The paper investigates Saudi English textbooks in order to trace the ways in which culture was dealt with in the English curriculum in the last 33 years. To this end, the three textbooks which were published one after...The paper investigates Saudi English textbooks in order to trace the ways in which culture was dealt with in the English curriculum in the last 33 years. To this end, the three textbooks which were published one after another for the third-grade secondary school students in the last three decades were analyzed. The paper finds that in the first book published in 1982, the writer introduced only those cultural elements from outside Saudi Arabia, which could be subordinated to the self-enclosed cohesive Saudi national culture that rested and was shaped on and around the faith of Islam. The same cultural pattern is maintained in the second book published in 1998, but in the third book published in 2013, a huge number of western and multicultural elements were accommodated without any attempt to assimilate them to Saudi national culture. The paper concludes that in these textbooks, culture was taken either as Parsons＇s ＂system＂--pattern-maintaining national culture-or as Rothkopf＇s and Friedman＇s ＂pattern-breaking＂ western culture, but it was seldom treated as Bauman＇s ＂matrix＂.展开更多
Ibn Batuta＇s book The Rihla gives us a unique insight into life of a 14th C travelling scholar in the golden age of Dar AI Islam （the world of Islam）. This paper is a reflection on Ibn Battuta focusing on three cur...Ibn Batuta＇s book The Rihla gives us a unique insight into life of a 14th C travelling scholar in the golden age of Dar AI Islam （the world of Islam）. This paper is a reflection on Ibn Battuta focusing on three curious things we don＇t know about him. First, we don＇t know what he looks like--what does this tell us about visual culture, ethnicity and the idea of self-image in 14th Century. Second, we don＇t know if he really went to China--if not why would this section be included？ Third, we don＇t know how his story became lost to history, which it certainly was for close to 400 years--what does this tell us about the man, the book, it＇s intended audience and the changes happening within Dar AI Islam at that time.展开更多
This study aims at illuminating the institution and customs of marriage in the pre-lslamic period （Al-]ahiliyya）, and at the same time at putting to rest certain completely unfounded, fabricated and slanderous claim...This study aims at illuminating the institution and customs of marriage in the pre-lslamic period （Al-]ahiliyya）, and at the same time at putting to rest certain completely unfounded, fabricated and slanderous claims about this period which have been disseminated by a not inconsiderable number of scholars. It will present the facts about marriage in the period in question by way of showing how it appears in pre-lslamic literature, prose as well as poetry, and how the social and humane relations between husband and wife reflected in the pre-islamic poetry and prose.展开更多
In this paper, the author refers to the Latin translation of the Kitab Ihsa ＇al＇ Ulum of Al-Frabi made by Dominicus Gundissalinus in the Xllth Century in Toledo, Spain. This text under the Latin title De scientiis w...In this paper, the author refers to the Latin translation of the Kitab Ihsa ＇al＇ Ulum of Al-Frabi made by Dominicus Gundissalinus in the Xllth Century in Toledo, Spain. This text under the Latin title De scientiis was one of the most influential texts of the Arab and Persian world in the western Latin Europe. It is an introductory text into all until known sciences written for students and laymen （illiterate） who want to study one of these sciences. The text of Al-Farabi discusses the seven liberal arts, all of the works on physics of Aristotle and includes some reflexions on metaphysics, political philosophy and theology. There are two important points： （1） All sciences have a theoretical and practical aspect. All sciences are sciences of principles and causes and their application to the practical world. （2） The so called prima philosophia is the political philosophy and not metaphysics. In this respect, Al-Farabi subordinates theology as a science of the religious laws to politics as a science of civil laws. In the same respect, he combines, under the famous sentence of Plato that philosophers are the governors and the very well companions of mankind, politics with theology展开更多
Farabi defines ＂Ilm al-Hiyal＂ （mechanic） in Ihsa al-Ulum as ＂knowing a way by which, human can adjust all of the concepts that have been proved in mathematics with verification to exotic objects, and helps their ...Farabi defines ＂Ilm al-Hiyal＂ （mechanic） in Ihsa al-Ulum as ＂knowing a way by which, human can adjust all of the concepts that have been proved in mathematics with verification to exotic objects, and helps their states in exotic objects to be carried＂. He believes this will be recognized and be attained by craft （sana＇at, art）. This was the common view in Islamic wisdom and philosophy in third and fourth Hijra centuries （9 ＆ 10 CE）. Researchers believe that the unique emphasis on parallelism between theoretical science and practical work is an important feature of Baghdad school and affected Islamic visual culture. Baghdad school had been