenomenological, dialectical inquiry of self-examination, encompassed the practice of Sufi Zikr and Sufi meditation Tamarkoz as understood from the perspective of the Sufi Order Maktab Tarighat Oveyssi Shahmaghsoudi School of Islamic Sufism, followed by art making as a way of documenting and contextualizing the qualities of the internal and external emotional landscapes to uncover themes and broaden self-knowledge in the support and enhancement of growth and well-being. The data was analyzed by looking at emergent themes. Conclusions drawn aligned the combined practices of art making and spirituality to that of a relational home where the Self and all parts of the psyche can coexist and contextualized for meanings to emerge and healing to take place. The findings of this inquiry were in overall alignment with the reviewed art therapy literature; gaps in the reviewed literature were noted in the exploration of the somatic component of the practice of art making as it relates to healing. Further research is warranted to expand and explore the data and the uncovered areas.

This thesis follows Quṭb al‐Dīn al‐Shīrāzī (d. 1311), a brilliant and influential polymath, through the eighty years of his long life and focuses on him navigating changing environments in the Persianate Mongol world (i.e., the second half of the thirteenth century to the early decades of the fourteenth century). In order to retrace his life, this study draws extensively on contemporary chronicles, biographical dictionaries, autobiographies, hagiographies, and some of his own manuscripts to illuminate parts of his life unknown before. Through that, this thesis illustrates Quṭb al‐Dīn al‐Shīrāzī’s intellectual, political, and religious networks, with special attention to his patrons. Moreover, even though his fame in the modern world is primarily due to his astronomical treatises as part of the Maragha school, my thesis demonstrates his investment in medicine, Sufism, and religious sciences, including jurisprudence, Qurʼān interpretations, and ḥadīth studies. Hence, Quṭb al-Dīn is an example of an intellectual in the Ilkhanid realm who developed informal networks transcending political, linguistic, and genre boundaries, that spanned an area from the western fringes of Anatolia to Khorasan, through bustling late medieval metropolises such as Shiraz, Sivas, Konya, Baghdad, Cairo, Tabriz, and Maragha.

Principe spirituel pour Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī (1165-1240) et archétype universel pour Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), le Féminin est au centre de cette recherche où il sera étudié sous l’angle de l’expérience mystique dont il est un médian incontournable. L’accent sera mis surtout sur le rapport entre le Féminin comme principe ou archétype et l’expérience mystique tel qu’ils s’articulent chez nos deux penseurs tant dans leur vécu personnel que sur le plan de leurs élaborations théoriques. Elle consiste, pour éviter tout anachronisme, davantage en un dialogue d’idées qu’une comparaison de la pensée du maitre soufi andalou avec celle du psychanalyste moderne suisse. C’est à ce premier niveau d’analyse, où le Féminin et le Masculin forment une androgynie primordiale, que leurs pensées se rejoignent de manière significative. Les deux penseurs reconnaissant au Féminin en particulier une fonction transcendantale qui s’accomplit à travers une prédisposition à l’établissement d’une relation avec le monde subtil de l’Esprit qui s’enracine soit dans une tradition religieuse donnée, l’islam dans le cas d’Ibn ʿArabī, ou d’une analyse thérapeutique aux allures néanmoins mystiques dans le cas de Jung. L’expérience du Féminin chez nos deux penseurs révèle un rapport différencié quant à la nature et à la forme de l’expérience spirituelle qui est son support d’expression. Leurs conceptions se distinguent aussi sur la question de Dieu (transcendant ou immanent) dont la rencontre est perçue comme la finalité vers laquelle tend la dynamique transformatrice de la personnalité qu’implique ce cheminement initiatique qu’induit la rencontre du Féminin spirituel. Avant de réaliser cette ultime et unificatrice rencontre, il faut d’abord rencontrer et entrer en relation avec ce Féminin comme figure d’une altérité intérieure et extérieure en vue de dépasser le dualisme primaire où les humains sont embourbés tant individuellement que collectivement. C’est sur ce point en particulier que l’étude montre des convergences signifiantes, qui révèlent, d’un côté, le lien transversal qu’il y a entre le soufisme et la psychologie analytique et de l’autre les aspects implicites d‘une psychologie des profondeurs nichant en arrière-plan de la mystique akbarienne. Cette ébauche de dialogue, opérée dans une approche interdisciplinaire, révèle certes des postures épistémologiques très différentes, mais aussi une convergence de vue tacite jusque-là et que la méthode de la phénoménologie herméneutique retenue pour ce travail de maitrise a éclairé d’un nouveau jour. C’est dans cet esprit qu’elle peut ouvrir de nouvelles pistes de réflexion à nos sociétés contemporaines prises avec une crise de sens et de perte de repères identitaires inquiétante. Le sous-bassement de cette crise est une vision dualiste de la femme et de l’homme, et corollairement d’une division binaire entre nature et culture, au lieu de saisir leur nécessaire et paradoxale complémentarité qui doit se réaliser en premier lieu en chaque être humain. / A spiritual principle for Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī (1165-1240) and a universal archetype for Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), the Feminine is at the center of this research, where it will be studied from the perspective of the mystical experience of which it is an inescapable mediator. The emphasis will be on the relationship between the Feminine as a principle or archetype and the mystical experience as articulated by our two thinkers in their personal experience as well as in their theoretical elaborations. It consists, to avoid any anachronism, more of a dialogue of ideas than a comparison of the thought of the Andalusian Sufi master with that of the modern Swiss psychoanalyst. It is at this first level of analysis, where the Feminine and the Masculine form a primordial androgyny that their thoughts meet in a significant way. Both thinkers in fact recognize in the Feminine a transcendental function that is fulfilled through a predisposition to establish a relationship with the subtle world of Spirit that is rooted either in a given religious tradition-Islam in the case of Ibn ʿArabī or of a therapeutic analysis with nonetheless mystical overtones in the case of Jung. The experience of the Feminine in our two thinkers reveals a differentiated relationship as to the nature and form of the spiritual experience that is its medium of expression. Their conceptions also differ on the question of God (transcendent or immanent) whose meeting is perceived as the finality towards which tends the transforming dynamics of the personality that implies this initiatory path that induces the meeting of the spiritual Feminine. Before realizing this ultimate and unifying encounter, one must first meet and relate to this Feminine figure of inner and outer otherness in order to overcome the primary dualism in which humans are mired both individually and collectively. It is on this point in particular that the study shows significant convergences, which reveal, on the one hand, the link between Sufism and analytical psychology; and on the other hand, the "deep psychological" aspects of Akbarian mysticism. This draft dialogue, carried out in an interdisciplinary approach, certainly reveals very different epistemological postures, but also a convergence of views implicit until then and which the method of hermeneutic phenomenology chosen for this master's thesis has shed new light on. It is in this spirit that it can open up new avenues of reflection for our contemporary societies caught up in a disturbing crisis of meaning and loss of identity markers. The underpinning of this crisis is a dualistic vision of woman and man, and consequently of a binary division between nature and culture, instead of grasping their necessary and paradoxical complementarity which must be realized first and foremost in each human being.

