No abstract provided

No description available.

This dissertation examines the ethnicization of Islam among a specific ethnic group in China, namely the Hui. It is based upon sixteen months of multi-sited fieldwork conducted in China's Henan Province and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region from 2010 to 2012. I argue that the particular ethno-imaginary of the Hui and their positioning vis-à-vis the Han majority - that they are both non-Han and more Han than the Han - are predicated upon a particular sexual economy. Islam is situated in an imagined dissymmetrical exchange of woman as that whose presumed truth can procure for the Hui the feminine "Han blood." The "nativization" of Islam among the Hui, i.e. its supposedly never complete "sinicization," occurs through the figure of the Han woman. In Part I of this dissertation, I trace the itinerary of this figure in both historiographical narratives of the Hui in the early twentieth century and the organizational variations of their contemporary life as Muslims in a swiftly-changing China. In Part II, I move to a more general level, and study two major institutions in the Chinese state's governance of ethnic difference, namely ethnic regional autonomy and ethnic cadre. I situate them within the socialist tradition and unpack their specificity in contrast to other political configurations in the governance of ethnic difference (e.g. liberal multiculturalism). I suggest that this socialist governance of difference is defined by a biopolitical logic, and argue that the link to sexuality that is intrinsic to the concept of biopolitics renders the Hui a particularly privileged site for exploring the complex relationship between the socialist politics of ethnicity and the socialist governance of sexuality.

This thesis will probe selected Arabic commentary material on the Hippocratic Aphorisms. The aim is, first, to shed light on the development of Arabic medical commentary; second, to draw attention to issues of continuity and change in medical ideas and debates; third, to shed light on wider debates about women and medicine in the medieval world. Due to limitations on space, the main focus is on the second point. The sample of Arabic commentary material investigated here relates to Aph. 5. 31, Aph. 5. 35 and Aph. 5. 48. The material is situated within the wider context of the Islamic scientific commentary genre. The Arabic material is taken from the preliminary online edition now available due to the culmination of the Project on the Hippocratic Aphorisms (2012-2017) led by Peter Pormann at the University of Manchester.

This dissertation focuses on an important Muslim periodical "Pengasoh" and the role it has played in the Muslim ‘reform’ discourses in early 20th century Malaya. The periodical was first published by the Majlis Agama Islam Kelantan (Kelantan’s State Islamic Council) in 1918. Within the context of Malay-Muslim society, Kelantan was, and in some ways remain, a particularly important centre for Islamic culture and learning, attracting teachers and students from across the region. The Majlis itself was established by some of the leading ulama on the Peninsula at the time. Many were educated in the Middle East and had close associations with some of the major Muslim reformists in Egypt and the Haramayn. The standing of the Kelantanese 'ulama' within Malay-Muslim Southeast Asia, and the role of "Pengasoh" within that community meant that the periodical gives a unique glimpse into the world of these intellectual-theocrats. In this sense, the study of “Pengasoh” is a prism which could further our understanding of the dynamics of Islamic intellectual culture in Kelantan – as well as the surrounding region – during the early decades of the 20th century. What this dissertation attempts to show is how the ideational aspects of this community may be better understood if two important factors are taken into account - the linkages throughout the Indian Ocean littoral which form the cultural and religious milieu which shaped the thinking within the Kelantanese ‘ulama’; and how this sits in a wider conversation between "Islam" and "modernity". This moves away from existing studies which sought to clearly demarcate these Islamicate discourses as one between ‘Modernist’ Muslims and their ‘traditionalist’ counterparts.

This dissertation explores the drivers of why organizations, as members of its market category, choose to conform or deviate from the category’s codes. In essence, codes are the social rules category members are expected to abide by and that underpin the very existence of a category. Given the importance of producer conformity in upholding a category’s continued existence, code deviance then seems a counterintuitive strategy to pursue. Nonetheless, organizations are known to defy codes in certain instances, sometimes even pairing the violation simultaneously with conformity to other codes. On top of this, organizations also seem to be able to strategically decide which codes they will abide by to a certain extent. Each of the three papers in this dissertation investigates why organizations may choose to either conform or deviate by, respectively, examining (1) the identity difference between the code violator with the potential adopter of the code violation, (2) the taken-for-grantedness of the category the organization is a part of, and (3) the individual status and organizational identity (insider-outsider) of the producer. The main overarching finding of this dissertation is that organizations will take into account both its internal resources and external socio-environment to decide which strategy it will deploy and whether it can afford to do so. All in all, this dissertation specifies how the three factors mentioned may affect an organization’s propensity to conform or violate to category codes.

The main aim of this thesis is to study the pricing of options of Ijārah Sukūk for lifespan. The pricing formulae of mid-term call and put options are derived by computing the expected value under the risk neutral measure and using an appropriate condition of exercising the option at mid-term. The mid-term option prices with continuous Ijārah obtained using these formulae are compared with the prices of European and American options with dividend for lifespan. The comparison is done both analytically and numerically. The same analysis is done for callable and puttable Sukūk with Ijārah and compared with the prices of European and American callable and puttable bond with coupon for lifespan. We also study the relationship between callable Sukūk price and Ijārah rate by computing the duration and convexity of the callable Sukūk price. The same analysis is done for puttable Sukūk.

The Khārijites are usually regarded as the first faction to separate from the early Islamic community. They are viewed as rebels and heretics, constituting the first sect within early Islam. This thesis seeks to examine the narrative role and function of Khārijism in the historiographical tradition of the formative period of Islam. To that end, it looks at the major Islamic chronicles of the 3rd and 4th centuries AH/9th and 10th centuries CE and investigates their portrayal of Khārijite history. The analysis covers the period from the apparent emergence of the Khārijites at the Battle of Ṣiffīn in 37 AH/657 CE until the death of the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān in 86 AH/705 CE. The thesis’ methodological approach is based on the premise that the historiographical works under study need to be approached as literary artefacts, as texts rather than databanks that can be mined for hard facts in order to reconstruct early Islamic and thus Khārijite history ‘as it really was’. This literary analysis of the source material on Khārijism leads to two major conclusions: first, there is hardly any narrative substance to the Khārijites as presented in the sources. Instead, the reports on Khārijite activities are mostly made up of structural components such as names and dates on the one hand, and topoi and schemata on the other. Consequently, no distinct and tangible identity, literary or otherwise, emerges from the material, pointing out the pitfalls of positivist approaches to Khārijite history and by extension early Islamic history in general. This phenomenon is directly connected to the second conclusion: the historiographical sources approach Khārijism not as an end in itself, but as a narrative tool with which to illustrate, discuss and criticize other actors and subject matters. The thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapters One and Two address those characteristics of and topoi in the representation of Khārijism that pervade the source material across the entire period investigated here. It emerges that the historiographers’ major concern in the depiction of Khārijism is the discussion of the perils of the rebels’ militant piety that threatens the unity and stability of the Islamic community. Chapters Three to Five look at the periods of ʿAlī’s caliphate, Muʿāwiya’s rule and the second fitna as well as t he reign of ʿAbd al-Malik, respectively, and identify the specific narrative purposes of Khārijism in the portrayal of each period. Chapter Six offers a number of observations on the early historiographical tradition as derived from the analysis over the preceding five chapters, addressing issues such as whether it makes sense to distinguish between proto-Sunnī and proto-Shīʿī sources. The Conclusion summarizes the main findings of this thesis and provides some suggestions regarding future research on Khārijite history and thought as well as early Islamic history in general.

No description available.

No description available.