Through a comparative study of two Atlanta full-time Muslim parochial schools, this study examines Muslim approaches to Islamic education by analyzing school leaders' secular and religious goals, their main obstacles and concerns, and what they believe the best practices are. The study explores leaders’ visions of socialization and community development by juxtaposing findings from two schools. In order to answer the aforementioned questions, this study 1) assesses national trends in K-12 Islamic parochial schools across the United States through related research, 2) engages Muslim leaders from both institutions through semi-formal interviews, and 3) supplements findings through an extended period of participant observation.

The purpose of this study is to find out how Swedish Muslim girls use Facebook and its functions in constructing their Muslim identity on the platform. The study is based on a qualitative method which consists of nine interviews with Swedish Muslim girls between the ages 17-23 and who use Facebook daily. The study is based on the view of Facebook as a scene where individuals can perform for an audience. I have used Erving Coffman’s dramaturgical perspective that explains why individuals appear in an appropriate manner to achieve confirmation from their audience. I also used theories about identity construction, community and the theory about how individuals create a social presence online.   The study’s results have shown that the Swedish Muslim girl does not only wear a veil in real life, but also a “digital veil” on Facebook, which hides the things that go outside the Islamic framework. On Facebook, she must think about the Muslim values and norms while producing her identity to avoid isolation from the Muslim society. The study also shows that the need for a sense of belonging is the Muslim girl’s motivation that forms her behaviour on the platform.

The purpose of this thesis is to understand the experiences and meanings of tourism employment for Muslim women in the Middle East, including the positive and negative aspects of this form of employment. The study was conducted in Oman, which was the research site and cultural setting for this study. The theoretical paradigm that guided this study was social constructionism. A constructivist grounded theory methodology was also used for this study in order to interpret and analyze the collected data into themes. A combination of convenience sampling and snowball technique was used to recruit participants for the interviews, resulting in a total of 9 interviews being conducted with local Muslim women working in the Oman tourism industry. The data were collected through open-ended interviews conducted face to face, using a semi structured interview format. The analysis process led to the development of seven themes. The seven main themes related to finding work in the tourism field, facing negative attitudes, challenges of tourism work, dealing with negative attitudes and challenges, the importance of tourism work in women lives, an expanded vision of tourism work, and implications for social change. The study revealed that the idea of women’s tourism work as exploitation is complex and multi-layered in Oman. Although there were some indicators of exploitation for the Omani tourism workers in this study, this form of work was also shown to be a source of benefits and form of empowerment for women. Further, the study revealed that tourism employment could also be seen as a site for women’s resistance, particularly for Muslim women seeking to change attitudes towards women, and to create a new society.

Cyberspace has diversified and pluralized people’s daily experiences of religion in unprecedented ways. By studying several websites and weblogs that have a religious orientation, different layers of religious authority including “religious hierarchy, structures, ideology, and sources” (Campbell, 2009) can be identified. Also, using Weber’s definition of the three types of authority, “rational-legal, traditional, and charismatic” (1968), the specific type of authority that is being presented on blogosphere can be recognized. The Internet presents a level of liberty for the discussion of sensitive topics in any kind of religious cyberspace, specifically the Islamic one. In this way, the Internet is expanding the number and range of Muslim voices, which may pose problems for traditional forms of religious authority or may suggest new forms of authority in the Islamic world. The interaction between the Internet and religion is often perceived as contradictory, especially when it is religion at its most conservative practice. While the international and national applications of the Internet have increased vastly, local religious communities, especially fundamentalists, perceived this new technology as a threat to their local cultures and practices. If we look at the Internet as a central phenomenon of contemporary modernity that interacts with practiced fundamentalist religious traditions, we can ask how broad the interactions are between religious fundamentalism and the Internet and whether these relations can be reconciled. More specifically, this thesis presents a study of the junction of the Internet and religious fundamentalism reviewing the presentation of Shiite religious authority on the Persian blogosphere. As a case study, Persian weblogs are studied for content analysis for this thesis. Weblogs’ texts are analyzed to find evidences for Shiite beliefs and shared identity, usages and interpretations of the main Shiite religious texts, references to the role of recognized Shiite leaders, and descriptions of Shiite structural patterns of practices and organizations. This research will demonstrate how the Internet has been culturally constructed, modified, and adapted to the Iranian community’s needs and how the Shiite fundamentalist community of Iran has been affected by it. Based on one of the most structured research in this area, the study by Baezilai-Nahon and Barzilai (2005), in this article I identify four principal dimensions of religious fundamentalism as they interact with the Internet: hierarchy, patriarchy, discipline, and seclusion.

