M.Com. (Economics and Econometrics) / Poverty is a multi-dimensional problem that requires a solution that is both multi-dimensional and systematic. The research contained in this dissertation is important because it explores the Shari’ah approach to multi-dimensional poverty reduction as a more suitable alternative to the conventional, uni-dimensional approaches to poverty reduction, especially from a theoretical perspective. The main argument presented in this dissertation is that the theoretical Shari’ah approach to poverty reduction provides a more detailed framework than the conventional uni-dimensional approach for addressing the various dimensions of poverty and their interrelationships under secular conditions. The study was based on a non-empirical, critical analysis of the available literature. The motive for addressing the problem in this manner was because a truly comprehensive conceptual framework surrounding the Shari’ah approach did not truly exist prior to this study. The first of two important conclusions reached in this study are that Shari’ah could theoretically assist with offering a holistic and systemic theoretical framework...

By the eleventh century, the conduct of jurisprudence in the Mālikī school of law – one of four that would survive in Sunni Islam – was predicated on a legal system that comprised a particular set of sources: mainly, the positive legal rules posited by Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/795) and a few of his subsequent adherents, and ḥadīth and Qur᾽an. The structure of the legal system was one in which these sources were conceived to cohere analogically. By analogy, they could be correlated to each other and thereby systematically rationalized, and new rules to govern new cases generated from, and added to, them. This study recovers the antecedents of that system and describes the main stages of the process by which Mālikī jurisprudence acquired the systematic character of its classical form. It provides a re-assessment of Mālik’s own jurisprudence and of the role of precedent and ḥadīth in the Medinese tradition, arguing that the origins of systematic thought in the Mālikī tradition are to be sought in Mālik’s retrospective rationalizations by analogy of rules pronounced nonetheless from arbitrary considerations. I distinguish the mode of analogy that Mālik employed to this effect (tashbīh) from that which his Iraqi contemporaries and the later classical schools employed ostensibly to derive rules from sources ab initio (qiyās). Mālik, I contend, in fact opposed qiyās because it threatened to undermine the sufficiency of juristic discretion by imposing systematic constraints on the personal reasoning of authoritative arbiters. I show how subsequently the Mudawwanah, a work compiled by Mālik’s ninth-century followers in the Islamic West, promoted the formation of a legal system by subjecting Mālik’s teaching and his students’ ramifications of it to a Ḥanafite design by which they became susceptible of analysis along analogical lines. The system implicit in the Mudawwanah is structurally but not yet materially classical. It remained for the Western Mālikīyah, through their encounters in the East with Shāfi῾ite legal theory in the later tenth century, to absorb into the fabric of their system, which so far comprised only the positive rules of the tradition itself, the revealed sources from which, by qiyās, al-Shāfi῾ī (d. 204/820) in the early ninth century had insisted the law be derived. As background to this theory of systematization, I also address inter alia the following questions, which bear in one way or another on our appreciation of Mālik’s jurisprudence and/or the extent to which we may suppose it to be accessible in the recensions of the Muwaṭṭa᾽: the transmission of the vulgate in ninth-century Andalus; the reception of Mālik’s doctrine in Iraq (as perceived through the Muwaṭṭa᾽ of al-Shaybānī – in particular, the editorial principles that informed its composition – and the Ḥujjah ῾alá ahl al-Madīnah); other recensions and the possibilities for a chronology of Muwaṭṭa᾽āt; representation of Mālik’s doctrine in the Ikhtilāf Mālik wa-al-Shāfi῾ī; the way in which Mālik transmitted the Muwaṭṭa᾽ as an explanation of variation between its recensions.

This dissertation is a study of the intellectual history of Ṣadr al-Dīn Dashtakī (d. 903/1498) and Ghiyāath al-Dīn Dashtakī (d. 949/1542), two important Shirazi philosophers and Shi'i thinkers who lived in the late Timurid and early Safavid period. It argues that Avicennan philosophy was revived and provided with a new impetus at a time when it was under attack by Ash'ari thinkers belonging to the later tradition. Paradoxically, many of the later Ash'ri thinkers saw it fit to engage in metaphysical speculations that took the Avicennan tradition as its basis. Yet, these same thinkers accused Avicenna and his followers of advancing specious arguments and for making incoherent statements about God, the cosmos, religious matters, and the general nature of things. So overarching was this later Ash'ari tradition, that it became the intellectual tradition par excellence in the centuries leading up to the Safavid period. In many of their major philosophical writings, the Dashtakīs sought to decouple Avicennan philosophy from Ash'ari kalām, and, at the same time, to attack the foundations of the Ash'ari tradition. In doing so, the Dashtakīs proposed a particular reading of Avicenna that was purified of Ash'ari influences and closer to philosophical Shi'ism.

