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(in English): This master's thesis is based on analysis of the essential sources of the international organization Ḥizb al-taḥrīr providing focus on its concept of the caliphate which is compared to other international Islamist organizations that struggle for the restoration of the abolished caliphate.

This thesis is an attempt to define and analyse Razi's position towards Ibn Sina's metaphysics with special reference to the problem of God's existence. The whole analysis is undertaken within the frameworK of Ghazali's presentation of the conflict between philosophy and religion in Islam.

This thesis explores the relations between the Druze emir Fakhr al-Din II Ma'n and three successive Medici Grand Dukes between 1605 and 1633. Eschewing traditional historiographical concerns with the origins of Lebanese nationalism and the cultural encounter between East and West, I have sought first and above all to locate relations between this powerful emir and the Court of Tuscany within the broader context of Mediterranean history. / I suggest that the actions of Fakhr al-Din and of the Medici Grand Dukes have to be understood in relation to broad, long-term trends in the economic and social history of the Mediterranean. I explore two of these trends in detail: the breakdown in commercial and diplomatic relations between Florence (and then Tuscany) and the Ottoman empire during the course of the sixteenth century; the bargaining between the Porte and provincial power-holders in the Syrian provinces in the century following the Ottoman conquest.

In his collection of lectures, the Majalis al-Mu'ayyadiyyah, al-Mu'ayyad fi al-Din al-Shirazi's (d.ca. 1078 C.E.) typologies of the imam set forth a distinctive concept of the Isma`ili imam, as it subsequently results from al-Mu'ayyad's engagement in the works of his predecessors and contemporaries in the Isma`ili missionary organization (da`wah). Al-Mu'ayyad's refutations against the "Exaggerators" (Ghulat) and the "Shortcomers" (Muqaṣṣirun) call attention to the importance of walayah as a doctrine of religious authority and guidance in the light of debates concerning the divinity or humanity of the figure of the imam in the mediaeval Shi`i tradition. In his main doctrinal work, the concept of the human being (al-insan) and a theory of prophetic anthropology are inherently enmeshed in al-Mu'ayyad's skillful presentation of the Isma`ili imam and the "friends of God" (awliya' Allah ). The shared significance of the da`wah and the "ranks of religion" (ḥudud al-din) as vehicles for perfection on the level of the individual human being stresses the necessity of religious guidance throughout the individual practitioner's formation and development (al-nash'ah). Through the guidance of the "friends of God", the individual practitioner may potentially attain to a true humanity that is associated with another birth and formation ( al-nash'ah al-akhirah); another formation that is spiritual rather than physical, and which takes place in the individual's subtle soul. / Underlying al-Mu'ayyad's typologies of the imam, where one of the specified lower ranks of the ḥudud al-din may potentially qualify to become the imam, is the idea that there has to be one specific imam at any time who is manifest and physically present so that individual practitioners can benefit from the presence of the imam. As this dissertation aims to elucidate, al-Mu'ayyad's introduction of the imam as the "absolute human being" (al-insan al-muṭlaq) and the concepts of the "imam at any (undetermined) time" (al-imam al-muṭlaq ) and the "seal of the imams" (khatam al-a'immah) into the 11th-century Fat&dotbelow;imid Isma`ili technical lexicon has broader implications for the internal mediaeval Isma'ili debates concerning the concept of walayah and the hierarchy of the "friends of God". In terms of al-Mu'ayyad's definition of the parameters of the "sphere of walayah", the soteriological doctrines associated with the final perfection of prophetic revelation through the guidance of the "friends of God" culminate in the appearance of the Messiah (al-Qa'im ) at the end of time.

This is a comparative study of the epistemology of Suhrawardi and Mulla Sadra Shi razi, two Muslim thinkers of the 6th/12th and 11th/17th century. It focuses on two main issues: Illuminative theory of knowledge and, in the framework of this theory, Mulla Sadra's doctrine of knowledge by presence (al-'ilm al-huduri) studied in the context of his philosophical system (al-hikmah al-muta'ali yah). I have also discussed his methodology which is multidimensional. / The aim of this study is not to elaborate on Mulla Sadra's theory of knowledge in general, but rather to present what Mulla Sadra meant by knowledge by presence, al-'ilm al-huduri. However, it is my opinion that his doctrine of knowledge by presence is the corner stone of his epistemological system. In the light of this doctrine, he gives a new definition of knowledge, a novel interpretation of its division into al-'ilm al-huduri and al-'ilm al-husuli, and, finally, a systematic chain of various kinds of knowledge by presence (e.g., self-knowledge, God's knowledge of His Essence and God's knowledge of things). These three aspects of his doctrine have been surveyed and, in comparing them with Suhrawardi's theory, evaluated in this thesis.

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