affected by translation. In this way, Ikhwan-al-Safa, whom wrote the first encyclopedia of science in Islamic culture, had a very efficient role. They devised geometry into intellectual and sensual ones in the second part of their book, al-Rasa-el, and considered intellectual geometry as one of the middle philosophy and recognition and understanding factor for meaning of sensual geometry evidences. They insisted on basic situation of intellectual geometry in guidance of whom, want to learn intellectual things from sensual ones. They knew intellectual geometry as the factor for requiring skill in scientific crafts （sana＇at）, and sensual geometry as the factor of practical crafts, and made a vast relation between them. They also defined end of intellectual geometry understanding the base of all sciences and the main factor of wise, essence of self （nafs）. Important feature of Ikhwan-al-Safa＇s wisdom is omitting the gap between theory and practice, making a vast relation between them, which affected the meaning of crafts in Islamic culture, and rendered a spiritual feature to crafts and arts. It seems this relation has created the concept of traditional arts, and integrating wisdom and crafts in Iranian-Islamic culture constructed all of the Fotowat-Nam e （book of Chivalry）. This article reviews the concept, which affiliates theory and practice in third and fourth centuries and has a deep effect on recognition of art and craft in Islamic culture.展开更多
As a unique local convention of Islamic proselytizing, Uyghur religious specialists in the present Turpan Basin are using a kind of folk songs ＂qoshaq＂ to organize motifs and materials for their religious sermons. T...As a unique local convention of Islamic proselytizing, Uyghur religious specialists in the present Turpan Basin are using a kind of folk songs ＂qoshaq＂ to organize motifs and materials for their religious sermons. Though the poems are particularly used as religious texts at mosque preaching and other chances of Islamic proselytizing, their contents give insights into the ways of local Uyghurs to understand various daily happenings through the lens of Islamic doctrines. This issue can be taken as a process of the localization of Islamic culture among Uyghurs, therefore, it provides comprehensive pictures on the Islamic ways of local Uyghurs to accommodate their social realities. Through undertaking analyses on the structure, style, contents of the poems, this paper makes efforts to unfold the symbolic landscape of the poems implied, making clear the logic bases of those religious motifs and the attitudes Uyghur preachers had toward social realities.展开更多
This paper describes an equation discovery approach based on machine learning using LAGRAMGE as an equation discovery tool, with two sources of input, a dataset and model presented in context-free grammar. The approac...This paper describes an equation discovery approach based on machine learning using LAGRAMGE as an equation discovery tool, with two sources of input, a dataset and model presented in context-free grammar. The approach is searching a large range of po- tential equations by a specific inodel. The parameters of the equation are fitted to find the best equations. The experiments are illustratedwith commodity prices from the London Metal Exchange for the period of January-October 2009. The outputs of the experiments are a large mumber of equations; some of the equations display that the predicted prices are following the market trends in perfect patterns.展开更多
Profound cultural changes are transforming the Moslem world of Central Asia, partly as a response to dramatic events in the Middle East and partly to the great economic development in the region. These changes in the ...Profound cultural changes are transforming the Moslem world of Central Asia, partly as a response to dramatic events in the Middle East and partly to the great economic development in the region. These changes in the Moslem world especially affect the lives of women, since the cultural norms involving the protection of women are an important facet of Moslem life. The goal of this investigation is to show the importance of the ethnographic contribution to anthropological and sociological theory in investigating the new aspects of life in Central Asia. The first concept is the cultural identity of the Uyghur population of China. The second concept is that of Uyghur women, namely, the varied range of women from their role in a conservative, and patriarchal family structure to that of independent actors in a contemporary urban society. We understand that young Uyghur women face a more different set of choices than those of women in other Moslem cultures or in the rest of China. If they identify with their culture as Uyghur and Moslem, their culture restricts their opportunities as Chinese citizens. As students at Minorities University of China （MUC） in 13eijing, the relative freedom of Beijing influences them a great deal. Education and employment are the vehicles for integration into the larger Chinese group. Institutions, such as schools of ethnic studies, and the college competitive exam （the gaokao）, provide opportunities as well as obstacles for Uyghur women as part of the dynamic change in the Moslem world.展开更多
