As the number of Islamic institutions increases in America, the need for greater understanding of the Muslim community, and the challenges faced by this minority, increases as well. This project seeks to provide such knowledge by exploring one of these rapidly growing institutions founded and funded by Muslims, private Islamic schools. Absent from media and literature is an understanding of Islamic schools and the experiences of youth as their attendees. This project addresses this gap through an ethnographic focus on female students at one Islamic school. Data was collected via interviews, focus groups, observation, and participant observation. This student-centered approach provides qualitative insight on the perspectives of Muslim girls on identity, schooling, and community in order to foster greater understanding of the mission, social function, and practices of Islamic schools.

Aging as a physical, aesthetic and intellectual process gained, after muhdath poetry, a position of prominence in Classical Arabic poetry and poetics. Despite its relevance to the development of subgenres such as that of shayb (white hair) and zuhd (ascetic poetry), Arabic verse on aging received little attention by major contemporary critics. This study focuses on the verses on aging penned by the Andalusian poet Abu Ishaq al-Ilbiri and the Sicilian 'Abd al-Jabbar Ibn Hamdis in the XI and XII centuries, arguing for the creative processes through which these two poets reworked the motif of old age, together with other poetic subgenres, fashioning a 'poetics of aging.' By means of such a poetics, al-Ilbiri and Ibn Hamdis voiced their apprehension for the end of their lives, and at once, for the end of Islam's political supremacy in their homelands. Both al-Ilbiri and Ibn Hamdis, as they aged, became more and more preoccupied with the political decline of Islam in Muslim Spain and Sicily. They addressed the prominent political figures of their times, inciting them to a restore Maghribi Islam to its former glory. At the same time, they devoted a significant part of their overall production to subgenres such as the elegiac and the ascetic, in which they reflected upon their physical decay and advocated a withdrawal from worldly pursuits. My study questions this apparent contrast. It is my contention that al-Ilbiri's and Ibn Hamdis's poetics of aging does not imply of personal withdrawal from public life. Such a poetics should instead be read as part and parcel with their public verses of tahrid (public instigation). In what follows I illustrate how al-Ilbiri and Ibn Hamdis combined verses on physical decline, elegies and ascetic verses, in order to convey their late-life reflections as two first-hand witnesses to the end of Islam's social and political cohesion in the Muslim West. Emerging from these verses is a fascinating combination of a political documentation for later Maghribi Muslim history and a quasi-autobiographical voicing of the anxieties these poets experienced living at both the temporal and spatial margins. / Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

This study examines the psychological and emotional experience of settling in Canada for South Asian Muslim newcomers and the coping systems they use to manage the challenges associated with moving to a new country. Ten South Asian Muslims were interviewed within the Greater Toronto Area. They were posed questions related to the hardships they encountered as they settled in Canada and how they managed those challenges. The data was analyzed using Grounded Theory. A model was developed to illustrate resources used by newcomers to help maintain their mental health and well-being. Upon settling in Canada, the participants experienced psychological stressors and therefore sought help from their Islamic faith, their families, and community services. The combined resources facilitated the immigrants’ resilience and allowed them to maintain a positive outlook towards their immigration experience.

In Islamic societies, religion plays a significant role in shaping the home and the environment. An important feature of the Islamic culture is the segregation of women from males other than next of kin. This aspect has given rise to the separation of domains for men and women, both in the home and the neighbourhood. And this duality of space in turn reinforces the seclusion and segregation of women. / This thesis studies this phenomenon in rural settlements in South Asia in regions where Muslims predominate and also in non-Muslim areas influenced by centuries of Muslim rule. The living patterns of rural women and how they use and perceive their local space formed the focus of the study. / A field study was undertaken in a rural community in Bangladesh. Gender segregation norms and the resulting spatial organization of dwellings of different socio-economic groups were studied and compared. An important premise of the study is how the poor manage to integrate their faith and Islamic customs in their living environment.

