Matching Items (38)
Description
9/11 is a suspended moment in history that changed the lives of everyone alive in that moment forevermore. Some became zealous patriots, others despised the United States more, and I was utterly scared. I was scared for many reasons: For starters bombs, violence and hatred visited my country's doorstep. Not only that, but I was a victim of a crime I couldn't logically comprehend. I was unaware of the ongoing tension between the west and the Middle East. I was unaware of the Twin Towers, and I was fully unaware of my vulnerabilities. These emotions triggered a zeal and inspired me to study our "enemy" and try to understand why I was, personally, was their victim. I started reading any and all books that had the keywords I heard in the mainstream media: terrorism, Afghanistan, Taliban, Islam and more. I was afraid to ask questions. Independently I studied many different texts, most of which I share in this document. My autodidactic nature helped me to familiarize myself with the region, its culture and history of conflict with the U.S. I was thankful for three particular books that fomented my interest in the feminism in Islam movement. My essay features these three titles, and my development into an advocate for the movement. I hope to lend my journalism writing and communication skills to the Muslim women of the world who envision a movement rooted in Qur'anic truth and social progress.
ContributorsMorris, Brittany Elena (Author) / Ali, Souad (Thesis director) / Ali, Sarah (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
The widespread and rapid adoption of mobile phones into urban Morocco is significantly impacting the lives of middle to lower class individuals who interact with this technology. These impacts fall into one of two societal spheres: social and economic. Socially, mobile phone use is altering the way that place-making practices, time construction, and gender roles are being negotiated. These changes are brought about by the phenomena of time/space compression and constant connectivity that these devices enable. Economically, cell phone use is enabling an ease and efficiency of communication that significantly reduces the costs of information transfer. For micro-entrepreneurs, this cost reduction activates pre-existing social networks and generates job opportunities and social status in ways never before possible. The cumulative result of these social and economic shifts is the creation of societal gap that runs down a technological fault line, fundamentally differentiating the day-to-day strategies of those who interact with mobile phones from those who do not.
ContributorsHagan, Melynn Louise (Author) / Ali, Souad (Thesis director) / Mousa, Neimeh (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
This study reports findings regarding vulnerability to intimate partner violence and barriers to seeking services for Arab Muslim immigrant women in the United States. The implications of gender-role expectations, isolation and dependence, and religious interpretations on vulnerability to violence are assessed. Barriers to seeking services, such as immigration status, divorce/legal separation, reports of violence to authorities, and over-inclusion, are identified. The study also includes recommendations for service providers that cater to this population. This study concludes with a brief discussion.
ContributorsDasgupta, Trisha (Author) / Ali, Souad (Thesis director) / Anderson, Lisa M. (Committee member) / Department of Management and Entrepreneurship (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
This thesis explores the power of food to transcend cultural and racial borders and to act as a common ground, bringing people of all different backgrounds together. Through globalization, there is an increased movement of people from their homeland to different regions around the world and with this migration comes the spread of their culture and cuisine to new areas. This spreading of culture often creates friction and tension amongst other cultures, however as this thesis argues, with increased diversity, there is the great potential for greater interaction with other cultures and therefore greater appreciation. The key aspect of this thesis is the ways in which food can be used as a tool to overcome racial barriers and serve as a means of positive expression of a culture. I hope to show that by engaging with a culture through its cuisine, one can arguably build a greater appreciation for that culture and therefore lower their preconceived notions and stereotypes.
ContributorsZayanderoudi, Rana Patricia (Author) / Talebi, Shahla (Thesis director) / Eaton, John (Committee member) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / Department of Management and Entrepreneurship (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
In the 1980s Jose Casanova wrote a book called Public Religions in the Modern World. He noticed that, although religion was seen a private matter for some time, it was now becoming more de-privatized, which he believes was strongly compelled by the rise of the Moral Majority. Moreover, Talal Asad, also, agrees that religion is definitely not disappearing but becoming more identifiable in the public realm. Casanova's theory contends that the privatization and the de-privatization of religion appeared to be happening simultaneously. Assuming Casanova is correct, it is now approximately 35 years later and the question is "where are we now in the process of the de-privatization of religion?" I chose to use the Evangelical Community as an example due to the fact that the majority of people that live in the United States are very familiar with this particular religion. It has become evident that the Evangelical Community has had a strong voice in the political arena. Focusing mainly on politics and using Billy and Franklin Graham as a lens, who have been both visible and influential in the process of the de-privatization of religion, I try to determine where the United States is in this process. I look at how the Grahams see God fitting into politics and how each of them views their participation in politics. In addition, I utilize present-day examples of what, both, the privatizing and de-privatizing of religion looks like while examining some areas that religion has been asserted into the public sphere. Moreover, I discuss the role of the secular in relationship to religion. Finally, I conclude with answering the question, "is religion still a private matter?"
