This thesis challenges the position that the serek texts are primarily prescriptive and legal, as they have been customarily defined. It argues that the term serek should be reconceptualized according to descriptive analysis, with the purpose of creating what C. Newsom terms a ‘Gestalt structure.’ In order to achieve this, four serek texts (M, S, Sa, and D) will be analyzed at three literary levels—semantic, textual and hypertextual—explaining how the elements at these levels interact as cohesive wholes, thus serving to create a more complete picture of this group of texts as a literary unity. Thus, while the separate, constituent semantic, textual and hypertextual parts must be analysed as separate elements, the fundamental questions posed regarding these elements will be different in a Gestalt paradigm as compared to a traditional, definitional analysis. Going from the micro to the macro, the first chapter will look at the serek texts through the ‘microscope’ of close philological analysis, examining how the term serek functions atomistically within the Dead Sea Scrolls. Building upon these results, the second chapter will more broadly analyse the structure, themes and narrative apparent in the serek texts, thus creating a fuller understanding of how the serek texts relate to one another and respond to circumstances in community life. Finally, the last chapter seeks yet more broadly to understand the serek texts in the wider literary milieu of the Second Temple Period. Here, a scribal technique present in the serek texts will be compared to a similar technique used in the Book of Isaiah—arguably the most important prophetic work for the Qumran sectarians.

This thesis challenges the position that the serek texts are primarily prescriptive and legal, as they have been customarily defined. It argues that the term serek should be reconceptualized according to descriptive analysis, with the purpose of creating what C. Newsom terms a ‘Gestalt structure.’ In order to achieve this, four serek texts (M, S, Sa, and D) will be analyzed at three literary levels—semantic, textual and hypertextual—explaining how the elements at these levels interact as cohesive wholes, thus serving to create a more complete picture of this group of texts as a literary unity. Thus, while the separate, constituent semantic, textual and hypertextual parts must be analysed as separate elements, the fundamental questions posed regarding these elements will be different in a Gestalt paradigm as compared to a traditional, definitional analysis. Going from the micro to the macro, the first chapter will look at the serek texts through the ‘microscope’ of close philological analysis, examining how the term serek functions atomistically within the Dead Sea Scrolls. Building upon these results, the second chapter will more broadly analyse the structure, themes and narrative apparent in the serek texts, thus creating a fuller understanding of how the serek texts relate to one another and respond to circumstances in community life. Finally, the last chapter seeks yet more broadly to understand the serek texts in the wider literary milieu of the Second Temple Period. Here, a scribal technique present in the serek texts will be compared to a similar technique used in the Book of Isaiah—arguably the most important prophetic work for the Qumran sectarians.

This thesis examines the reinvention of jihād ideology in twelfth‑century al‑Shām. In modern scholarship there is a tendency to speak of a revival of jihād in the twelfth century, but discussion of this revival has been dominated by study of the practice of jihād rather than of the ideology of jihād. This thesis addresses this imbalance by studying two twelfth‑century Damascene works: the Kitāb al‑jihād (Book of Jihād) of ʿAlī b. Ṭāhir al‑Sulamī (d. 500/1106), and the al‑Arbaʿūn ḥadīthan fī al‑ḥathth ʿala al‑jihād (Forty Hadiths for Inciting Jihād) of Abū al‑Qāsim Ibn ʿAsākir (d. 571/1176). Through discussion of these texts, this thesis sheds light on twelfth‑century perceptions of jihād by asking what their authors meant when they referred to jihād, and how their perceptions of jihād related to the broader Islamic discourse on jihād. A holistic approach is taken to these works; they are discussed not only in the context of the 'master narrative' of jihād, wherein juristic sources have been privileged over other non‑legal genres and corpora, but also in the context of the Sufi discourse of jihād al‑nafs, and the earliest traditions on jihād which thrived from the eighth century onwards on the Muslim‑Byzantine frontier. This thesis argues that both al‑Sulamī and Ibn ʿAsākir integrated elements from these different traditions of jihād in order to create models of jihād suited to their own political contexts, and that it is only in the context of a more nuanced appreciation of jihād ideology that their attempts can be properly understood. At the same time, this thesis argues against the model of the 'counter‑crusade', which holds that the revival of jihād began in earnest only in the middle of the twelfth century, by stressing that there was no delay between the arrival of the Franks and attempts to modify jihād ideology.

