This essay examines how young Muslims, with connection to the coalition Sveriges Unga Muslimer, handle their Muslim identity. The essay examines strategies the young Muslims use in the meeting with the Swedish society and how they construct a functioning and secure identity. Six Muslim youths, who were members of two local associations connected to SUM, were interviewed. The results of this essay showed that democratic rights and liberties, a Muslim community and a self-constructed identity, freed from the stereotype media picture, are important in the development of a functioning and secure Swedish Muslim identity. The young Muslims in the study did not handle their identity in a conservative way, by way of isolation. Neither did they use a secular strategy, where they completely adapt to Swedish society. Instead these young Muslims have succeeded in finding a path between isolation and assimilation, a path where they consider themselves faithful to Islam and at the same time interact in a functioning way with their Swedish surroundings and actively participate in the society as self-assured Swedish citizens. Thus the young Muslims used a third type of strategy in their meeting with a western society. They also seemed to have constructed a sort of new European interpretation of Islam, a so-called euro-Islam.

The first volume of Histoire de la Turquie published in 1854 by the French writer Alphonse de Lamartine, is entirely dedicated to the life of Prophet Muhammed. This book raises issues which deserve to be examined in the light of Orientalism (1978) by Edward Said, who criticized the persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture. That is the main purpose of this study. Based on the premise that the character of Muhammed is portrayed posi-tively by Lamartine, we hypothesized that Histoire de la Turquie is a coun-terexample to the thesis of Said. In other words, rather than participating in the discourse of orientalism (the dominant discourse of West), this book marks a break from it by subverting the traditional image of the prophet of Islam. In order to test the hypothesis, we have adopted a comparative ap-proach, allowing the comparison between Lamartine’s discourse and orien-talist discourse. The concept of "subversion" which this study is based on has been bor-rowed from Richard Terdiman’s definition in his book Discourse/Counter-Discourse (1985): it means challenging the dominant discourse or the estab-lished values. To a lesser extent, this study relies on François Dosse’s Le pari biographique (2005) who considers that "writing a biography" is never neutral. Biographers always find pretexts for rehabilitation or demystifica-tion. Also behind every biography hides a project that needs to be clarified. On the basis of the results of this study, it can be concluded that Histoire de la Turquie is not a simple chronology of Muhammed’s life, but a commit-ted text against the dominant Western view of Islam and its founder. It marks a clear break from orientalist discourse by subverting it systematical-ly. This subversive rupture is expressed in the text by the challenging of preconceived ideas, by acts of derision, negation and rejection, and, most frequently, by inversion of values. This appears to be an attempt by Lamar-tine to restore the predominantly negative portrayal of Muhammed. Histoire de la Turquie is thus a counterexample to Said’s theory, which denies the West’s ability to overcome the prejudices against Islam. / Den första volymen av den franske författaren Alphonse de Lamartines Histoire de la Turquie som publicerades 1854 är helt ägnad åt profeten Mu-hammed liv. Denna bok ger upphov till frågor som förtjänar att granskas i ljuset av Orientalism (1978) av Edward Said, som kritiserade de ihållande eurocentriska fördomarna mot arabiska muslimer och deras kultur. Denna granskning är det huvudsakliga syftet med denna studie. Med utgångspunkt i att Muhammed porträtteras positivt av Lamartine är vår hypotes att Histoire de la Turquie utgör ett motexempel till Saids teori. I stället för att ligga i linje med orientalismens diskurs (den dominerande väs-terländska diskursen) intar hans bok ett helt annat förhållningssätt till den traditionella bilden av islams profet. För att testa hypotesen har vi valt en komparativ metod, vilket möjliggör jämförelsen mellan Lamartine diskurs och orientalistisk diskurs. Begreppet "subversion", som denna studie bygger på, har lånats av Ri-chard Terdiman. Hans definition i boken Discourse/Counter-discours (1985) innebär att det subversiva utmanar den dominerande diskursen eller de fast-slagna värderingarna. I mindre utsträckning baseras vår undersökning på Le pari biographique av François Dosse (2005), som anser att "att skriva en biografi" aldrig är någonting neutralt. Levnadstecknaren hittar alltid före-vändningar för rehabilitering eller avmystifiering. Således döljs bakom varje biografi ett projekt som måste klargöras. Resultatet av vår studie ger vid handen att Histoire de la Turquie inte är någon enkel kronologi över Muhammeds liv, utan en engagerad text som polemiserar mot den dominerande västerländska synen på islam och dess grundare. Lamartine bryter helt och hållet med orientalismens diskurs genom att systematiskt motsäga densamma. Denna subversiva ståndpunkt kommer till uttryck i texten antingen genom ett ifrågasättande av förutfattade me-ningar, eller genom ett förlöjligande, ett förnekande och ett tillbakavisande, men oftast genom en omkastning av värderingar. Detta förefaller vara ett försök av Lamartine att korrigera den övervägande negativa bilden av Mu-hammed. Histoire de la Turquie är alltså ett motexempel till Saids teori, som förnekar västvärldens förmåga att övervinna fördomarna mot islam.

