For nearly fifteen hundred years, the Hagia Sophia has been a constant figure in Istanbul, Turkey. The building has been the symbol of Christianity for the Byzantine Empire, Islam for the Ottoman Empire and Secularism for Republic of Turkey. It is rare that one building has had the ability to symbolize both religion and politics in the manner in which the Hagia Sophia has. One of the goals of this research is to examine the historical circumstances that have allowed this symbolism to occur. The other goal of this research is to examine the current voice that wishes to return the Hagia Sophia back to a place of worship. To properly understand this voice, it will require scrutinizing the obstacles necessary for religious groups to overcome to achieve this, as well as determining if this is even a viable option.

The main aim of this study is to shed light on the major factors affecting the performance of the Muslim military in five important battles fought during the first two decades of Islam (2/624-16/638). The study comprises an introduction, seven central chapters, and a conclusion (an Arabic-English glossary is placed at the end of the study). The first chapter includes a general introduction which incorporates an explanation of the method to be followed in the study. It provides a review of the study's primary and secondary sources and of the Arabic literature on the subject of warfare and military activities. It also explains the nature and scope of the study and closes with an outline of the organisation of the chapters. The second chapter provides a brief background account of the region prior to Islam and considers in particular the region of al-Ilijäz. In addition it illustrates some of the main features of the neighbouring powers in the north and south of Arabia, and of the two great empires that still dominated the region. The third chapter narrates the significant events of the battles under discussion, i. e. Badr, Uhud, al-Khandaq, al-Yarmiik, and al-Qädisiyyah, thus providing a reference for the subsequent chapters. The fourth chapter investigates the factor of Islamic military doctrine, its role in the performance of the Muslim armies, and its importance for the conduct of the five battles. The fifth chapter examines the factor of Islamic military leadership, its impact upon the performance of the Muslim armies, and how it was exercised during the battles under study. The sixth chapter discusses the factor of Islamic military intelligence, its task in relation to the performance of the Muslim armies, and how it was conducted in the battles in question. The seventh chapter considers the factor of the adversaries' strengths and weaknesses using both narrative and analysis. This chapter provides a necessary examination of the nature of the forces confronting the Muslim armies. The eighth chapter focuses on the factor of Islamic military strategy, its importance for the performance of the Muslim armies, and its implementation in the five battles. The ninth chapter summarises and discusses the study's most important findings and draws conclusions from them, indicates to what extent the study's principal aims have been achieved, and makes suggestions for future research.

M.A. / This thesis attempts in the first instance to declare the South African Law of Inheritance unconstitutional to the Muslim community of South Africa, and thereafter is as an attempt towards the codification of the Islamic law of Minith (Inheritance/Succesion), whereby which legislation could be passed recognising the Muslim or rather Islamic law of Nfirith (Inheritance/Succession).

M.A. / The aim of this study is to examine the principles which scholars have developed in regard to family planning in Islam. The thesis concentrates on three main areas of family planning viz., contraception, abortion and artificial reproduction. Prior to these three areas being discussed in detail, a brief analysis of the concept of marriage is outlined. Birth control from the Islamic Juridical perspective is discussed, wherein the various contraceptive techniques and devices is illuminated. Views expressed by classical authorities, medical professionals and contemporary experts in regards to the permissibility or prohibition of contraception is given. The study thereafter proceeds to make an appraisal of abortion in Islam. Islamically, abortion is generally prohibited, but it is permitted under extreme extenuating circumstances. This is outlined. The question of artificial reproduction in the case of infertility is discussed whereby scientists seem to have usurped the authority of God, contrary to the teachings of Islam. However, under certain stringent conditions the permissibility of artificial insemination is analyzed. Finally, certain aspects which could not be covered in the scope of this thesis have been left over for future research.

This dissertation explores the relationship between gender and Muslim community identity in late colonial India. It pursues two broad themes. The first of these is the way in which gender issues were used symbolically by Muslim religious and political leaders to give substance to a community identity based largely on religious and cultural ideals in the three decades prior to independence. The second is the activities of elite Muslim women in social reform organisations and their entry into politics. Most of the recent literature on the development of a distinct Muslim identity during this period focuses entirely on politics and thus on relatively short-term factors leading to Partition. However, gender makes us look again at the longer term, especially the way in which it gave substance to the imagining of an all- India Muslim identity. I examine the various constructions and stereotypes of the Muslim woman and the ways in which she was seen as being in need of special protection in the political sphere while being in an advantageous position with regard to Muslim personal law. Of particular importance here are the discourse on purdah, which had become communalised during this period even as purdah practices were changing, and the ways in which Islamic law became considered as a 'sacred site' for Muslims in the late colonial period. I argue that the focus on gender issues by certain political and religious leaders was a 'universalising' factor: while it was difficult to portray all Indian Muslims as constituting a definitive and united group, all Indian Muslim women could be depicted as being alike, with the same interests and problems. These tendencies were strengthened by the Indian Muslim awareness of a wider Muslim community. In terms of practice, I examine women's entry into the political sphere, as well as their relationship with national women's organisations. I show that women were not passive onlookers to the debates on gender, but contributed to them, although their interest was more on improving women's rights than on formulating community identities. The dissertation examines women's conflicting identities as women and as Muslims, particularly as the initial unity among women on social reform issues was eroded due to communal antagonism in the realm of politics. The focus of the dissertation will be on the public sphere, which is where one can best examine the interactions between men and women, Hindus and Muslims, and Indian and British representatives. Given the diversity of the Indian Muslim experience, I concentrate on and give examples primarily from the United Provinces, but owing to wider connections between women I also look at other north Indian examples.