During the last decade Arabic has become the second most common mother tongue in Sweden, so the relationship between Swedish and Arabic is a relatively new area of interest. The purpose of this study is to examine the incorporation of Swedish words into Arabic among Arabic speakers in Sweden. The primary source is an in-depth interview of three fluent speakers of Arabic and Swedish (with origins in Damascus, Syria). My aim was to examine which Swedish words are used in Arabic by Arabic speakers in Sweden and how they are used.   Regarding which words are used, my hypothesis was that I would find support for the pattern of how word borrowing functions in general, i.e. that the language follows power; loan words tend to be borrowed from powerful languages and cultures. Thus, I intended to examine whether a similar tendency would also be demonstrated in this study, that is, if the individual L2-words used while speaking L1 were associated with power and authorities. The interview manifested an overrepresentation of words that could be associated with power, but no clear support that this was a correlative relationship. Other factors, such as the simultaneous introduction of the word and the phenomenon, were found to be more plausible.   With regards to how words are used, my proposition was that the person having left the L1-environment (in this case Syria) at the oldest age would, in analogy with the prevalent notion concerning L1-attrition in general, incorporate the L2 into the L1 to a greater extent than other interviewees. The study found that the interviewee who had left her L1-environment at oldest age did adapt the Swedish words to Arabic phonology and morphology to a greater extent.

This study investigates the understanding of heresy and the heretic according to John of Damascus. For him, a heretic was any Christian who, by wilful choice, departs from the one orthodox tradition by adopting a personal opinion on the common faith which he intends to institute as sole truth. Our research is divided into two parts and aims to apply John of Damascus' understanding of the recurring identity of the Christian heretic and his behaviour. By using historical-theological, interdisciplinary and diachronical approaches, our research demonstrates that this Church Father, who is the `seal of the patristic era,' remains a relevant authority for our comprehension of heresy and the heretic. Through two case studies, namely, the Dutch Reformed Churches and Apartheid, and Kimbanguism, our study specifies, on the one hand how a distorted Christian confession contributed to the rise of Apartheid, with its attendant sense of a theocracy, predestination, election, supremacy, divine love and justice. Kimbanguism, on the other hand, represents a heresy against its will. It is an example of Christian leaders who abused their power to apply cultural elements that resulted in a dramatic misinterpretation of the Christian dogma of the Trinity. Finally, our study intends to apply the notions of wilful choice, obstinacy and fanaticism, libertine exegesis, personal opinion and orthodox tradition or common faith, to portray a heretic by using an interdisciplinary approach: theologically as a libertine-exegete, psychologically as a dogmatic and fanatic person, and sociologically as a negative cultural reformer. Thus, our analysis is both historical and theological, and clearly and substantially elucidates the heretical mind in modern times. Consequently, our inquiry may be summed up as follows. Firstly, heresy habitually comes from an existing text, doctrine or discipline; secondly, it concerns people who are originally Christians; thirdly, it demonstrates that a heretic may be a fervent and an educated Christian, a layman or a church leader, who, on the basis of wilful choice, interprets Biblical texts freely, with his personal exegesis and hermeneutics, and ultimately incorrectly. From this exegesis and hermeneutics he deduces and sustains a new doctrine that he defends with obstinacy and fanaticism. / Christian Spirituality, Church History & Missiology / D. Div. (Church History)

This study investigates the understanding of heresy and the heretic according to John of Damascus. For him, a heretic was any Christian who, by wilful choice, departs from the one orthodox tradition by adopting a personal opinion on the common faith which he intends to institute as sole truth. Our research is divided into two parts and aims to apply John of Damascus' understanding of the recurring identity of the Christian heretic and his behaviour. By using historical-theological, interdisciplinary and diachronical approaches, our research demonstrates that this Church Father, who is the `seal of the patristic era,' remains a relevant authority for our comprehension of heresy and the heretic. Through two case studies, namely, the Dutch Reformed Churches and Apartheid, and Kimbanguism, our study specifies, on the one hand how a distorted Christian confession contributed to the rise of Apartheid, with its attendant sense of a theocracy, predestination, election, supremacy, divine love and justice. Kimbanguism, on the other hand, represents a heresy against its will. It is an example of Christian leaders who abused their power to apply cultural elements that resulted in a dramatic misinterpretation of the Christian dogma of the Trinity. Finally, our study intends to apply the notions of wilful choice, obstinacy and fanaticism, libertine exegesis, personal opinion and orthodox tradition or common faith, to portray a heretic by using an interdisciplinary approach: theologically as a libertine-exegete, psychologically as a dogmatic and fanatic person, and sociologically as a negative cultural reformer. Thus, our analysis is both historical and theological, and clearly and substantially elucidates the heretical mind in modern times. Consequently, our inquiry may be summed up as follows. Firstly, heresy habitually comes from an existing text, doctrine or discipline; secondly, it concerns people who are originally Christians; thirdly, it demonstrates that a heretic may be a fervent and an educated Christian, a layman or a church leader, who, on the basis of wilful choice, interprets Biblical texts freely, with his personal exegesis and hermeneutics, and ultimately incorrectly. From this exegesis and hermeneutics he deduces and sustains a new doctrine that he defends with obstinacy and fanaticism. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D. Div. (Church History)

