The Green Movement of 2009 was a moment where the Iranians took to the streets and protested for democracy. This is nothing new, throughout the whole 20th century gave Iranian people many different options of their country. This thesis examines those moments and differentiates the Green Movement as an event that is unique in that it has not yet led to top-down reforms. Previous literature has yet to incorporate the Green Movement in contemporary analysis of Iranian history.

This thesis examines various issues of arbitration law and practice in relation to the Islamic Shari’a law and the law of Saudi Arabia in general, and for arbitration in conventional banking disputes in particular. The thesis found that the Shari’a regulates arbitration tightly compared to other contemporary developments as no fundamental differences were found to exist between the classical Shari’a arbitration rules and the Saudi arbitration regulations, which represent the codification of the Hanbali law of arbitration. Unlike other arbitration laws, almost all kinds of disputes can be settled by arbitration in Saudi Arabia, and these include family and some criminal disputes such as murder and personal injuries. Moreover, this thesis demonstrates the difference between Islamic law and Saudi law. The latter is more comprehensive as it includes Islamic law and the borrowed Codes and Acts of the laws of other nations. The legal status of banking interest under the Saudi law is not clearly defined and it is not clear whether riba contradicts with the public policy of Saudi Arabia or not. This uncertainty has an impact on arbitration related to banking disputes and has led me to conclude that arbitration is not the best method for settling disputes involving domestic conventional banking business. Although resorting to the Committee for the Settlement of Banking Disputes of SAMA might provide a better solution, the decisions of the Committee are not “strong” enough to be fully enforced and the payment of interest continues to be an avoidable obligation in Saudi Arabia; therefore, the thesis examined the alternative remedies for both domestic and international banking arbitration. The thesis also found that if the enforcement of an international arbitration award is sought in Saudi Arabia, the award will be subject to the mandatory application of Shari’a law, which in addition to the imposition of interest, prohibits also certain kinds of commercial contracts.

The punishments of Islamic criminal law and in particular, the notoriously severe ḥadd punishments, were never systematically justified in classical Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh). However, the fiqh tradition is ripe with debates about ḥadd punishments, and theories of justification, while not fully spelt out, are often implied in the writings of Muslim jurists. In Part I of this thesis, three fiqh strategies for the justification of ḥadd punishments are described and critically evaluated: one that seeks to characterize the ḥadd punishments as divinely ordained, immutable “rights of God” (ch. 1), one that describes the purpose of ḥadd punishments as serving general as well as individual prevention (ch. 2), and one that stresses that to suffer ḥadd is an expiatory act that amends for sins and thus ensures salvation in the Hereafter (ch. 3). The Sunnī legal schools (madhāhib), salient representatives of which are studied in this dissertation, controversially discussed the meaning and purpose of ḥadd punishments in the context of each of these three fiqh discourses. Part II of this thesis proceeds to describe and discuss contemporary Muslim debates about the applicability and justifiability of ḥadd punishments today. While only few Islamic regimes currently implement ḥadd, the topic has a large symbolical importance because it exemplifies the struggle of Muslim thinkers to reconcile Islam with modernity. In a first step, this thesis aims to clarify to what extent contemporary positions echo, attack or simply sidestep classical fiqh positions: how, in other words, the present is connected to the traditional fiqh framework of the past (ch. 4). In a concluding chapter, a number of salient topics of debate in the contemporary ḥadd controversy are analysed within the cultural and political contexts in which they are located (ch. 5). While classical legal doctrines about ḥadd punishments, despite the controversies between the madhāhib, tend to be rigid, emphasizing the immutable character of the criminal law norms found in the Sharīʻah, the periodic calls among contemporary thinkers for the implementation of ḥadd are, it is suggested, largely driven by political agendas.

The Muslim tradition tells us that when Muslims migrated to Medina and their number increased, they felt the need for an efficient means to convoke the community for the daily prayers. Jews and Christians both had well-established summoning rituals involving different instruments, that Muslims considered adopting. They eventually developed a distinct, simple ritual consisting of a small set of chanted formulæ, which became known as the adhān, the Islamic call to prayer. This is the narrative thread that we find in all major Sunnī collections of aḥādīth - reported sayings of Muḥammad and his companions - which recount the introduction of the adhān. The present work postulates that this thread or 'proto-narrative' was used by several narrators, transmitters, and collectors until the third/ninth century who modified it and added new elements in order to settle political and religious controversies of their times. This proto-narrative is outlined in the main chapter (chap. 3), which highlights how it was modified and why, using close textual analysis of both Sunnī and Shī'ī texts with data-dense graphs of relations, locations, and times produced via network visualisation tools. Five major Sunnī legal treaties from the second/eighth century onwards were also scrutinised (chap. 4) to better understand the general context in which the aḥādīth about the introduction of the adhān were being circulated and confirm the results obtained through the textual analysis. The conclusions reveal specific mechanisms used in the formation and transmission of aḥādīth. In the case of the adhān, aḥādīth represent half of a 'conversation' between people, students, or rulers on one side, asking questions about the origins and the right form of the call to prayer, and on the other side, scholars or jurists who answer with adapted narratives. Only the latter was preserved, yet the present thesis shows that it is often possible to reconstruct, to a certain extent, the former part of this 'conversation'.