The whole world knows that England has her Mary Wollstonecraft and France has her Simone de Beauvoir as feminists, but the world knows a very little that Bengal also has her Rokeya Shakhawat Hossain, an intrepid femin...The whole world knows that England has her Mary Wollstonecraft and France has her Simone de Beauvoir as feminists, but the world knows a very little that Bengal also has her Rokeya Shakhawat Hossain, an intrepid feminist, who struggled till the last day of her life for the perfectly right assessment of the neglected Indian women, was born in 1880, in Pairaband, a small village in British India which now lies in the north-western part of present-day Bangladesh. She pioneered women＇s advancement and led the way to enlightening and empowering women breaking all the traditional social barriers. When the whole women folk were utterly distressed, deprived, and drowned under the dirt of illiteracy, fanaticism, superstitions, and prejudices and could not think of equal rights and freedom, she raised her voice through her writings and worked to uplift the fortune of women, instilled a sense of renaissance in them and led them to tasting the flavor of freedom opposed to the current of patriarchal social views. Based on this bold attitude toward female emancipation, Rokeya can easily be acclaimed as a feminist whereas some critics have viewed her as a Muslim or Islamic feminist which is nothing but an immature attempt to underestimate her genius. It was true that she was brought up in an Islamic cultural milieu and tried to educate the then lagged behind Muslim girls which, the critics probably cogitated as the main aim of her life overlooking the universality of women＇s problems she dealt with and her non-sectarian outlook of life. In fact, she sprang up beyond the limitations the society placed upon her and was boldly vocal about the freedom of women irrespective of their distinctive faiths and social customs. This paper, therefore, aims at exploring Rokeya＇s Istrijatir Abanati （Woman＇s Downfall） （1903） with a view to showing her firm determination, endeavors, and voice to emancipate women, and advocating her as a concerned feminist.展开更多
This paper treats metaphors and terminology or the discourse of tasawwuf Having in mind that tasawwuf is a discipline developed in the scope of Islamic tradition and that its focus is on the esoteric dimension of the ...This paper treats metaphors and terminology or the discourse of tasawwuf Having in mind that tasawwuf is a discipline developed in the scope of Islamic tradition and that its focus is on the esoteric dimension of the Qur＇an （ta wil）, which relates to the cognition of the highest rank, an approach to such a discourse needs special effort, both intellectual and spiritual. The language of literature belonging to either theoretical or practical tasawwuf is highly symbolic： theoretical tasawwuf deals with ontology and discusses God, world, and human being, while pragmatic tasawwuftries, just as the ethics, to change human being, that is, to ennoble him. Because of its specific way of presentation and its specific discourse, a communication with that discourse is determined by the knowledge of its symbolism, its terminology and, generally, its professional terminology.展开更多
The influence that traditional Ghanaian norms, taboos, and folktales had in ensuring environmental protection and sustainability has been greatly minimized by the inroads of foreign cultures and religions such as Chri...The influence that traditional Ghanaian norms, taboos, and folktales had in ensuring environmental protection and sustainability has been greatly minimized by the inroads of foreign cultures and religions such as Christianity and Islam. Currently, modem methods of environmental protection and sustainability have not achieved the desired goals. As a result, Ghana is at the mercy of countless forms of environmental abuses to the extent that Ghana is ranked the seventh dirtiest nation and also second in open defecation worldwide. This paper examines how the incorporation of Humanist ethical principles to integrate with the traditional Ghanaian environmental taboos and modem technological methods to salvage the continuous and relentless environmental abuses in Ghana.展开更多
文摘The paper investigates Saudi English textbooks in order to trace the ways in which culture was dealt with in the English curriculum in the last 33 years. To this end, the three textbooks which were published one after another for the third-grade secondary school students in the last three decades were analyzed. The paper finds that in the first book published in 1982, the writer introduced only those cultural elements from outside Saudi Arabia, which could be subordinated to the self-enclosed cohesive Saudi national culture that rested and was shaped on and around the faith of Islam. The same cultural pattern is maintained in the second book published in 1998, but in the third book published in 2013, a huge number of western and multicultural elements were accommodated without any attempt to assimilate them to Saudi national culture. The paper concludes that in these textbooks, culture was taken either as Parsons＇s ＂system＂--pattern-maintaining national culture-or as Rothkopf＇s and Friedman＇s ＂pattern-breaking＂ western culture, but it was seldom treated as Bauman＇s ＂matrix＂.
