Lydia Wilson Marshall (Ed.): Landscapes of Slavery in Africa

African Archaeological Review -     

Abdul Ghaffar Khan: An Islamic Gandhi

Abstract

Abdul Ghaffar Khan was a mid-twentieth-century Pashtun of the Northwest Frontier Region known as the "Frontier Gandhi" or the "Islamic Gandhi." His career was marked by rejection of the badal blood feud, and the belligerent Pashtun tribal code. Accepting instead a non-violent interpretation of Islam, Khan was heavily influenced by Mohandas K. Gandhi, and came to interpret the heart of Islam, including the concepts of jihad, as essentially about peace, service, and non-violence. Khan traveled widely in the frontier region that later became Pakistan, and his most significant achievement was to raise a non-violent army of Khudai Khidmatgars or "Servants of God" from his own Pashtun people. His legacy is important to further understand a non-violent alternative of Islamic political resistance.     

An Early Islamic Inter-Settlement Agroecosystem in the Coastal Sand of the Yavneh Dunefield,Israel

This study examines the remains of an agricultural complex found in the Yavneh coastal dunefield, central Israel. Known as a plot-and-berm agroecosystem, the complex consisted of earthworks in a crisscross pattern of sand berms and sunken agricultural plots that were used for groundwater harvesting. The plots, which provided easy access to the high groundwater table and the berms around them, are overlaid by a gray sand unit covered by pottery sherds and artifacts. This gray sand is more fertile than the underlying sand, suggesting refuse enrichment. Artifactual similarity of the finds to those of inland (Tel) Yavneh suggests that Yavneh was the main source for the refuse additive. Based on artifacts and OSL ages it seems that this agroecosystem was active during the 10th to early 12th centuries a.d. The agroecosystem demonstrates an early example of an Early Islamic agrotechnological attempt in marginal and sandy regions of the Mediterranean basin.     

Geoffroy Heimlich (Ed.): Art Rupestre et Patrimoine Mondial en Afrique Subsaharienne

African Archaeological Review -     

Alisa LaGamma (Ed.): Sahel: Art and Empires on the Shores of the Sahara

African Archaeological Review -     

Past Contradictions,Contemporary Dilemmas: Egypt's 2013 Coup and Early Islamic History

To what extent is the present of Muslim societies influenced by their past? How do politics and historiography relate to each other in medieval and contemporary Islam? More specifically, can events from early Islamic history help us understand current events in Muslim countries? By discussing how some of these remote events have contributed to the emergence of certain political views, this article argues that they are still relevant to the present in Muslim countries (in our case here, Egypt) and can indeed help us understand an important part of the picture of a recent event that may have a long lasting influence on the present and future of both the country and the region where it occurred. This event was the removal of Egypt's first ever democratically elected president by a military coup on July 3, 2013, one year after he assumed office. By examining the various religious and political hermeneutic strategies used by some medieval and modern Sunni scholars to support or condemn certain acts of rebellion while opposing others, the article seeks to demonstrate — through the comparison of some of these strategies — the contradictory positions of medieval Sunni scholars regarding events from early Islam, and thus the dilemmas that their modern counterparts face when dealing with contemporary events.