Slöjan som hinder på arbetsmarknaden – en intervjustudie av några muslimska kvinnor i Gävle. C-uppsats i religionsvetenskap, MNR-programmet, Högskolan i Gävle 2011. För ett antal år sedan så blossade debatten upp kring huruvida kvinnor skulle få använda niqab, den klädedräkt som täcker kvinnors kropp och ansikte, allt utom ögonen på offentliga platser som i skolan. Syftet med denna uppsats var att ta reda hur beslöjade muslimska kvinnor tas emot på arbetsplatser, och huruvida deras slöja är ett hinder eller en tillgång i sammanhanget, samt hur de ser på sin identitet som sjalbeklädd kvinna i Sverige. Kvinnorna har med olika bakgrund av någon anledning hamnat i Sverige, och här skapat sig ett liv utifrån olika förutsättningar. Tillsammans med sina familjer så har de gjort en lång resa för att ta sig just hit. Deras erfarenheter av det svenska arbetslivet är få, men de ser inte slöjan som en av anledningarna till detta. Istället lyfter de fram det faktum att de inte är vana vid ett arbete, att mannen är den försörjande i familjen och att det är viktigt att ta hand om barnen. Idag så höjs såväl de generella kraven på en fullfjädrad grund och gymnasieskoleutbildning, samtidigt som krav på tidigare erfarenhet i arbetslivet och speciella kvalifikationer ständigt ökar, detta är svåra egenskaper som gör det svårt för en muslimsk kvinna av annan kultur att ta det till sig. Företagen som blivit intervjuade under intervjufasen beskriver hur de idag inte har någon slöjbeklädd kvinna anställd, och ofta väldigt få muslimska kvinnor över huvud taget. Det är svårt för en sjalbeklädd kvinna att få ett arbete och bli en del av samhällsdeltagandet idag, speciellt om kvinnan är lite äldre. De yngre beslöjade tjejerna lever ofta närmare det svenska samhället än deras mödrar gör, och chanserna till arbete ökar därför för dem. Problemet ligger ofta i arbetsgivares fördomar mot sjalbeklädda kvinnor och inte i sjalen eller religionen den är en symbol för.

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This reception study, drawing on Robert White’s culturalist approach to religious media and Jane Mansbridge’s oppositional consciousness, explores the meaning-making process of Queer Christians in Sweden about Parvez Sharma’s A Jihad for Love. The study argues that against a background where Muslims and Queer Muslims facing multiple forms of othering in Western mainstream media, queer-affirming Muslim alternative media can be a precursor to interfaith encounter and interreligious dialogue between Queer Christians and Queer Muslims. The results show that A Jihad for Love potentially increased the imagination and political interest of Queer Christians in Sweden in Queer Muslim lives. Finally, this study contributes to the reception of queer-affirming Muslim alternative media which has long been neglected and offers interesting insights about Queer Christian conceptualization of freedom, tolerance, secularism, religion and media in Swedish society.   Keywords: A Jihad for Love, religious media, queer affirming alternative Muslim media, Queer Muslims, Queer Christians, Sweden, interfaith dialogue, secularism

This thesis analyzes the main ideological transformation that the Muslim Brotherhood has undergone in Egypt. The recurring theme issued throughout this thesis is &lsquo / transformation&rsquo / that stands in an evolutionary interaction with the local, regional and external environment. Within the scope of this leading theme, the study examines the historical overview of the Movement and analyzes the central periods and turning points of this transformation at two basic levels: Domestic and international. The study argues that, the 1980s came as the first pivotal turning-point where the Muslim Brotherhood began to enter the political system with a greater freedom. With the beginning of the change in the 1980s, this thesis argues, the Muslim Brotherhood began to transform itself in a way that opposed the dominant discussion in the literature over Islamists - state relations: &lsquo / Cooperation brings moderation and repression brings radicalization.&rsquo / (Repression - repression, cooperation - cooperation pattern). The study investigates how the Muslim Brotherhood broke this single-track rotation by standing consistently moderate during the periods of repression as well, after the 1980s. In particular after the 1990s, the study extends the domestic-oriented scope of the observation to take into consideration the influence of regional and international variations that have begun to be increasingly influential over the transformation of the Movement. The study argues that, the 2000s came up as the second and the most important landmark that opened a new momentum with the rise of the &lsquo / democracy&rsquo / discourse in the Movement&rsquo / s ideological change. The study provides a wide-ranging analysis over the democracy discourse of the Muslim Brotherhood after the 2000s and brings the challenges of this newfound ideological process into focus. It is argued that, the Muslim Brotherhood&rsquo / s ambiguous stance on &lsquo / democracy&rsquo / reinforces the discussions on the validity of the Movement&rsquo / s moderate political actor role. In conclusion, some conclusive remarks are introduced by making an overall assessment over the Muslim Brotherhood&rsquo / s political participation crisis and the future of the Egyptian political liberalization experiment.

The purpose of the study is to focus on the press discourse in the representation of the non-Muslims in the news reports, editorials and columns based on the case studies of the 1934 Thrace Events, 1942 Wealth Tax and 6/7 September 1955 Riots. The aim is to critically analyse the ideological representation of the non-Muslims in the Turkish press through critical linguistics and discourse analysis.

This thesis analyses the Muslim Brotherhood&rsquo / s fluctuated relationship with three of the Egyptian governments for the post-Revolutionary period. It is argued that the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian Governments were firstly accommodated each other during the legitimacy processes of the governments. However, after the Muslim Brotherhood began to use the governments&rsquo / concessions to infiltrate the social and political field the Movement began to be seen as a threat by the governments and the relationship between the sides transformed to confrontation. At that point the turning points in the accommodation and confrontation relationship and particularly the political strategies of the both sides to protect their influences were analyzed by taking into account the domestic issues of Egypt, internal issues of the Muslim Brotherhood and international atmosphere.