<p>This essay is about uncovered women's faith and worship in an urban setting in contemporary Turkey. It researches the possibility of any common factors for uncovered Sunni Muslims' faith and worship as well as what parts of classical Muslim faith they have found negotiable. The essay relates to current literature and research on the topic as well as provides an insider perspective based on interviews with Turkish women.</p>

This essay is about uncovered women's faith and worship in an urban setting in contemporary Turkey. It researches the possibility of any common factors for uncovered Sunni Muslims' faith and worship as well as what parts of classical Muslim faith they have found negotiable. The essay relates to current literature and research on the topic as well as provides an insider perspective based on interviews with Turkish women.

This essay has focused on the presentation of shia-islam in textbooks. It is a study of textbooks for lower secondary school and has analysed three different textbooks. The essay looks into what the textbooks and its authors writes about shia-islam and what information they leave out. The essay studies previous research on Islam in textbooks and other textbook studies. It focuses also on shia-islam as a whole and provides a description of various elements of shia-islam that are not present in the textbooks. Elements such as the shia-islams pillars of faith and the role of the imams in shia. These elements of shia-islam are elements of such nature that they could have been a part of the textbook since they differ from the sunni-islam point of view. These parts of islam are presented in the textbooks but solely from the sunni-muslim perspective. The essay analyses the textbook in form and content and conclude what difficulties the description of shia-islam offers.

Scholars of Islamic history have long recognized the fascinating transition of Sufism from a loose set of distinct tendencies in the third/ninth centuries, to a self-conscious movement which, by the beginning of the sixth/twelfth century, had entered into the mainstream and began to pervade all levels of society. Many have sought to explain the developments in the interim between the third/ninth and sixth/twelfth centuries which resulted in the eventual popularization of Sufism by the end of that period. It is known that instrumental to this process was the rising prominence of the so-called awliyā’ Allāh (“Friends of God”) who before long, were primarily identified with masters of the Ṣūfī path. Given the integration of Sufism into mainstream Sunnī Islam, Sunnī theology came to adopt the miracles of the Friends as markers of sainthood (wilāyah). My project seeks a more comprehensive understanding of how this took place, and the challenges that presented against this development. To this end, this project explores the debates on the Friends and their miracles between two opposing camps, the emerging Sunnī-Ṣūfī majority in contradistinction to the Muʿtazilah. I adopt a combination of textual, source-critical, and contextual approaches to Sunnī and Muʿtazilī writings on sainthood from the third/ninth to the fifth/eleventh century and place these sources in conversation with one another to better understand the stakes involved. This project also highlights the discursive nature of the Islamic tradition, with Muslim writers dynamically acting and reacting to one another, and to their social environments, in their attempts to define the boundaries of Islamic thought. / Religion

The aim of this study is to examine how two Sunni Muslim social media influencers depict and represent Shia Islam through their YouTube videos. To aid the research two questions were formulated:  1. How are Shia Islam and Shia Muslims represented by Imran Ibn Mansur and Mohammed Hijab? 2. How can these representations be interpreted according to the theory of Othering? To answer the questions and the purpose of this study a qualitative method of argumentative analysis was used. Their display of Shia Islam is examined according to Edward Said’s theory of Othering together with discourse analysis. A table was also used to organize the statements and arguments that were used by the influencers. The interpretations of the influencers’ discourse also studied how it can affect young Muslims’ views on Shia Islam. Their YouTube comments are used to back up the influencers’ claims and argument about Shia Islam. The study shows that Ibn Mansur’s view of Shia Islam is based on the Salafist school of thought, where he believes Shia Muslims are non-Muslims and apostates. Hijab’s view of Shia Islam differs in the sense it is not as extreme as Ibn Mansur but still amplifies the general and questionable view of Shias as being the “Other” foreign and deviant followers of Islam. Their respective view of Shia Islam was widely supported by their viewers, who were sharing strong opinionated statements about the Shias. This study shows that Ibn Mansur’s and Hijab’s views and presentations of Shia Islam and Shia Muslims are very critical, even hostile, which could enhance young Muslims’ view of Shia Islam as an inadequate and unreliable branch of Islam, and in some cases a religion separate from Islam.

IDEOLOGICAL AMBIVALANCE OF MOTHERHOOD IN THE CASE OF &ldquo / MOTHERS OF MARTYRS&rdquo / IN TURKEY Gedik, Esra M.S. Department of Political Science and Public Administration Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sibel Kalaycioglu Co-Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Cem Deveci February 2008, 169 pages The main objective of this thesis is to understand how mothers who lost their sons during the conflicts in East and Southeast of Turkey articulate martyrdom of their sons with nationalism, religion and motherhood / how these women who lost their sons, as a woman and a mother define and express themselves and their experiences after martyrdom. Before their sons are martyrized, these women were ordinary housewives, with the death of their sons, they get a new identity: being a mother of a martyr. In this thesis, it is examined that what being a mother of a martyr means for these women. Moreover, this study attempts to examine certain perceptions and assumptions of these women about nationalism, the state, religion, war and peace after martyrdom. For this aim, this study is based on interviews with mothers who do not realize that they virtually live in a war, on motherhood, war, politics, and peace. Therefore, this research is the study to grasp how discourses of nationalism and religion shape this new identity: being a mother of a martyr. While these women were ordinary housewives before martyrdom, after their sons&rsquo / death, their narratives as mothers of martyrs are cultivated by discourses of nationalism and religion. Consequently, is it possible for these mothers to develop an anti-war discourse as happened for examples in the world?

