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In the aftermath of recent major events in the Muslim world, the Sunni Muslim jurists, hereafter referred to as the “ʿulamā’,” turn to the classic Muslim tradition in search of answers to questions arising from these events. After the Arab Spring and the 2013 military coup in Egypt and the ensuing revolt of the youth, influential ʿulamā’ deferred to authoritative rulings which declare that the “Ḥākim al-Mutaghallib” (the Usurper Leader) is to be obeyed. However, those ʿulamā’ ignore the difference between the early context in which these rulings emerged and developed and the context in which the modern state employs them today. The ‘ulamā’ treat these rulings as regularized, binding decrees that must be followed by all Muslims – neglecting the fact that they have always been uncertain, controversial rulings. Thus, this paper attempts to compare the two contexts, the classical and the modern state context, to illustrate the problems encountered in the recalling of these rulings. Moreover, it traces the circumstances in which the rulings emerged and how they were legitimized and regularized over the course of Muslim history. This paper attempts to demonstrate that these classical rulings are not immutable and applicable in all times and in all places, as they were developed in response to particular events and in a relatively narrow context. Rather, the rulings should be revisited and reevaluated for applicability in the current time and context. / Religion

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<p>As its central purpose, the thesis outlines the Buddhist conception of human omniscience as developed by the philosophers of later Vijnanavada Buddhism, i.e., DharmakIrti, Prajnakaragupta Santarakita and Kamalasila. It attempts to show how those philosophers dialectically established the possibility of human omniscience and the omniscience of the Buddha. The concept of human omniscience was introduced into Indian philosophy because of the religious controversies between Heterodox (Nastika) schools, such as Jainism and Buddhism, and Orthodox (Astika) schools, especially Nyaya-Vaiseika, Sankhya-Yoga, Mimamsa and Vedanta. The Mimamsakas began the argument with claims for the omniscience of the Vedas; the Naiyayikas followed with the attribution of omniscience to God. When the Buddhists, in turn, maintained the omniscience of the Buddha, the Mimamsakas raised objections to the concept of human omniscience, the omniscience of the Buddha, of God, and of any human religious teacher. In order to refute these objections and to assert once again the superiority of the Buddha and his teachings of Dharma, the later Buddhist philosophers sought to dialectically established the concept of human omniscience. The Buddhist argument was the product of constant interaction and debate with other Indian religious and philosophical schools, and it is clear that omniscience was and continues to be one of the pivotal topics for all schools of Indian philosophy. The Buddhists have used logical arguments to support the concept of human omniscience. They have established the omniscience of the Buddha using the logical methods of presumption and inference. They have provided the answers from the Buddhist point of view to the Mimamsakas' objections against the concepts of human omniscience and the omniscience of the Buddha. The Buddhists maintain that an omniscient person perceives all objects of the world simultaneously in a single cognitive moment. They have also argued that only an omniscient person can teach Dharma. The aim of the Buddhists was to prove the superiority of Buddhism among all religions, because it is based on the teachings of an omniscient being. In brief, this thesis outlines the development of the concept of omniscience, which the Buddhists hold to be the necessary and sufficient condition for perception of supersensuous truths such as Dhatma.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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<p> This dissertation examines the career of the Arab Academy of Science in Damascus roughly over its first formative decade, from 1919 to 1930. It situates the Academy&rsquo;s work in relation to concerns about language modernization characteristic of the <i>Nahda,</i> or Modern Arab Renaissance, and in the context of great changes in the political and social order of the Middle East. It highlights the ways the pioneering Levantine man of letters Jurji Zaydan sought to reconcile indigenous traditions of linguistic thought with modern concepts of evolutionary change and historicism in the development of a new science of language and the cultivation of a new kind of scholarly elite, from the late nineteenth century to the eve of the First World War. This dissertation also analyzes Arab Academy founding member &lsquo;Abd al-Qadir al-Maghribi&rsquo;s wide-ranging writings in matters of religion, politics, ethics, and language. Al-Maghribi wrote on behalf of the Islamic and Arab <i> umam</i> or communities, as well as for a constitutional Ottoman caliphate around the time of the Young Turk Revolution of 1908. The educability of the public was central to his vision as ordinary believers and Arabic-speakers became the population of the new national state of Syria following the Ottomans&rsquo; defeat in 1918. This project demonstrates how the three succeeding political orders over the territory that would become modern Syria influenced the thought of the founding members of the Academy in Damascus and contributed to the life of their institution: the late Ottoman state, the Amir Faysal&rsquo;s short-lived Arabist kingdom in the aftermath of the First World War, and the imposition of the French Mandate for Syria from 1920. It argues that the late Ottoman Empire and its revolutionary and constitutional moment imparted qualities of ecumenicalism and worldliness, and that the Academy shared a spirit of experimentation and standardization with the Faysali and Mandatory regimes. Finally, this project turns to the relations of Arab Academy founding members, notably of their president Muhammad Kurd &lsquo;Ali, with the Western orientalist scholars elected as corresponding members of their company. It chronicles how Arab and European scholars of Islam and Arabic collaborated in producing a body of knowledge and a discourse of friendship in their shared area of study, characterized by both sympathetic and objective norms. It argues that the Arab Academicians and their Western colleagues collectively sketched the contours of a globalized discussion of <i>Nahda,</i> history, and modernity in the quasi-colonial context of French Mandate Syria. </p>

<p> Narratological Techniques in the Modern Gulf Novel: A case study of the narrative works of Fawziyya Shuwaish al-S&amacr;lim Narratology began to take shape as a discipline in 1966 when the French journal <i> Communications</i> printed a special issue titled "The structural analysis of narrative." The term narratology (&ldquo;narratologie&rdquo; in French) itself was coined three years later by one of the contributors to that issue, Tzvetan Todorov, in his subsequent structuralist manifesto, <i>Grammaire du D&eacute;cam&eacute;ron,</i> which was published in 1969. </p><p> In this dissertation, I attempt to analyze the narrative texts of the Kuwaiti author Fawziyya Shuwaish al-S&amacr;lim, which include five fiction novels and one biography-autobiography, by applying modern narratological techniques suggested by leading narratologists, mainly Mieke Bal. My aim is to provide a systematic and objective assessment of her narrative techniques and style in an attempt to gauge her contribution to the Gulf novel and, perhaps, the modern Arab novel as a whole based on her use of technical and thematic aspects.</p>

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