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In a multicultural society, there should be a pressing need to acknowledge the cultural heritages and social variations of its members in order to validate their experiences and realities. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore how Muslim parents interpreted the influence of the Islamic culture on their children's daily lives. The study addressed this influence by examining Muslim children's daily funds of knowledge. This study also aimed to examine how Muslim parents suggested their children's fund of knowledge to be addressed in a culturally responsive pedagogical model at public schools. Muslim parents in five ethnically diverse households were interviewed, and observational notes about physical surrounding during the interview sessions were recorded. A qualitative multiple case study was designed to answer research questions and understand the influence of the Islamic culture in these households. Data was analyzed through the integration of the analysis framework adapted from Stake (2006) while using Nvivo computer software for analyzing qualitative data. Eight themes emerged from the study and allowed for a discussion on the centrality of the religion in these households, the collective cultural paradigm, and the scope of identity negotiation taking place on a daily basis. For the purpose of this study, implications to educators were incorporated into Gay's (2000) characteristics of cultural responsive teaching in order to integrate Muslim students into classroom pedagogies.

M.A. / Mankind today lives in a predominantly heterogeneous and metropolitan society. At all stages of life, social, political, spiritual, there is constantly a diffusion of cultures, ideas and beliefs. South Africa until 1994 was the only example of a country where the broader ethnic groups were separated from each other. Besides this country, all other countries are exposed to this amalgamation and inter-action with each other on a daily basis. Although a mixed society augers well for the propagation and easy penetration of Islam within the populace, it also has its drawbacks. Allah says: 0 mankind! We created you from a single (pair)of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other (not that you may despise each other). Verily, the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. 1 1 Qur'an 49:13. Upon pondering the deeper meaning of the above verse, Allah has prescribed Taqw& (piety and righteousness) as a means of solving any problem resulting from the interaction of different tribes, races, and nations which could be at times a terribly irreconcilable one. The significant number of Muslims in any given society and especially Malawian Muslim society are ignorant of the Muslim Principles of marrying Al-Kitabiyyah (Woman of the Book). That is why we notice an irretrievable breakdown of many families whose husband happen to be a Muslim and the wife is a Kitabiyyah. This type of marriage has caused, and is still causing many problems to the social life of the Malawian Muslims. Children of these families do not enjoy that status of being under the loving care of both their mothers and fathers because their marriages does not last long. It is from this perspective that "Muslim Principles of marrying Al-Kitabiyyah" was chosen to give right direction for those who wants to marry women of the People of the Book. It deals with one small but significant aspect of interaction-the aspect of inter-marriage of Muslim men with Al-Kitabiyyah.

M.A.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork, textual analysis, and data culled from interviews, this manuscript explores how Islamic ethics shape the epistemic approaches of Muslim intellectuals to liberal democracy and corollary paradigms of western modernity. Specifically, it examines a critical discursive field of resistance generated by Muslim intellectuals in Turkey affiliated with Islamist NGOs and publishing houses. In response to the promotion of a ‘mild Islam’ compatible with democracy and liberalism in the context of Turkey, itself represented as the ‘model country’ in such regional schemes of democratization as the Greater Middle East Project, a radical movement emerged that appropriates the Islamic identity as a basis of resistance to the processes of hybridization, identitarian eclecticism and postmodern pluralism. The significance of this activism resides in the articulation of a discursive domain that (a) does not conform to the liberal protocols of intelligibility but (b) is produced through contact with liberal-democratic discourses of moderation. How does moderation as a normative standpoint create a space for political intervention? Through this question, I map out the processes and mechanisms by which ‘moderation’ as a transcendental and universal concept, concomitant with democratic subjectivity, operates as a political discourse and a moral-political practice of governmentality, functioning to suture democracy with liberal norms of conduct. My objective here is threefold: first, I detail the interaction between global paradigms of a neo-liberal, democratic postmodernity (with its ideals of tolerance, dialogue, religious pluralism) and local modalities of resistance embedded in Islamic piety. Second, by excavating local efforts at defamiliarizing the democratic paradigm within the intellectual community of Qur’anic Generation, I draw the contours of an Islamic epistemology of resistance, an antidiscipline which reinvents civil society as a space for moral resistance to democratic norms. Third, I problematize the extent to which scholarly production reinforces the liberal-democratic universal imaginary, which I accomplish by highlighting the ubiquity of liberal epistemological commitments found in democratic theory and empirical studies on civil society in the Middle East. Perceptible in western democratic theory is a recurrent ontopolitical pattern in theorizing the democratic subject through an ascetic norm of dispassionateness and moderation.