This paper has two purposes. The first one is to explain the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia by analyzing four cases which has brought about and consolidated their power struggle. This gives the reader a historic background of the two countries relations, underlying reasons for their rivalry and a greater picture of their interests in the Middle East. It also leads up to the second purpose, which is to in depth examine Iran and Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy in Yemen, the latest conflict between the two countries. The papers research design is a qualitative case study with realism as its theoretical framework. The paper concludes that the Iranian revolution set off the rivalry due to Iran’s willingness to export its revolution and its Shia ideology to neighboring countries in the region. Saudi Arabia’s support to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War helped contain Iran’s hegemonic ambitions and made Saudi Arabia the most dominant power in the Middle East. In Syria, Iran has a lot at stake if the regime falls, which is why Saudi Arabia is trying to topple Bashar Al-Assad. The execution of Nimr al-Nimr further deteriorated tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia. in Yemen, Iran seeks to expand its power to the Arabian Peninsula, whereas Saudi Arabia seeks to push out Iranian influence and regain its dominance.

The aim of this study was to critically explore the constructions of Muslim identities in selected Black African American popular music composed before and after the 11th of September 2001. This study is interdisciplinary because it used popular culture theories developed by Hall, Strinati, Storey and Gilroy’s concept of the Black Atlantic. Postcolonial literary theories of Bhabha, Spivak and Fanon were also used. The study demonstrated that the content and style of the lyrics by Public Enemy, Talib Kweli, Paris, Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West, Scarface, Miss Eliot, Missundastood, Erykah Badu and KRS-One have been influenced by Islam’s religious versions of the Nation of Islam, Five Percenters or Nation of Gods and Earths and Sunny Islam. Individual singers also manipulated the spiritual symbols and cultural resources made available to them in the Islam religion. Black African American singers more or less share common historical experiences, but they constructed and depicted Muslim identities differently because of their class, generational and gender backgrounds. Chapter one introduced the area of study, justified it and adopted an eclectic theoretical approach in order to account for the diverse constructions of Muslim identities in the songs composed by black African American hip hop singers. Chapter two provided an extended review of literature for the study. Chapter three explored the influence of the Nation of Islam on the singers and its creative manipulation by the black singers. Chapter four explored religious hybridity because the lyrics draw from Islam and Christian eschatological values. Chapter five used lyrics by three black female singers and revealed how they reconfigured differently, Black Muslim identities in a musical industry predominantly patronised by male singers. Chapter six explored the use of language in signifying different meanings of Muslim-ness in order to arrive at different definitions of pan Black Islamic musical consciousness. Chapter seven concluded the study by summarising the central argument of the study which was that black African American singers have referenced cultural symbols from Islam and in the process manipulated Islam’s religious metaphors to suggest different and alternative models for the black communities in the United States of America. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil.

The aim of this study was to critically explore the constructions of Muslim identities in selected Black African American popular music composed before and after the 11th of September 2001. This study is interdisciplinary because it used popular culture theories developed by Hall, Strinati, Storey and Gilroy’s concept of the Black Atlantic. Postcolonial literary theories of Bhabha, Spivak and Fanon were also used. The study demonstrated that the content and style of the lyrics by Public Enemy, Talib Kweli, Paris, Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West, Scarface, Miss Eliot, Missundastood, Erykah Badu and KRS-One have been influenced by Islam’s religious versions of the Nation of Islam, Five Percenters or Nation of Gods and Earths and Sunny Islam. Individual singers also manipulated the spiritual symbols and cultural resources made available to them in the Islam religion. Black African American singers more or less share common historical experiences, but they constructed and depicted Muslim identities differently because of their class, generational and gender backgrounds. Chapter one introduced the area of study, justified it and adopted an eclectic theoretical approach in order to account for the diverse constructions of Muslim identities in the songs composed by black African American hip hop singers. Chapter two provided an extended review of literature for the study. Chapter three explored the influence of the Nation of Islam on the singers and its creative manipulation by the black singers. Chapter four explored religious hybridity because the lyrics draw from Islam and Christian eschatological values. Chapter five used lyrics by three black female singers and revealed how they reconfigured differently, Black Muslim identities in a musical industry predominantly patronised by male singers. Chapter six explored the use of language in signifying different meanings of Muslim-ness in order to arrive at different definitions of pan Black Islamic musical consciousness. Chapter seven concluded the study by summarising the central argument of the study which was that black African American singers have referenced cultural symbols from Islam and in the process manipulated Islam’s religious metaphors to suggest different and alternative models for the black communities in the United States of America. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil.