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This research builds upon Islamic feminism as an alternative mean to the typical Western way of perceiving feminism, when looking into the situation of Muslim women in Sweden through a qualitative field study. Moreover, this is linked to the discussion of gender equality and diversity which is on the agenda in the West due to contemporary migration flows. Semi-structured interviews are conducted for the purpose of highlighting Muslim women's own religious and cultural experiences concerning identity, freedom and gender roles, which are later connected to the academic debate regarding women in Islam and Islamic feminism. Additionally, interpretations of often discussed verses from the Qur'an on this topic are made during the interviews, also connected to the core of this research which is to explore the possibility of an identity formation with feminism and Islam coexisting among the interviewed women in Sweden, constituting the research gap. Hayward's theory of de-facing power is further applied to the findings and examples illustrate a tension between the different value systems when comparing the women's earlier experiences to current ones in Sweden, but that feminist understandings are visible and practiced to some extent. Summarized remarks include that further research is necessary and particularly with more interviewees which would enable more of a generalization, yet underlining that the situation among and for Muslim women differs. Nevertheless, it is through facilitating to meet each other and involve women in the society it is possible to achieve progress of a mutual understanding.

<p> The secularization of the academy thesis refers to the phenomenon of Protestant colleges and universities starting out as identifiable religious institutions of education now being places hostile, not only to Christianity, but religion in general. This has raised much discussion among leaders, faculty members, and students of religious educational institutions as to what is and what constitutes the identity of their respective institutions. It is in this context that we witness the rise in the establishment of Islamic schools in the North America. This context has generated many questions from the various stakeholders on the question of what the term &lsquo;Islamic&rsquo; denotes in Islamic education and Islamic schools. There have been two general approaches to answering this question: a universalist approach, which seeks to identify the most basic element of what &lsquo;Islamic&rsquo; denotes in concepts such as sacredness and God&rsquo;s oneness, and a particularist approach, for which &lsquo;Islamic&rsquo; denotes whatever a particular school holds it to be. </p><p> This dissertation argues that both of these approaches do not adequately prevent that trajectory of secularization as evidenced in the increasing sociological emphasis in Islamic schools&rsquo; mission and vision statement. It is argued that education should be viewed as the practice self-cultivation. It is in the self an educational institution seeks to cultivate where its identity resides. The dissertation seeks to answer the question of what the term &lsquo;Islamic&rsquo; denotes by looking at the self Islamic education seeks to cultivate. To this end, the highest good of Islamic education is developed by examining the work <i> Tadhkirat al-s&amacr;mi&lsquo; wa-l-mutakallim f&imacr; &amacr;d&amacr;b l-&lsquo;&amacr;lim wa-l-muta&lsquo;&amacr;llim</i> (A Monograph for the Auditor and the Lecturer on the &amacr;d&amacr;b of the Teacher and the Student) by the Mamluk era educationalist, Badr al-D&imacr;n Ibn Jam&amacr;&lsquo;ah (d. 733/1333). It will be argued that according to Ibn Jam&amacr;&lsquo;ah, the highest good of Islamic education is to cultivate a soul that possesses adab.</p><p> Through identifying the self Ibn Jam&amacr;&lsquo;ah sees as the highest good of Islamic education, this study seeks to contribute to and extend the conversation of the identity of Islamic educational institutions in North America by retrieving the work of educationalist in the Islamic tradition. </p><p>

The main purpose of the thesis is to investigate the possibility of bridging the dichotomy between Islam and the criteria of modern society by means of reinterpreting the principles (foundations) of Islam. The reformists Abdolkarim Soroush, Sedigheh Vasmaghi and Tariq Ramadan seek to prove that the methods keeping strictly within the boundaries of tradition interpreting the Quran along the lines of previous generations is not necessarily the sole means of coming to an understanding of the Quran’s message. The thesis discusses these reinterpreters’ critique of tradition and their arguments for the possibility of uniting the principles of Islam with the prerequisites of modern society. In conjunction with this, the question whether modern society presupposes a strict division between the private and the public sphere is problematized from a point of departure in Jeffrey Stout’s Democracy and Tradition. The thesis attempts to show potential conceptions of a modern society based on the principles of Islam.