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This study is purposed to show how the Christian and Islamic concepts of monotheism are paradigms and thus, argues that the concept of paradigm, as a method of inquiry, can be a basis for analysing and exposing the conflictive differences and seeming similarities between the paradigms of Trinitarianism and Tawhidism.  Taking its ideas of the paradigms of Trinitarianism and Tawhidism from the Christian Trinity and Islamic Tawhid respectively, this study argues that the Christians and Muslims construct their identities from these paradigms as Trinitarian faith and Tawhidic faith respectively.  It investigates the fundamental principles of Islam and Christianity as constituting the <i>belief formulae</i> wrapped in the paradigms of Trinitarianism and Tawhidism. Therefore, analysing the issues of identity and alterity, the ideological oppositions, and orthodoxy claims intertwined in the paradigms of Trinitarianism and Tawhidism, this study examines the conflict of interpretations with reference to the nature of God, Christology/<i>’Isalogy</i>, Maryology and the lines of defining Christians and Muslims as ‘binary opposites’.  It further argues for a transformational intersubjectivity as a necessary condition to authentic communication between Christians and Muslims by analysing the paradigms of Trinitarianism and Tawhidism from the philosophies of dialogue. Using in places the framework of critical discourse analysis (CDA), this study analyses the empirical data of  <i>A Common Word</i> and reavels the underlying problems of ideologies, dichotomies, identity constructions and orthodoxy claims that are associated with the paradigms of Trinitarianism and Tawhidism.  This study observes that groups of Christians and Muslims, through various conferences and workshops were able to reach some compromise on interfaith matters.

Shi´ism intellectual history is the main subject in this bachelor thesis. Mainly the models of interpretation that arose on the basis of the doctrine of the twelfth imam, and how these have influenced politics. The Khomeini doctrine has been used as an example, and the task has been to put the doctrine into a liberation theological perspective. The definition of liberation theology that is used is from the famous liberation theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez. The paper is a presentation of the tradition of the twelfth Imam and will, as mentioned, treat a political doctrine that arose from it. It will present how Khomeini argued for his doctrine and how he claimed that this would lead to freedom of the people and the perfect society. The paper is an example of what can happen when a revolution succeeds with religion as it medium, and when the revolution is transformed from ideas to practice.

Cette thèse ne traite pas de l'Islam, mais uniquement d'une partie de celui-ci, la frange extrême. Il y a dans ce travail une progression, la vision radicale de l'islam engendre d'abord des victimes, une partie des croyants sont sous une emprise que l'on peut qualifier de sectaire. Ce terme tabou pendant longtemps n'a jamais été associé à l'islam avant le rapport parlementaire sur le port de la burqa. Pourtant, par un raisonnement par analogie, des branches de l'islam fonctionnent comme les sectes dénoncés dans de nombreux rapports parlementaires.Lorsque l'adepte cherche à appliquer les préceptes les plus rigoristes de l'islam, il se trouve parfois en conflit avec les valeurs et le droit français, dont l'origine et les fondements actuels sont totalement différents. Il y aura alors une mutation. L'adepte victime d'une forme sectaire de l'islam va se retrouver auteur de faits pénalement répréhensible, cette situation pouvant l'amener jusqu'à tomber dans l'activisme. Cette frange est numériquement dérisoire, mais elle s'appuie sur un système financier pour fonctionner plus large et difficilement cernable. L'image du rhizome peut s'appliquer à ce financement. En effet, comme ce végétal, le financement de l'activisme puise à plusieurs sources et alimente plusieurs tiges. L'activisme islamiste en France est passé d'un phénomène relativement ancien et importé de l'étranger à une crainte permanente avec des acteurs pouvant être français / This thesis does not deal with Islam, but only a fraction of it, it's extreme fringe. As this work progresses, it highlights that radical Islamism firstly creates victims, and places a part of the believers under an influence that can be defined as sectarian. This term remained taboo for a long time and has never been associated with Islam before the parliamentary report on the wearing of the burqa. Yet, arguing by analogy, one can see that branches of Islam do function just like sects denounced in several parliamentary reports.When a follower tries to apply the most rigorous precepts of Islam, he may enter a conflict with French values and law, who's origin and actual foundations are entirely different. Their takes place a mutation. A follower being the victim of a sectarian form of Islam gets to become the perpetrator of criminal offenses, this situation may further lead him up to fall into activism. This fringe is numerically absurdly low, but is backed in it's functioning by a financial system that is larger and hard to figure out. The rhizome may give a close picture of this financing. As this plant, the financing of activism has several sources and feeds several stems. Islamic activism in France, formerly a relatively ancient phenomenon imported from abroad, is now a permanent fear and could involve French actors