文摘Ibn Batuta＇s book The Rihla gives us a unique insight into life of a 14th C travelling scholar in the golden age of Dar AI Islam （the world of Islam）. This paper is a reflection on Ibn Battuta focusing on three curious things we don＇t know about him. First, we don＇t know what he looks like--what does this tell us about visual culture, ethnicity and the idea of self-image in 14th Century. Second, we don＇t know if he really went to China--if not why would this section be included？ Third, we don＇t know how his story became lost to history, which it certainly was for close to 400 years--what does this tell us about the man, the book, it＇s intended audience and the changes happening within Dar AI Islam at that time.
文摘This study aims at illuminating the institution and customs of marriage in the pre-lslamic period （Al-]ahiliyya）, and at the same time at putting to rest certain completely unfounded, fabricated and slanderous claims about this period which have been disseminated by a not inconsiderable number of scholars. It will present the facts about marriage in the period in question by way of showing how it appears in pre-lslamic literature, prose as well as poetry, and how the social and humane relations between husband and wife reflected in the pre-islamic poetry and prose.
文摘In this paper, the author refers to the Latin translation of the Kitab Ihsa ＇al＇ Ulum of Al-Frabi made by Dominicus Gundissalinus in the Xllth Century in Toledo, Spain. This text under the Latin title De scientiis was one of the most influential texts of the Arab and Persian world in the western Latin Europe. It is an introductory text into all until known sciences written for students and laymen （illiterate） who want to study one of these sciences. The text of Al-Farabi discusses the seven liberal arts, all of the works on physics of Aristotle and includes some reflexions on metaphysics, political philosophy and theology. There are two important points： （1） All sciences have a theoretical and practical aspect. All sciences are sciences of principles and causes and their application to the practical world. （2） The so called prima philosophia is the political philosophy and not metaphysics. In this respect, Al-Farabi subordinates theology as a science of the religious laws to politics as a science of civil laws. In the same respect, he combines, under the famous sentence of Plato that philosophers are the governors and the very well companions of mankind, politics with theology
文摘Farabi defines ＂Ilm al-Hiyal＂ （mechanic） in Ihsa al-Ulum as ＂knowing a way by which, human can adjust all of the concepts that have been proved in mathematics with verification to exotic objects, and helps their states in exotic objects to be carried＂. He believes this will be recognized and be attained by craft （sana＇at, art）. This was the common view in Islamic wisdom and philosophy in third and fourth Hijra centuries （9 ＆ 10 CE）. Researchers believe that the unique emphasis on parallelism between theoretical science and practical work is an important feature of Baghdad school and affected Islamic visual culture. Baghdad school had been affected by translation. In this way, Ikhwan-al-Safa, whom wrote the first encyclopedia of science in Islamic culture, had a very efficient role. They devised geometry into intellectual and sensual ones in the second part of their book, al-Rasa-el, and considered intellectual geometry as one of the middle philosophy and recognition and understanding factor for meaning of sensual geometry evidences. They insisted on basic situation of intellectual geometry in guidance of whom, want to learn intellectual things from sensual ones. They knew intellectual geometry as the factor for requiring skill in scientific crafts （sana＇at）, and sensual geometry as the factor of practical crafts, and made a vast relation between them. They also defined end of intellectual geometry understanding the base of all sciences and the main factor of wise, essence of self （nafs）. Important feature of Ikhwan-al-Safa＇s wisdom is omitting the gap between theory and practice, making a vast relation between them, which affected the meaning of crafts in Islamic culture, and rendered a spiritual feature to crafts and arts. It seems this relation has created the concept of traditional arts, and integrating wisdom and crafts in Iranian-Islamic culture constructed all of the Fotowat-Nam e （book of Chivalry）. This article reviews the concept, which affiliates theory and practice in third and fourth centuries and has a deep effect on recognition of art and craft in Islamic culture.
文摘As a unique local convention of Islamic proselytizing, Uyghur religious specialists in the present Turpan Basin are using a kind of folk songs ＂qoshaq＂ to organize motifs and materials for their religious sermons. Though the poems are particularly used as religious texts at mosque preaching and other chances of Islamic proselytizing, their contents give insights into the ways of local Uyghurs to understand various daily happenings through the lens of Islamic doctrines. This issue can be taken as a process of the localization of Islamic culture among Uyghurs, therefore, it provides comprehensive pictures on the Islamic ways of local Uyghurs to accommodate their social realities. Through undertaking analyses on the structure, style, contents of the poems, this paper makes efforts to unfold the symbolic landscape of the poems implied, making clear the logic bases of those religious motifs and the attitudes Uyghur preachers had toward social realities.