ENGLISH ABSTRACT This thesis deals with the specification of bazaars and the bazaar economy. Bazaar [bāzār] is a Persian word for marketplace, also used in Turkish- çarşi [čarši]. Like the Arabic term souk وسق [súq], bazaar is both the concrete trading place, where many people meet and interact but like the English word market or the French le marché is also understood as a more abstract notion of buying and selling in the sense of demand and supply and it involves small shopping stalls, modern shopping and business avenues and shopping malls as well. Bazaar can refer to a single shopping unit or a street in the frame of the marketplace or outside its boundaries or to the whole business complex. The marketplace has symbolic and social importance indicative of its urban centrality. The souk is seen as one of the quintessential oriental spaces. Clifford Geertz and his own studies of Moroccan and Indonesian rural markets inspired many economic anthropologists to examine the structure of marketplaces in the developing world as products of informational scarcity. The bazaar economy was defined in Clifford Geertz' extremly influential anthropological study on the bazaar economy in Sefrou (1978), a quite small town in Morocco with about 600 shops. Geertz was the first to emphasise the important difference...

De nos jours, l’étalement urbain est devenu une préoccupation grandissante tant pour les institutions concernées (surtout les collectivités territoriales) que pour les chercheurs qui sont en quête d’analyser les facteurs favorisants ce type d’urbanisation, ainsi que les effets qui en découlent. Ce travail de doctorat s’intéresse à l’étalement urbain dans la région Damascène (en Syrie), un phénomène qui s’accélère au fil des années en menaçant les espaces agricoles de la Ghouta (l’osais de Damas). En tenant compte de la situation de Damas et le rôle qu’elle joue au niveau de la Syrie (comme la capitale d’un pays très centralisé), notre travail vise à comprendre : comment les espaces agricoles de son oasis (la Ghouta) se trouvent menacés par l’étalement urbain, alors que l’Etat semble prendre en considération l’importance vitale de ces espaces ? En s’appuyant sur plusieurs études réalisées en Syrie et en France, des données récoltées à partir des institutions syriennes, ce travail repose sur l’hypothèse suivante : la région damascène, comme le reste des métropoles nationales, est soumise aux conditions générales de l’étalement urbain, ce phénomène s'explique aussi et principalement par d'autres éléments, qualifiés de « spécificités Damascènes ». Donc, au delà d’une simple approche qui s’appuie sur les deux facteurs (démographique et économique), la particularité de cette étude se réside dans d’autres facteurs importants liés au contexte politico-administratif, mais aussi au contexte socioculturel (confessionnel). / Nowdays, Urban sprawl is gaining larger attentions by institutions and researchers who are seeking to analyze its effects and the corresponding contributing factors. This PhD thesis focuses on the urban sprawl phenomenon in the region of Damascus (Syria) that is accelerating with time, and threatening the agricultural spaces of Ghouta (the oasis of Damascus). Taking into account the fact of Damascus being the capital of Syria, a very centralized country, we show in this work how the Ghouta agricultural spaces (that are of great importance as declared by the state) are threatened by this urban sprawl. Based on several studies and on data collected from Syrian local institutions, we show that the Damascus region, like the other national metropolis, is subject to the urban spreading general conditions. Finally, this phenomenon can be also mainly explained by other factors termed "specific Damascenes". Therefore, rather considering a simple approach based only on two factors (demographic and economic), the peculiarity of this PhD lies in considering some additional important factors into consideration when analyzing the urban sprawl phenomenon. Those important factors are those related to the political, administrative and sociocultural context (confessional).

August Strindbergs dramer Till Damaskus I, Ett drömspel och Spöksonaten har många likheter och brukar ofta refereras till som ”drömspel” på grund av deras drömlika stämning. Vad skapar denna stämning? Den här uppsatsen undersöker hur olika typer av upprepning utgör grepp med vilka Strindberg bygger sin speciella värld, som står mitt emellan drömmen och verkligheten. Det är en närläsning som både ser till makro- och mikroperspektiv; undersökningen gäller både retoriska språkfigurer i dialogen och större strukturella upprepningar i dramat.   Upprepningens betydelse för skapandet av drömstämningen i Till Damaskus I, Ett drömspel och Spöksonaten kan i en bredare bemärkelse inte överdrivas. Trots dess mycket olika former i dramerna spelar den i alla tre pjäserna en stor roll. I Till Damaskus I är den strukturella och materiella upprepningen avgörande grepp i dramat. I Ett drömspel är återkommande scener och inte minst upprepningen i replikerna påtagligt och skapar effektivt en känsla hos läsaren av att befinna sig i en dröm. I Spöksonaten är det upprepningen av tidigare händelser innan dramats början i form av traumatiska minnen i olika konkretiserade former, som spelar störst roll och som man skulle kunna hävda utgör dramats mest bärande komponent. Trots dramernas många olikheter, förenas de av många likheter – så många och grundläggande att det inte skulle vara omöjligt att kalla dem för en drömspelstrilogi.

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