La presse informe, mais elle élabore aussi les représentations à partir desquelles nous interprétons car elle évoque certains de nos souvenirs historiques et quelques points de repères idéologiques. Ce travail examine la présence et la représentation médiatique de la violence dans les journaux thaïlandais, et les rapports entre médias et pouvoirs, entre 2004- 2006, dans la période de la nouvelle vague de l’insurrection thaïlandaise . Nous proposons des problèmes structurels qui confirment l ’hypothèse selon laquelle violence et médias ne sont pas dans la relation d’harmonie . Les discours médiatiques du conflit thaïlandais oscillent selon des pouvoirs. Le premier problème concerne la manière de qualifier les événements. En 2004, les événements violents sont ramenés à des conduites criminalisées. La presse thaïlandaise a minimisé la menace des groupes d’intérêts clandestins. Le « Faï Taï » et les « bandits du sud » sont d’usage dans la stratégie discursive de la presse pour illustrer les désordres qui nécessitent des actes pathologiques. Les photographies de presse sont traitées aussi dans le même ordre. Au moment où les acteurs violents élaborent mieux leurs stratégies médiatiques, la représentation médiatique de la violence est plus d’amplifier la portée politique du phénomène. Les acteurs violents sont souvent présentés comme de véritables forces de l’ombre, capables de défier le pouvoir de l’État et de menacer la sécurité des civils. De ce cas, le discours médiatique, notamment la représentation photographique, souligne donc la force militaire et l’usage de la violence légitime de l’État contre l’insurrection. / The press has not only informed, but also constructed the representation, interpreted by evoking some of our historical memories and a few points of ideological marks. This thesis examines the presence and the representation of violence in the southernmost region of Thailand, and the relationships between media and power in conflict situation during 2004-2006 under the new wave of Thailand’s insurgency. We propose the structural problems which confirm the hypothesis that violence and the media are not in the relationship of harmony. The first concerns how the press qualifies the events. In 2004, the violence in southern Thailand was degraded to the lines of crimes. The Thai press has minimized the status of the insurgents to the criminal groups. "Fai Tai " and " bandit " are used as the discursive strategy by the press to illustrate the disturbances, which require pathological acts. The press photographs are also processed in the same order. When the insurgents have better developed their communicative strategies, the media representation of violence has more amplified the political scope of phenomenon. The violent actors are often presented as the real forces in the shadow, challenging the State power and threatening the security of civilians. In this case, the media discourse, including the photographic representation, focuses on the military forces and the use of legitimate violence against the insurgency. The second problem relates to the ideologies and the different identities which are the root of the conflict. The Thainess structures the discourse and the actions of the protagonists of the conflict, as well as the media discourse. The discourse of Thai popular newspapers such as Thairat and Matichon clearly insists on the unity of the Thai society and the security of the nation. As the discourse of southern violence, the representation of the protagonists of conflict can be read. In the Thai press, the Malay-Muslims in the southern provinces are presented in the image of the poor, disadvantaged, being dominated by certain erroneous beliefs.