文摘This paper describes an equation discovery approach based on machine learning using LAGRAMGE as an equation discovery tool, with two sources of input, a dataset and model presented in context-free grammar. The approach is searching a large range of po- tential equations by a specific inodel. The parameters of the equation are fitted to find the best equations. The experiments are illustratedwith commodity prices from the London Metal Exchange for the period of January-October 2009. The outputs of the experiments are a large mumber of equations; some of the equations display that the predicted prices are following the market trends in perfect patterns.
文摘Profound cultural changes are transforming the Moslem world of Central Asia, partly as a response to dramatic events in the Middle East and partly to the great economic development in the region. These changes in the Moslem world especially affect the lives of women, since the cultural norms involving the protection of women are an important facet of Moslem life. The goal of this investigation is to show the importance of the ethnographic contribution to anthropological and sociological theory in investigating the new aspects of life in Central Asia. The first concept is the cultural identity of the Uyghur population of China. The second concept is that of Uyghur women, namely, the varied range of women from their role in a conservative, and patriarchal family structure to that of independent actors in a contemporary urban society. We understand that young Uyghur women face a more different set of choices than those of women in other Moslem cultures or in the rest of China. If they identify with their culture as Uyghur and Moslem, their culture restricts their opportunities as Chinese citizens. As students at Minorities University of China （MUC） in 13eijing, the relative freedom of Beijing influences them a great deal. Education and employment are the vehicles for integration into the larger Chinese group. Institutions, such as schools of ethnic studies, and the college competitive exam （the gaokao）, provide opportunities as well as obstacles for Uyghur women as part of the dynamic change in the Moslem world.
文摘The whole world knows that England has her Mary Wollstonecraft and France has her Simone de Beauvoir as feminists, but the world knows a very little that Bengal also has her Rokeya Shakhawat Hossain, an intrepid feminist, who struggled till the last day of her life for the perfectly right assessment of the neglected Indian women, was born in 1880, in Pairaband, a small village in British India which now lies in the north-western part of present-day Bangladesh. She pioneered women＇s advancement and led the way to enlightening and empowering women breaking all the traditional social barriers. When the whole women folk were utterly distressed, deprived, and drowned under the dirt of illiteracy, fanaticism, superstitions, and prejudices and could not think of equal rights and freedom, she raised her voice through her writings and worked to uplift the fortune of women, instilled a sense of renaissance in them and led them to tasting the flavor of freedom opposed to the current of patriarchal social views. Based on this bold attitude toward female emancipation, Rokeya can easily be acclaimed as a feminist whereas some critics have viewed her as a Muslim or Islamic feminist which is nothing but an immature attempt to underestimate her genius. It was true that she was brought up in an Islamic cultural milieu and tried to educate the then lagged behind Muslim girls which, the critics probably cogitated as the main aim of her life overlooking the universality of women＇s problems she dealt with and her non-sectarian outlook of life. In fact, she sprang up beyond the limitations the society placed upon her and was boldly vocal about the freedom of women irrespective of their distinctive faiths and social customs. This paper, therefore, aims at exploring Rokeya＇s Istrijatir Abanati （Woman＇s Downfall） （1903） with a view to showing her firm determination, endeavors, and voice to emancipate women, and advocating her as a concerned feminist.
文摘This paper treats metaphors and terminology or the discourse of tasawwuf Having in mind that tasawwuf is a discipline developed in the scope of Islamic tradition and that its focus is on the esoteric dimension of the Qur＇an （ta wil）, which relates to the cognition of the highest rank, an approach to such a discourse needs special effort, both intellectual and spiritual. The language of literature belonging to either theoretical or practical tasawwuf is highly symbolic： theoretical tasawwuf deals with ontology and discusses God, world, and human being, while pragmatic tasawwuftries, just as the ethics, to change human being, that is, to ennoble him. Because of its specific way of presentation and its specific discourse, a communication with that discourse is determined by the knowledge of its symbolism, its terminology and, generally, its professional terminology.
文摘The influence that traditional Ghanaian norms, taboos, and folktales had in ensuring environmental protection and sustainability has been greatly minimized by the inroads of foreign cultures and religions such as Christianity and Islam. Currently, modem methods of environmental protection and sustainability have not achieved the desired goals. As a result, Ghana is at the mercy of countless forms of environmental abuses to the extent that Ghana is ranked the seventh dirtiest nation and also second in open defecation worldwide. This paper examines how the incorporation of Humanist ethical principles to integrate with the traditional Ghanaian environmental taboos and modem technological methods to salvage the continuous and relentless environmental abuses in Ghana.
