Black or White: The Turbanization of Shi‘i Islam

The Turban has been worn by Muslims since the early period of Islamic history. This paper examines the significance of the turban in Twelver Shi‘ism. It argues that the turban and its color have been used to enhance the social and religious status of the descendants (sayyids) of the Prophet Muhammad. The paper also discusses the importance attached to the method of tying the turban and demonstrates how social pressure forced scholars to abandon a practice established by the Prophet and Imams. It will also argue that the method of trying the turban was used as an ideological tool among Shi‘i scholars.     

Imagining Political Possibility in an Age of Late Liberalism and Cynical Reason

Inspired by innovative social projects and new political movements, anthropologists have turned to the study of political possibility. In looking at how people imagine and struggle for temporalities and conditions that will afford them the opportunity to exist in ways different from those they are experiencing now, cultural analysts draw on ethnography and critical political philosophy to chart new analytical trajectories and themes. By foregrounding a language of potentiality and becoming, scholars also envision new ways for looking at democracy and justice. In drawing on three contemporary ethnographies, this review traces how anthropologists examine possibilities in diverse cultural and political contexts, including some of its tenets and conjectures.     

《毛诗注疏》版本流变考略

《毛诗注疏》为儒家经典之一,汇集了汉、唐两代学者为解读《毛诗》而作的重要注释。本文对它的版本流变作了全面的考察和清晰的梳理,并指出了后世学者在相关问题上的部分失误。     

Rituals of Commemoration,Rituals of Self-Invention: Safavid Religious Colleges and the Collective Memory of the Shi‘a

Shi‘ism, perhaps more than any other current of Islam, places emphasis on numerous forms of commemorative culture. Throughout the history of Shi‘ism, commemorative rituals have provided a comprehensive framework for interpreting a wide array of historical encounters between the Shi‘a and the dominant Sunni culture, thereby allowing Shi‘ism to construct itself as a community of learning and remembering. This self-construction required both a high degree of institutionalization as well as specialists to preserve the religious identity of the Shi‘a and to transmit religious knowledge to the next generation. Madrasas (Islamic institutions of higher learning) as well as the shrines of the Shi‘i Imams and their progeny served as the best institutions to achieve these goals. This paper argues that Safavid madrasas were not only centers for disseminating religious knowledge and preserving Shi'a intellectual heritage. They also rearticulated and contemporized the community's past through the active memorializing of pivotal events in the religious calendar of the Shi‘a. More specifically, the paper delineates the nature and scope of religious rituals and rites carried out in the Madrasa-ye Sultānī and a number of other madrasa-mosque complexes of Safavid Isfahan in order to explore the process by which the Shi‘i past was contextualized or contemporized as salient to suit the needs of Safavid power and society.     

The Political Discourses of three Contemporary Muslim Scholars: Secular,Nonsecular, or Pseudosecular?

It is well‐known that the quest for an Islamic state was a desire common to most Islamists of the twentieth and twenty‐first centuries. This article discusses three contemporary political theories that stand in sharp contrast to the Islamists’ theory of an Islamic state. These political theories are developed by three prominent contemporary Muslim scholars, Nasr Hamid Abū Zayd, Ablodkarim Soroush, and Muhammad Mujtahed Shabestari. The article attempts to discuss the common themes between the views of these scholars concerning governance. It argues that the political theories presented by them significantly differ from those developed by most Islamists, who share the idea that Islam is a self‐sufficient political system. It also argues that while these political theories challenge the idea that incorporates the maximal role for government in religious matters and thus are close to certain aspects of regulations of governance in Western countries, they are different from those political theories in the West that focus on a sharp distinction between religion and state because religion, for such scholar, plays an important role in developing civil society.     

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.     

Imagining Shi‘ite Iran: Transnationalism and Religious Authenticity in the Muslim World

Religious authority in the Shi‘ite world is often claimed and justified by drawing on national ideologies. Examining the relations between the ruling religious elite in Iran and Lebanese Shi‘ite party of Amal and followers of the Lebanese Shi‘ite scholar Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, this article shows how the latter two actors seek to break official Iran's hegemonic claim to lead the Shi‘ite world through parody and critical narratives about the history and society of Iran. This politics of religious authenticity is not limited to debates among Shi‘ite scholars but also involves other actors such as political party members, students of religion, and pilgrims as they take part in shaping claims to seniority and authenticity in Shi‘ite tradition.     