Quelles sont les stratégies et les attentes que dénote le choix d’un établissement scolaire secondaire français pour les familles tunisiennes et binationales en Tunisie contemporaine ? Comment ce choix s’inscrit-il dans l’histoire du pays et, plus particulièrement, dans l’héritage de son passé colonial ? La recherche étudie les formes de distinctions sociale, culturelle et cultuelle à laquelle ces familles aspirent et les stratégies qu’elles mettent en œuvre dans ce dessein. Entrent particulièrement en jeu la dimension internationale des diplômes, le poids des représentations de la langue et de la culture, ou encore la volonté d’une socialisation laïque. En confiant l’éducation de leurs enfants à l’enseignement français, les parents évitent l’impasse que constitue, à leurs yeux, le système public tunisien et contournent sa politique d’arabisation et de massification. Ils engagent alors leurs enfants dans une institution qui leur apportera un capital dispensateur de profits matériels et symboliques. Le système scolaire français permet ainsi de produire, tant sur le plan national qu’international, des ressources à forte valeur ajoutée, une manière pour les familles de se reproduire socialement. Mais leurs choix éducatifs peuvent aussi être liés à la laïcité de l’enseignement qui correspond à une vision du monde qui rend possible, selon eux, soit la promotion d’une religion peu contraignante et indépendante, soit l’abstention religieuse. En conséquence, dans les établissements français, malgré les conflits entre les champs laïque et religieux, la population scolaire et les parents d’élèves utilisent majoritairement le champ laïque pour faire valoir leurs diverses options en matière de religion et de croyance. La laïcité de l’enseignement permet donc de distinguer culturellement et cultuellement une population peu encline au fondamentalisme religieux. / What are the strategies and expectations of Tunisian and French-Tunisian families who chose a French high school for their children? How does this choice fit with their country's history, especially its colonial past? This research is about the various forms of social, cultural and religious distinctions these families are looking for and the strategies they undertake to meet them. Main aspects of these distinctions consist of the international recognition of French diplomas, the weight of language and culture or the wish for a secular socialisation. By putting their children in the French educational system, parents avoid their perceived dead ends of Tunisian state schools marked by arabisation and standardisation policies. They also involve their children in an institution that will bring in symbolic and material benefits, either on the national or international level, as the French educational system produces highly valued resources, which is a way to ensure social reproduction. These educational choices are also linked to secularism which is credited for enabling a world view with less strict forms of religion or even religious abstention. Thus, given the antagonism between religious and secular fields, students and parents in French high schools would privilege the latter to express their opinions. This population, mainly reluctant to religious fundamentalism, is looking to be different, culturally and religiously, through secular education / بأيّ توجّه وأيّ طموح يشي اختيار بعض الأُسر التونسية أو المزدوجة الجنسيّة تسجيلَ أبنائها في ثانويّة فرنسيّة؟ ما المعنى الذي يحمله هذا الخيار حين يوضع في السياق التاريخي لتونس وحين يُأخذ ماضيها الاستعماري بعين الاعتبار؟ تحمل عمليّة التمايز الاجتماعي والثقافي والإيماني التي تتطلّع إليها الأسر التونسيّة وتعمل لأجل تحقيقها عدّة عناوين رئيسة تتلخّص بالتوجّه نحو شهادة جامعيّة ذات أفق دولي والميل إلى بعض التصوّرات عن اللغة والثقافة الفرنسيّتان والنزوع إلى تنشئة علمانيّة للأبناء. وهي حين توكل تربية هؤلاء إلى المؤسسات الفرنسيّة فإنّها تجتنب انسداد الأفق في التعليم الرسمي التونسي، متفاديةً سياسته في التعريب والاستيعاب المدرسي. هكذا يُنظر إلى اندراج هؤلاء الأطفال في تلك المؤسسة كرأسمال يَعِدُ بفوائد ماديّة ورمزية. أضِف إلى ذلك أنّ المعايير التربويّة المرجوّة لدى هذه الأسر قد ترتبط في أذهانهم بعلمانيّة التعليم التي تميل إلى رؤيةٍ للعالم لصيقةٍ إمّا بالترويج لاعتدال التديّن أو بالدعوة إلى إقصاء الدين تماماً. بناءً على ذلك، فإن النظام التربوي الفرنسي يسمح، على المستويين المحلّي والدولي، بإنتاج مصادر ذات قيمة مضافة مرتفعة تساعد هذه الأسر على إعادة إنتاج نفسها اجتماعيّاً. من ناحية أخرى، تفيد علمانيّة التعليم في إنتاج تمايزٍ اجتماعي وعقائديّ لدى شريحة اجتماعيّة لا يمكن للفكر الديني الأصولي أن ينفذ إليها.

This thesis examines Islamic reform as an intellectual-political movement that began in the first quarter of the 19th century and lasted until the first quarter of the 20th century. It was a philosophy founded by a group of Muslim-reformists as a result of their perception that degradation of Islamic civilisation and deterioration of the Islamic world had followed the so-called 'shock of modernity'. The investigation is based on the study of selected exponents of the Islamic reform movement. It examines the notions of political discourse of the Muslim-reformists, with particular reference to the problem that was central for Islamic reform: 'How did the political discourse of Islamic reform respond to the challenges of modernity at this early historic moment of opening up a communication with European modernity?' This discourse is examined through the texts that were produced by the Muslim-reformists following contact with European modernity and their realisation of the difference between the development of Europe and the retrogression of the Islamic world. The thesis sheds light on their attempts to find the causes of this retrogression and the ways to overcome it, examining their calls for a return to the Islamic ideals which are represented by the Qur'an and the Sunna and their interest in European modernity. This thesis also sets the Muslim-reformists' positions against the historical, political, and theological background that influenced their response: the French Revolution and Enlightenment philosophy on the one hand, and the theological tradition of Islam on the other hand. Emphasis is given to the ways in which they used both these traditions to offer original answers to the problems of the Islamic world. It is this common ground which, it is suggested, makes their political discourse intelligible and perhaps even essential, and gives a special interest to their interpretation.