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The main purpose of this dissertation is to lessen the gap in the Islamic finance and investment literature by providing new answers to the most vital question raised in that literature: Is the adherence to the Shariah law associated with at any cost? The first chapter provides a primer on Islamic finance. It discusses several restrictions and necessary adaptations that must be made to have a Shariah-compliant product. The takeaway is that Shariah law mandates is related to fundamentals and, thus has a direct effect on the risk-return profile of all sorts of different products. This is referred to as the “Islamic-effect.” The second chapter investigates that Islamic-effect in a cross-sectional stock return context. This is done in two steps. First, looking at differences in stock returns between Islamic and conventional firms in Saudi Arabia during the period from January 2003 to April 2011. Results indicate that there is a negative relationship between Saudi Islamic firms and average returns. This is referred to as the “negative Islamic-effect.” Second, examine whether that negative Islamic-effect is considered a common, systematic, and undiversified risk factor that affects cross-sectional expected stock returns. Time-series regressions results indicate that the Islamic risk factor (CMI) does indeed capture strong common variation in Saudi stock returns regardless what is included in the model. Also, findings suggest that using a four-factor model that controls for the Islamic-effect is more appropriate than using a single- or a three-factor model in Islamic finance applications that require estimates of expected stock returns. The third chapter investigates the Islamic-effect in a mutual fund context. A unique sample of 143 Saudi mutual funds (96-Islamic and 47-conventional) is used to assess the performance and riskiness of Saudi Islamic funds relative to Saudi conventional funds and relative to different Islamic and conventional indices for the period from July 2004 to January 2010. Findings suggest that there is a benefit (cost) from adhering to the Shariah law when locally-focused (internationally-focused) fund portfolios are investigated. When Arab-focused fund portfolios are investigated, findings suggest that there is neither a cost nor a benefit from adhering to the Shariah law.

'A treatise of algebra historical and practical' (London 1685) by John Wallis (1616-1703) was the first full length history of algebra. In four hundred pages Wallis explored the development of algebra from its appearances in Classical, Islamic and medieval cultures to the modern forms that had evolved by the end of the seventeenth century. Wallis dwelt especially on the work of his countrymen and contemporaries, Oughtred, Harriot, Pell, Brouncker and Newton, and on his own contribution to the emergence of algebra as the common language of mathematics. This thesis explores why and how A treatise of algebra was written, and the sources Wallis used. It begins by analysing Wallis's account of mathematical learning in medieval England, never previously investigated. In his researches on the origins and spread of the numeral system Wallis was at his best as a historian, and initiated many modern historiographical techniques. His summary of algebra in Renaissance Europe was less detailed, but for Wallis this part of the story set the scene for the English flowering that was to be his main theme. The influence of Oughtred's Clavis on Wallis and his contemporaries, and Wallis's efforts to promote the book, are explored in detail. Wallis's controversial account of Harriot's algebra is also examined and it is argued that it was better founded than has sometimes been supposed and that Wallis had direct access to Harriot's algebra through Pell. Many other chapters of A treatise of algebra contain mathematics that can be linked or traced to Pell, a hitherto unsuspected secret of the book. The later chapters of the thesis, like the final part of A treatise of algebra, explore Wallis's Arithmetica infinitorum and the work which arose from it up to Newton's foundation of modern analysis, and include a discussion of Brouncker's treatment of the number challenges set by Fermat. The thesis ends with a summary of contemporary and later reactions to A treatise of algebra and an assessment of Wallis's view of algebra and its history.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1984. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH / Bibliography: p. 462-466. / This study aims to analyze the effect of the responsibility enjoyed by individuals over the built environment. To understand these effects the study concentrates on the physical state of the property. It is concluded that three claims will affect the physical state of a property: the claim of ownership, the claim of control and the claim of use. These three claims can be enjoyed by one or more individuals at the same time over the same property. A model is developed to explore the relationships between the three claims and the parties involved in sharing them, and it is then used to explain the physical state of a property. For example, given the same circumstances, we may expect a property that is owned, controlled and used by one person to be in a different state than if it is owned by one person, controlled by a second and used by a third. In the first case, responsibility is unified in one person, while in the second, it is dispersed among the three persons. In addition to these two, the developed model recognizes three more patterns of responsibility into which a property may be submitted. These five states of submission of the property are called the "Forms of Submission of Property." The relationship between the individuals sharing the responsibility over a property will affect the state of the property. If the relationships between the responsible parties change, the state of the property will change. The relationship between responsible individuals in the traditional Muslim built environment differs from that of contemporary environments which have changed the physical state of properties. By concentrating on the traditional built environments, this study highlights these differences. It investigates various elements from both traditional and contemporary environments within the different forms of submission. First, the study investigates each form of submission independently, and then it explores the coexistence of the various properties that are in different forms of submission in the traditional built environment. This explains the relationship between the individuals responsible for different properties. From these explorations the conclusion is reached that responsibility in the traditional environments has shifted to outsiders in contemporary environments. In traditional environments the users had more responsibility; in contemporary environments outsiders share the responsibility with the inhabitants through interventions in all claims. The study demonstrates that the structure of the built environment has changed because of the change in the pattern of responsibility. Examples of such changes are: the potential of the physical environment, the conventions of·the society, the social relationships between users and the territorial structure. / by Jamel A. Akbar. / Ph.D.

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