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La présente étude résulte d’une synthèse approfondie de plusieurs approches visant à cerner les différents sens et aspects de la retraite spirituelle (khalwa) dans l’Islam. Dans un premier temps, une étude historico-linguistique du terme et de ses définitions a été réalisée pour montrer la manière qui a permis de le comparer puis le différencier de ses synonymes ou pseudo-synonymes. Par la suite, une réflexion sur les origines et les tous débuts de la pratique spirituelle a fait l’objet de notre recherche, suivie d’une description des règles énoncées dans les manuels destinés aux murîd(s) qui dans l’ensemble, sont au nombre de vingt six. D’autre part, nous avons tenté d’énumérer les mérites de cette pratique à travers un recensement de ses utilités et de ses vertus. Par ailleurs, dans la deuxième partie de ce présent travail, une étude comparative entre les pratiques des anciens et celles de nos contemporains a été menée à travers une enquête au cœur de certaines voies mystiques, plus particulièrement, la cAlawiyya et la Naqshbandiyya. Par conséquent, les résultats apportés ont permis un éclairage ainsi qu’une meilleure connaissance sur le vécu actuel des mystiques, pratiquant la khalwa dans la région Nord-ouest de l’Algérie ainsi que dans d’autres pays occidentaux comme le Canada, les États-Unis, la Suisse et la France. / The present study was undertaken to deepen evaluate the different senses and aspects of the spiritual practice widely known as *Khalwa* within Islam. This was firstly investigated by an historical and a linguistic study of the term and its definitions. This approach allowed in particular, to understand how the term could be distinguished and differentiated by the synonyms and pseudo-synonyms. In the second part of this research, a serious thought on the origins and the beginning of the practice was undertaken, followed by a clear description of the rules as determined in different manuals which were addressed to murîd(s). Furthermore, we tried in this study to clarify and enumerate the merits of this spiritual practice through a census of its advantages and benefits. Interestingly, a comparative study between the old and current practices has contributed to enrich widely our research through several mystical ways, such as the cAlawiyya and Naqshbandiyya. In conclusion, our findings might allow a better understanding of the mystical ways applied in the practices of the *khalwa* not only in the Ouest-North of Algeria, but in others countries like Canada, United-States, Switherland and France.