ContributorsElliott, Tracy Lynn (Author) / Bennett, Gaymon (Thesis director) / Ali, Souad (Committee member) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
The concept of honor in Turkey is one that is highly revered. It determines how a family is viewed by their community and even how monetarily valuable women are to society. Women especially have a very direct impact on not only their own honor, but the honor of the entire family unit. If a Turkish woman is perceived to have committed a dishonorable act, the family, particularly the males, must act to restore the family honor by eliminating the source of dishonor. This often occurs through honor-based violence and honor killings. The goal of this thesis is to examine the root causes of honor-based violence, specifically honor killings of women in Turkey, and the time frame for this thesis is 1987 to 2016. Scholars cite three main reasons for honor killings: socioeconomic status of the family, patriarchal and cultural roots, and modernization of the country, and this thesis examines those reasons in depth. There are also different Turkish words for "honor," and they might play a role in how honor is viewed more complexly in the Turkish culture. The laws that have been passed since 1987 have evolved to attempt to eliminate honor killings; however, until those laws are well enforced, honor killings will not be fully eradicated. I look beyond the stereotypical cultural argument behind honor killings to realize that much more is in play, such as the lower class, the worth of a woman's body, and the struggle of enforcing the laws that have been passed. I come to the conclusion that honor killings are too complex to just have one lone factor as the root cause. Honor-based violence in Turkey seems to be the result of both the socioeconomic status of the family within the community and the modernization of the country.
ContributorsMoses, Rachel Hannah (Author) / Clay, Eugene (Thesis director) / Talebi, Shahla (Committee member) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
This project assembles incidences of namāz (daily Muslim ritual prayer) offered in jamāt (congregation) by those worshippers who have found themselves marginalized, disciplined, and disoriented from mainstream Muslim ritual life due to their gender or sexual orientation. It follows assays in, and commitments to, a livable Muslim life as it unfolds from the stories of disoriented Muslim worshippers at prayer together. It looks first at the religious life stories of a network of queer Pakistanis contending with the heteropatriarchal and cisgender norms of mainstream Muslim life, in struggle to continue their orientation towards Allāh alongside their own existential reality. It then narrates the last rites of two Pakistani women by describing the circumstances in which their namāz-e-janāza, i.e. their funeral prayers were performed. These funerals are moments and spaces that alter the received understanding of jamāt so that disoriented worshippers who have been made unwelcome in the larger collectivity can reorient towards compassionate convening with each other and with Allāh. The portraits of Muslims convened for prayer that are drawn together here bring into conversation multiple ways of being Muslim and describe an emergent queer Muslim praxis that expands the parameters of what is thinkable in Islam. This narrative ethnography sheds light on how it is that mainstream Pakistani religious life disorients women as well as transgender and queer folks by narrowing the space available to these bodies within the jamāt. Deploying multiple methodological approaches in a number of research sites, this dissertation draws on events and lived experiences of ritual and religious convenings to propose and advance an understanding of the jamāt as both a congregation of worship and a congregation of care. This dissertation is an exploration of the conditions of possibility for livable life for those who are disoriented in the space of Muslim communal gathering—a life that is queer, Muslim, safe from harm, and joyful—arguing that for queer and disoriented Muslims, solidarity and a livable life go hand in hand.
ContributorsPasha, Kyla Pria (Author) / Talebi, Shahla (Thesis advisor) / Haines, Chad (Committee member) / Quan, H. L. T. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
In recent years, privately owned and operated residential programs for troubled youth have been at the forefront of national discussion on institutional child abuse in state-sanctioned carceral facilities. Survivors and their advocates have argued that these programs should be regulated by state agencies and closed because they are harmful to residents and divert resources from effective treatment options. In opposition to the survivor movement stand owners, practitioners, and “tough on crime” politicians, who claim that that state intervention in the Troubled Teen Industry (TTI) would curtail effective treatment options for families, and in the case of faith-based programs, violate their constitutionally protected religious freedoms. Guided by the fields of Mad Studies and Critical Prison Studies, this research offers a political history of the TTI, focused on the faith-based residential facilities of Lester Roloff and Herman Fountain. It also draws on first-person interviews with three survivors of a faith-based bootcamp called Bethel Boys Academy, of the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs to delineate how these survivors make sense of their experiences before, during, and after being held captive. I conclude by arguing that the TTI survivor movement and prison abolitionists should cooperate to dismantle white supremacist political structures and improve access to meaningful treatment options for vulnerable youth.
ContributorsBrown, Andrew Gordon (Author) / Quan, H.L.T. (Thesis advisor) / Gomez, Alan E. (Committee member) / Talebi, Shahla (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
This narrative discusses the 12-episode documentary series I made showcasing my solo travels through Iraq.
ContributorsKaplan, Julie (Author) / Ali, Souad (Thesis director) / Mousa, Neimeh (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description
Analyzed the primary resources such as the Qur'an along with several Muslim scholarly pieces of literature written by Muslim Feminists regarding Women in Islam. Interpretations of the Qur'an have been passed from generation to another, and therefore there is a strict reliance on such established interpretation that is mainly conducted by men. There is a lack of participation in women reading and interpreting the Qur'an. This is a disadvantage to the Muslim community, as it encourages interpretive cultural practices that constitute politics and power, rather than a true and authentic translation of the Qur'an as cohesive guidance for gender justice. Feminism in Islam does exist as it aligns with the Quranic principles of gender justice. Feminism was showcased in many historical movements in the following Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt, Morocco, Yemen, and Iran. These events are important to analyze and consider to further understand the framework of Muslim feminism and how it aligns with the Qur'an. My focus was analyzing Muslim Feminist scholars, who have blueprinted a path for Muslim women to understand their role in Islam and provide an accurate interpretation of the Qur'an versus socio-cultural practices which have impacted how women in Islam are perceived and treated.
ContributorsAlsaeedi, Sarah (Author) / Ali, Souad (Thesis director) / Mousa, Neimeh (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor)
Created2022-05