Matching Items (38)
Description
Islamist groups in Somalia define themselves by their opposition. From the pre-Islamist movement of Mohammed Hassan in the nineteenth century to al-Itihaad al-Islaami in the twentieth to al-Shabaab in the twenty-first, Islamism exists as a form of resistance against the dominant power of the era. Furthermore these Islamist groups have all been influenced by the type of state in which they exist, be it colonial, independent, or failed. This work seeks to examine the relationship between the uniquely Somali form of Islamism and the state. Through use of historical records, modern media, and existing scholarship this dissertation will chart the development of Islamism in Somalia from the colonial period to the present and explore the relationship Somali Islamism has with various forms of state.
ContributorsFurlow, Richard Bennett (Author) / Gallab, Abdullahi (Thesis advisor) / Talebi, Shahla (Committee member) / Ali, Souad (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
In this dissertation I attempt to find elements of education and curricular perspective in the Qur'an. I argue that there is little research in the field of curriculum instruction that discusses the Qur'an's educational aspects and, as a result, much ignorance of the Qur'an's material that deals with education and curricular perspective in the Qur'an. Researchers may find many materials that deal with reading, memorizing, and reciting the Qur'an, along with references that deal with science and math in the Qur'an. Therefore, this dissertation answers the question: What curriculum exists within the Quran? This dissertation is divided into five chapters exploring various aspects of the curriculum. The word "curriculum" is used in one chapter to mean developing the person as a whole in all aspects of life whether spiritual, social, or mental while in the other chapter curriculum is used to refer to methods of instruction. I concluded that curriculum in the Qur'an uses different methods of instructions to develop the individual as a whole in all aspects of life while granting freedom of choice.
ContributorsRisha, Sarah (Author) / Margolis, Eric (Thesis advisor) / Fischman, Gustavo (Committee member) / Ali, Souad (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This thesis discusses the intersection of Christian and Blues exegesis and hermeneutics in the life and lyrics of Eddie "Son" House, a Baptist and Methodist preacher and Blues singer who was born in Lyon, Mississippi. It is intended as a biographical case study that highlights and explores the complex and multifaceted relationship between Black Protestant Preaching and Blues Singing/Preaching. In doing so, it critically appropriates Religious Studies theoretical and methodological considerations, orientations, and insights--particularly those from Charles Long and Paul Ricoeur--to examine the life, artistry, ministry, and lyrics of House in light of his expressed religious orientations and dual, often conflicting roles as a Christian Minister and Blues Preacher.
ContributorsBroyles, Michael (Author) / Moore, Moses (Thesis advisor) / Ali, Souad (Committee member) / Anderson, Lisa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Assyrians face numerous concerns resulting from the status of a stateless people. Overcoming immigrant transitions, difficulties related to diaspora, and the implications of these on Assyrian culture are pressing matters to be addressed in the evolution of the Assyrian nation. In order to develop a strategy to benefit individuals, families and the nation, Hometown Associations, a form of nonprofit organization, may be used to connect, assist, and progress Assyrian communities. This thesis provides background, rationale for, and guidelines to creating Hometown Associations for Assyrian communities. Ultimately, Hometown Associations and other forms of cultural organizations appear to be a viable means toward community solidarity and cultural preservation. However, further research and more diverse subjects are required to assess the generalizeability of the findings discussed.
ContributorsTamo, Samuel (Author) / Behl, Natasha (Thesis advisor) / Ali, Souad (Committee member) / Maghoub, Miral (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
One in six children in the developing world is engaged in Child labor. Child labor is considered an issue that violates children's rights in many countries and Iraq is no exception. In 2004, Iraq had 1,300,000 children between the ages of eight and sixteen years engaged in work (UNICEF.com, 2004). This study identifies the major causes of child labor in Iraq and investigates the consequences of this issue. In this thesis I draw on the comparison of former regimes in Iraq and Egypt and how those regimes were mistreating their citizens by making them live under poverty and oppression while they were receiving support from the U.S. Poverty is the major cause behind Iraqi children engaging in work. I used the data I collected in Iraq, in the city of Nasiriyah, of 28 working children to explain the relationship between poverty, students drop out of school, family attitude towards education and the child engagement in work. At the end of the thesis I offer a list of recommendations to try to address the problem of child labor in Iraq. The recommendations and regulations are for Iraqi government and the NGOs to take into consideration in trying to resolve and regulate the issue of child labor to rescue the children in Iraq from more exploitation in the future.
