A rediscovered people: the poor,the very poor and the destitute in the Northwest

The author of this piece, Dr Margaret Hanly, died before it could be refereed or published. The editors subsequently sought referee comments and these were very positive. Changes to the text were undertaken by the team at Family and Community History but the article remains largely as it was submitted to us. At its core is an engagement with the idea of the process of poor relief, with a particular focus on Lancashire. The article argues that in this spatial context, the poor law had a significant exclusionary impetus, seeking to keep down the numbers accepted for relief and the amounts paid to them.     

伊本·卡尔敦的史学观

结合当代史学发展趋势 ,对阿拉伯史学大师伊本·卡尔敦史学观的现代意义作了诠释是有意义的事。卡尔敦有关“内在史学”和“外在史学”、史学的整体性和多学科研究的讨论 ,确与当代史学有相通之处 ,而且其有关论述对我们当前的史学研究 ,亦不无启发意义。     

The Relevance of Happiness to Eternal Existence: Some Reflections on Ibn Sina's View

The task of this paper is to determine Ibn Sina's view on the following issues: the nature of the object of human happiness, the method for attaining this object, and the consequence of attaining or of falling short of attaining this object.     

The eleventh of September and the Sudanese mahdiya in the context of Ibn Khaldun's theory of Islamic history

The attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September appeared as something entirely new in the escalating terrorist 'War on America' declared by Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qa'ida network in 1998. While there are undoubtedly novel elements in the atrocity which cost nearly 3,000 innocent, non-combatant lives, the strategic motivation of the attack, aimed at the protectors of the ruling Saudi dynasty, was not inconsistent with earlier patterns of Islamic revolt against Muslim governments and their European backers, notably the Sudanese mahdiya of 1881–99. Though spearheaded by technically sophisticated Islamist ideologues, the overwhelming presence among the hijackers of Saudis from the Asir region, with its Yemeni tribal links, is indicative of a pre-modern pattern of rebellion that fits in with the paradigm of cyclical revolt and dynastic renewal discerned by the Islamic philosopher of history Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406).     

The Economic Role of the State in the Classical Islamic Literature: The Views of Ibn Taimiyah

This paper explores the economic writings of Ibn Taimiyah, particularly his views on the economic role of the state. In so doing, it offers some explanations to the “great gap” puzzle posed by Schumpeter, and introduces the reader to a model of the medieval Arab and Islamic economic thoughts.     

Picturing the poor: fundraising and the depoliticisation of homelessness

In this paper, we discuss the role images play in attracting charitable donations in an English homeless shelter. Focusing in particular on two image-based projects which feature service-users (one series of black-and-white still photography and one series of film clips posted on YouTube), we draw on interviews with fundraisers and the homeless participants themselves to discuss how they motivated their involvement and what impact they hoped the images would achieve. We conclude by providing some snapshots of how earlier images produced in the shelter have been circulated.