所见《新入诸儒议论〈杜氏通典详节〉》版刻年代考略

对所见《新入诸儒议论〈杜氏通典详节〉》版本特征进行描述,发现书间避宋讳,且多用省简字和俗字;宋代帝号前均有抬头;纸糙色黄,为元代印书多用之梗棒纸,认为所见本应为宋刻元递修本。     

Humanitarianism,genocide and liberalism

The international response to genocide and human rights violations has received increasing attention by scholars in the humanities and social sciences. This article explores the history of the response to mass atrocity by assessing recent work on humanitarianism as an idea and in practice in the West. It argues that the impulse to defend the rights of others historically has been tied up with geopolitical and imperial concerns that shaped European politics. The current embrace of the responsibility to protect, or ‘R2P’, and debates over whether or not to recognize and prosecute perpetrators of past atrocities from the Armenian genocide to Rwanda remain embedded in this longer history of humanitarianism and geopolitics. As recent work on humanitarian intervention, the anti-slavery movement and humanitarianism and foreign policy demonstrates, the pressing need to understand the response to atrocity has called scholars to more fully participate in the contemporary conversation over human rights by exploring its roots in humanitarian practices of the recent and not so recent past. Understanding the history of humanitarianism as it connects both with the history of human rights and liberal ideals offers an important way of reassessing the role of the nation-state and international institutions in responding to human rights crisis. The article concludes by suggesting that scholars move away from the question of the origin of human rights as an idea to focus on historicizing the response to humanitarian crisis in order to problematize the story of the rise of western-led human rights regimes.     

评方东美对胡适的批评

胡适与方东美生前虽未订交但俩人相识.俩人相识却未进一步发展友谊,显然是因为学术立场相左,一个(胡)坚持自由主义的立场,一个(方)坚持文化保守主义的立场.但方东美对胡适的批评,不谈方法问题(大胆假设,小心求证),也不谈主义问题(多研究些问题,少谈些主义),而是集中在两个问题,一是中国文化的价值问题,二是中国哲学的性质问题.他在这两个问题上批评胡适,除了体现一个文化保守主义者对自由主义者的抗议外,是否合情合理合乎实际?这就是本文所要分析的.     

Sami Rights and Sami Challenges

In this article the authors analyse the conflict in contemporary Sami politics in Sweden. To understand this conflict a historical perspective is necessary, and the authors reconstruct the ideas and beliefs in the public debate that has legitimized a system of Sami rights over more than a century, and analyze the challenges to these by the Sami movement. Two parallel themes are discussed: the first deals with the continuity and change of the Swedish Sami policy, where the authors show how ideas and beliefs concerning the Sami have limited the possibilities of political action. The second theme focuses on the political mobilization of the Sami in Sweden and their challenges of the established view of the Sami in official policy. One of the conclusions made is that it is of importance to grant indigenous peoples, like the Sami, some kind of secure political platform from which they could participate in the democratic procedure and legitimately counter‐act the power of the nation states in which they live.     

One Thousand Years of Islamic Education in Najaf: Myth and History of the Shiʿi Ḥawza

According to Shi?i tradition, the seminary (?awza) in Najaf, Iraq is 1,000 years old. The origins of the ?awza are closely associated with the famous scholar Shaykh al-?ūsī (385/995?459/1067). This paper addresses the question of whether or not there is sufficient historical evidence to support the tradition that the ?awza of Najaf is indeed 1,000 years old. On the basis of Arabic sources, the article argues that although Shi?i educational institutions in Najaf were incepted a millennium ago, Najaf was rarely the locus of Shi?i education prior to the thirteenth/nineteenth century. Based on statistical and historical analysis of Shi?i scholars in Najaf, this paper outlines a short history of scholarly activity in one of the oldest college towns in the world. In addition to developing a working definition of the term ?awza, the paper situates the rise of Shi?i educational systems in the broader context of the evolution of Islamic scholarly institutions, including colleges (madrasas).     