This study deals with an important concept in fiqh known as ḍamān. Despite its universal usage in various areas of law, including that of criminal law and law of torts especially in facilitating award of compensation, this study will confine its survey within the bounds of commercial transactions. Ḍamān forms one of the most complicated subject-matters in the Islamic Law of Obligation. In this context, ḍamān is generally perceived as civil liability in the widest meaning, arising from the non-performance of contractual obligation, violation of trust, misrepresentation and unlawful enrichment. Firstly, this study will discuss suretyship, as ḍamān is, to some extent, treated as synonymous with kafālah by the jurists. Secondly, ḍamān will be surveyed as a method of redress of any contractual irregularities under the notion of gharāmah. Such practices are motivated by the Sharī'ah doctrines of maqāṣid shar'iyyah (objectives of the law), upholding the concept of lā ḍarara wa lā ḍirār (no harm shall be inflicted or reciprocated) and respecting the notion of sanctity of legitimate ownership (ḥurmat al-milkiyyah) and freedom of contract (ḥurriyat al-ta'āqud). Methods of establishing liability (ṭuruq ithbāt al-ḍamān) and its waivers (al-i'fā') min al-ḍamān), provision of redress (mabda' al-ta'wīḍ) and the institutional framework which are involved in it are then discussed. The study will be concerned with the prescriptions of the Qur'ān and Sunnah on ḍamān and their explanations in the classical manuals of Islamic Law. In addition, certain post-classical texts offering specific treatment of ḍamān, particularly al-Baghdādī's Majma' al-Ḍamānāt and al-Ma'danī's Taḍmln al-Ṣunnā' will be studied. Also, decisions by juristconsults of various localities, recorded in various collections of fatāwā and court decisions in the literature of adab al-qaḍā, will be examined to enhance our knowledge of the way ḍamān has been treated. For the purpose of systemization, texts of Uṣūl al-Fiqh and Qawā'id Fiqhiyyah are essential. Similarly, evidence on the economic history of Muslim civilization in the form of actual contracts, letters, business records and institutional operations, are examined. The research also relies heavily on the codifications of Islamic law like the Ottoman Majallat al-Aḥkām al-'Adliyyah, Qadrī Bāshā's Murshid al-Ḥayrān and the Ḥanbalīs Majallat al-Aḥkām al-Shar'iyyah. Finally, an analysis of the contemporary legislations in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia will prove that a classical concept like ḍamān is still vital for modem commerce. This also lays stress on the importance of neo-ijtihād to ensure ability and competence to apply ḍamān to fresh problems in commercial life.

This thesis argues that the Islamic finance industry has its ideological foundations in the business ethics and stakeholder theory since the Islamic jurisprudence supports the ethical foundation of business and financial intermediations. These ethical practices can be traced back to jurisprudential concepts of Maqasid Al Sharia and Maslaha in Islamic law. The current practices of IFI however fails to follow the ethically sound (and in line with the Maqasid and Maslaha ideals) stakeholder model because of competitive pressures from the conventional financial industry and is thus modelled more on the Neo liberal shareholder profit maximisation ideology, focusing mainly on ensuring that the shareholders and certain investments account holders get maximum returns, thereby foregoing the interest of other stakeholders. It is thus argued that due to the incompatibility of the Neo liberal ethos with the Islamic finance ideals (the Maqasid of Financial intermediation), the Islamic finance industry needs to focus on more stakeholder oriented practices. The major reason for the failure of the current regulatory framework for the Islamic finance industry is the lack of any compliance and enforcement mechanism to ensure that uniform sharia governance mechanisms can be applied across the jurisdictions. This it is argued can best be achieved by international principle based Meta regulatory framework focusing on the stakeholder nature of the Islamic finance involving the IFSB and the AAOIFI and giving these bodies the authority to issue certificates of sharia compliance whereby the IFI’s would be required to obtain these certificates to function as ‘Islamic’ institutions.

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