This thesis is a study of the oldest Islamic chronological history still extant: the Tārīkh (‘Chronicle’) of the Basran ḥadīth scholar and historian Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ al-ʿUṣfurī (d. 240/854), which covers the political and administrative history of the Muslim polity between year 1/622 and 232/847. Despite its early date, Khalīfa’s Tārīkh has received little attention in modern scholarship and its value for understanding the development of early Islamic historiography has generally been disregarded. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to reassess the Tārīkh by analysing both the text and its context of compilation. After outlining Khalīfa’s biography (Ch. 1) and his social and intellectual context (Ch. 2), the thesis examines different aspects of Khalīfa’s Tārīkh in comparison to the wider Islamic historical tradition: his sources (Ch. 3), methods (Ch. 4), arrangement of material (Ch. 5) and narrative treatment of key themes in the early tradition (Chs. 6–7). The thesis thereby provides an in-depth study of one of the earliest Muslim historians and his methods of compilation, which is important for both the study of Islamic historiography and the usage of such sources in historical scholarship on early Islam. It is argued that Khalīfa’s role as a ḥadīth scholar and his early Sunnī outlook is reflected throughout the content of the Tārīkh. This is particularly evident in Khalīfa’s selection of sources, which consist of mainly Basran transmitters including numerous major ḥadīth scholars, and in his narration of controversial events such as the early civil wars, which displays an early Sunnī perspective. It is also suggested that Khalīfa’s particular selection and arrangement of material was largely determined by his aim to compile a critical and concise chronology of the political and administrative history of the Muslim community. Moreover, the thesis shows that, while the Tārīkh differs from many other early histories, it bears some resemblance to other chronographies compiled by early ḥadīth scholars—such as the works of al-Fasawī (d. 277/890), Ibn Abī Khaythama (d. 279/892) and Abū Zurʿa al- Dimashqī (d. 282/895) as well as the sections on post-Prophetic history in some ḥadīth collections such as Ibn Abī Shayba’s (d. 235/849) Muṣannaf. By comparing Khalīfa’s Tārīkh with these works, the thesis draws attention to this type of historical writing among some early ḥadīth scholars, which has so far been neglected in modern studies on early Islamic historiography.

Thesis (M.Arch.A.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1980. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography: p. 67-68. / by Farid Hussain Taheri. / M.Arch.A.S.

This dissertation analyzes the education of Muslim leaders in accredited North American institutions. Currently, the only accredited programs that train Muslim leaders in the United States and Canada are Protestant Christian seminaries. Based on ethnographic research conducted at Hartford Seminary (Hartford, Connecticut), Emmanuel College of Victoria University in the University of Toronto (Toronto, Ontario), and Bayan Claremont (Claremont, California), I analyze the impact of multifaith educational models on the development of North American Muslim leaders, such as Muslim chaplains, pastors, and spiritual caregivers. I examine the various rationales provided by the institutions in question for the establishment of Muslim leadership training programs at Christian seminaries, as well as Muslim students’ justifications for studying at these institutions. Subsequently, I argue that these programs depend on multiple forms of “translation” that render members of distinct religious traditions comprehensible to one another. These multifaith programs require translations of space in order to accommodate the practical needs of members of diverse religious backgrounds, and to generate experiences of inclusivity. I also examine curricular translations, specifically focusing on translations of “the spiritual,” given the centrality of the concept within the professional field of chaplaincy. Finally, I analyze translations of debates about gender and authority in Islam into multifaith classrooms. These various negotiations make apparent that the burdens of translation are not equally shared. Within the Protestant milieus in which these Muslim leadership programs take shape, the work of Muslim students is ultimately framed and evaluated within a setting where Christianity provides the overwhelming “logic” of the field. This dissertation thus reveals the inculcation of norms of Muslim authority that align with liberal Christian values, including but not limited to: religious individualism, spirituality (versus legalism), democracy, non-hierarchical forms of authority, ecumenism, and interfaith relationship-building.

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