ContributorsAl-Taee, Hawraa F (Author) / Elenes, C (Thesis advisor) / Erfani, Julie M (Committee member) / Ali, Souad (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This study analyzes competing forms of Protestant Christianity within the Bible Belt of the Upper South (Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina). On one hand, a conservative “culture war” version of Christianity has dominated the South, and deeply influenced national politics, for almost fifty years. This form of Christianity is predicated on white supremacy and heteropatriarchy and regulates religious, as well as sexual, gender, and racial norms. On the other hand, an emerging movement of those once socialized in the culture war version of Protestantism is now reconfiguring the regional traditions. Through ethnographic fieldwork, qualitative interviews, and historical analysis, this study explores the ways these post-culture war Christians are navigating and negotiating relations with family, church, and politics and society more broadly. This work argues that Protestantism in the Upper South is being re-landscaped from the inside by individuals staying within the tradition who seek to reorient regional, national and religious identities. This study goes beyond generalizations about changes in American religion to shed light on the specific motivations, conflicts and dynamics inherent in shifts in lived religion in this particular region. In so doing it also contributes to deeper understanding of processes of religious change more generally.
ContributorsShoemaker, Terry (Author) / Cady, Linell (Thesis advisor) / Gereboff, Joel (Committee member) / Bennett, Gaymon (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
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
Experiential evidence leads specific individuals and groups within India to believe that individuals with disabilities are marginalized due to a Hindu value system that stigmatizes disability and relegates individuals with disabilities to below average social positions. I experienced this perspective firsthand by spending two months volunteering at an orphanage in India that cares for individuals (primarily children) with disabilities and significant health issues. The orphanage identifies with a Christian tradition, framing their perspective in a worldview that declares that all human beings have equal value regardless of their physical health situations. The orphanage perspective declares that there is a Hindu religious paradigm that stigmatizes individuals with disability in a manner so extreme that it leads parents to abandon their children with disabilities. From the orphanage perspective, this Hindu religious belief is what inevitably leads to the need for orphanages for children with special needs because the stigma that the orphanage perceives leads to abandonment. This premise led me to an investigation of perceived cultural and societal norms and Hindu beliefs within India that may lead to the marginalization of individuals with disabilities. In order to do this, I first had to contextualize the perspective of the orphanage. From there I looked to Indian disability policy and sought to connect stigma and disability in the secular and social realm, evaluating whether or not secular policies can be said to contribute to or detract from a stigma of disability. I then looked to Hindu beliefs, to determine whether or not Hinduism can truly be said to, in a generalized manner, marginalize individuals with disability, and furthermore the caste system, to evaluate what India's social hierarchy might have to say about disability. The goals of this thesis are to evaluate the popular Hindu beliefs that are often blamed for the stigmatization of disability, and to analyze policies regarding disability and examine how these policies are affected by the religious context in which they are situated. To what extent does Hinduism encourage or contribute to a society or culture in which individuals with disabilities are treated badly, and how do Indian policies regarding disability respond to that? I come to the conclusion that the stigma related to disability in India is far more complex than simply a Hindu belief that mandates it as so. There are social and economic factors that play into it, as well as deep-rooted cultural ideologies in both the tradition of the orphanage that perceives Hinduism as stigmatizing of disability, and Indian religion and social hierarchy. I furthermore find that, though there are numerous disability policies in place to provide human rights to individuals with disabilities, these policies ultimately do not work to tear down the stigma and the roots it does have in ancient religious tradition and social hierarchy.
ContributorsWristen, Julia Kalila (Author) / Henn, Alexander (Thesis director) / Bennett, Gaymon (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
In my Honors Thesis, I endeavor to complicate and to respond to conventional debates over historical periodization and the problem of what it means to be "modern." I understand the modern as a conceptual product of discourses surrounding religion, science, and industry. Specifically, the modern era has been defined as one in which the forms of rationalization associated with quantitative and experimental scientific methods and large-scale, technologically sophisticated industrial production have surpassed the "irrational" superstitions associated with religion. Critical responses to this definition have largely had the goal of supplanting it with another way of conceiving of the historical discontinuity between the "modern" and the "non-modern." In three essays, I aim to complicate the terms (religion, science, and industry) in which these debates have been conducted and to relate them to one another both historically and conceptually. As opposed to the goal of re-defining the modern, my goal in these essays is to complicate the existing definitions and to reveal and challenge the ideological motives of historical periodization. I illuminate the connections of the modern conception of "religion" to a colonial system of power, between scientific development and changes in economic and religious thinking, and between contemporary technological and industrial projects to an "enchanted" view of the world. In tracing these connections, I am indebted to conventional discourses of modernization, Max Weber's theory of "disenchantment," and recent scholarship on the use of materialist methods in the study of history. In these essays, I move beyond the critical project of "re-imagining" the modern, and illuminate some of the ideological commitments of that project that I consider untenable. In addition to a more sophisticated historical understanding of the meaning of religion, science, and industry, what I aim to achieve in my thesis is a better framing of some of the largest problems faced by contemporary humanity, including the looming risks of ecological, economic, and geopolitical collapse. In this framing, I situate these risks in the context of their connection to strategies of historical periodization, and argue that managing them will require a radically new view of religion, science, industry, and the roles that they play in producing historical discontinuity.
ContributorsNeibergall, William (Author) / Bennett, Gaymon (Thesis director) / Suk, Mina (Committee member) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
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