Nursing Muslim patients in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) poses challenges for expatriate non-Muslim nurses. Caring for Muslim patients in a cardiac intensive care unit, catering for patients who underwent open heart surgery, poses unique challenges to non-Muslim nurses. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 63 non-Muslim nurses who cared for Muslim patients who had undergone cardiac surgery. Factors that influenced non Muslim nurses’ experiences of working with Muslim patients in the KSA, included culture shock, language barriers and a lack of understanding of Islam as a religion. In-service education sessions, addressing these issues, could enhance non-Muslim nurses' abilities to render culture competent care to Muslim patients in a cardiac intensive care unit in the KSA. Arabic-English translators could facilitate communication between the expatriate nurses and the Muslim patients. / Health Studies / M.A. (Health Studies)

Esta pesquisa se insere no campo dos estudos sobre o mundo muçulmano, tendo como objeto as mulheres muçulmanas e sua presença nos movimentos islamistas, entendidos aqui como movimentos fundamentalistas, cuja ideologia política tem como núcleo a defesa das tradições do Islã e a crítica ao Ocidente. O objetivo central é o de investigar em que medida esses movimentos podem estar contribuindo para (ou obstruindo) uma possível emancipação das mulheres muçulmanas, definida essa emancipação por critérios como autonomia na participação sociopolítica e presença nos espaços públicos. Nesse sentido, a pesquisa propõe-se, na perspectiva da História Social, fazer uma abordagem comparativa entre o Egito e a Turquia, pós-anos 80, estruturando-se em torno de três questões principais: a) O islamismo e seu impacto na vida social e política das mulheres; b) A presença feminina nos movimentos islamistas e c) A modernidade no Islã: a mulher e o islamismo. Trabalhando com as noções de Islã, fundamentalismo, identidade, gênero, feminismo, modernidade e outras, a pesquisa, ao voltar-se para as relações entre mulheres e islamismo, espera contribuir também para o estudo dos processos de modernização das sociedades muçulmanas. / This research inserts in the field of the studies about the Muslim world, having as object the Muslim women and its presence in Islamist movements, understood here as fundamentalist movements whose political ideology is centered defense of the traditions of Islam and in the criticism of West. The main objective is to investigate to what extent these movements may be contributing to (or blocking) a possible emancipation of Muslim women, this emancipation defined by criteria such as autonomy in social and political participation and presence in public spaces. In this sense, the research is proposed from the perspective of social history, making a comparison between Egypt and Turkey, after 80, and is structured around three main issues: a) Islam and its impact on social and politics life of women; b) the presence of women in Islamist movements c) modernity in Islam: Women and Islamism. Working with the notions of Islam, fundamentalism, identity, gender, feminism, modernity and other the research to turn to relations between women and Islamism, also hopes to contribute to the study of the modernization of Muslim societies.

Magister Artium - MA / Includes bibliographic references (leaves 184-195)"In this thesis, I contrast Qutbs approach towards jihad with that which is found in the primary sources of Islam and as espoused by the proponents of the four schools of thought, as well as key Islamic scholars. This study also attempts to explore the conceptual confusion between terrorism, jihad, and legitimate defense and resistance by comparing the legislation on jihad in Islam with that which exists in international law and conventions. I then turn my attention to the focal point of this study, the writings of Sayyid Qutb on jihad..."

Building on social psychological theories of identity, social networks, and religion, I developed and empirically tested a social network framework of civic and religious identity development among Muslim adolescents. In Chapter 2, I explore the social networks of Muslim high school students in the classroom in four European countries, finding that Muslim adolescents’ network centrality in the classroom erodes over time, which has an impact on academic outcomes. In Chapter 3, I explore social relationships in an identity-boosting after-school program to understand how Muslim adolescents develop their social connections with other Muslim peers. I found that participation in the event has an overall main effect of increasing civic intentions, enhancing affiliation and communion language, and developing a larger trust radius in a network of other Muslims. I also determined that Muslim girls and boys experience civic engagement differentially and discovered that meta stereotypes about their religious identity and centrality within a civic social network predict greater civic outcomes among Muslim girls. In Chapter 4, I build on the findings from Chapters 2 and 3 to develop a social network framework of religious and civic identity development among Muslim adolescents. In Chapter 5, I take a broader look at existing literature within social psychology studying Muslim populations through a content analysis. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of this work for social and cultural psychology, network science, and intervention science.

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