Shiʻi Piety and Dynastic Legitimacy: Mashhad under the Early Safavid Shahs

Mashhad, the site in northeastern Iran of the shrine of the eighth Shi?i imam, is arguably one of the largest and wealthiest sacred shrines in the world. The gilded dome over the imam's mausoleum stands amidst an expansive complex of courts, monumental gateways, libraries, museums, guesthouses, and administrative offices that cater to thousands of pilgrims each year. This paper examines the period, under the aegis of the early Safavid shahs, when Mashhad was established as the preeminent Shi?i pilgrimage center in Iran. Appropriating the Timurid ecumenical vision for the shrine, the Safavid shahs refashioned the holy city into a site that celebrated the triumph of Twelver Shi?ism in the Safavid realm and reinforced Safavid claims of legitimacy. While highlighting Shah Tahmasb's personal devotion to Mashhad, and his privileging of the shrine within Safavid sacred topography, the paper focuses on Shah ?Abbas's urban reshaping of Mashhad and the architectural and institutional expansion of the shrine during his reign, thereby enhancing its status as the leading spiritual center in the Safavid empire.     

THE AIRPORT HOTEL AS BUSINESS SPACE

This article seeks to contribute to debates about the mobile nature of contemporary economic practice, through a discussion of some key themes in the evolution of airport hotels as business spaces. It argues that despite being emblematic of a hypermobile business elite, the nature of hotels as business spaces requires careful unpacking. The article begins by discussing the evolution of the airport hotel, charting the shift from basic lodging standards to recent developments of five star airport hotels. It then seeks to explain the locational geographies of airport hotel development, in response to these new trends. Finally, the article describes how the business traveller is conceived of and (speculatively) catered for by airport hotel operators and designers within a discourse of connectivity, before providing some counter-examples of how such claims fail to address the hotel's place within the complexity of airport spatial organization.     

Statisticians,economists and the ‘new economic order’ in wartime Italy (1940–1943)

From 1940 to 1943, Italian economists and statisticians were actively engaged in discussions that ranged from immediate concerns about war economy to more speculative issues that can be summarized under the then-fashionable label of the ‘new economic order’. The purpose of this article is to offer an overview of these debates by focusing, on the one hand, on the related themes of autarky, the new ‘Mediterranean order’ and postwar supranational economic complexes, and, on the other hand, on those of corporatism and economic planning. Both the idea of an economic plan and that of an organized division of labor among countries within a politically defined large economic space clashed directly with views associated with the tenets of economic liberalism, also dear to many Italian economists. On each theme, positions taken may be connected to expectations regarding the postwar world. Special attention will be given to various statistical devices and arguments put forward by protagonists to sustain their views or implement their projects.     

Lao-Zhuang in the vernacular: two evolutionary readings

This article examines evolutionary thinking in Yan Fu and Hu Shi’s readings of the Laozi and the Zhuangzi. While Yan Fu employed a traditional exegetical form and Hu Shi wrote in journals and textbooks, both scholars employed a new, vernacular mode of reading classical texts. This new mode of reading is characterized by four primary features: commensurability, comprehensibility, fallibility, and contemporaneity. Unlike scholars of earlier generations, Yan and Hu treated classical Chinese texts as commensurable with Western thought and readily comprehensible in terms of modern ideas. Yan and Hu approached the Laozi and Zhuangzi as fallible texts subject to evaluation in light of Western ideas and contemporary conditions. Yan argued that the sages should be subjected to the same scrutiny as morally neutral modern scientists, while Hu urged readers to evaluate texts in terms of their pragmatic effects. Both writers highlighted areas of evolutionary thinking in the Laozi and the Zhuangzi, while evaluating the texts in terms of their potential to aid or hinder the evolution of the modernizing Chinese nation-state.     

清末民初时调研究现状概述

虽然,与明代时调研究较为热闹的场面相比,清末民初时调几乎一直处于被遗忘的角落,但难能可贵的是,顾颉刚、郑振铎、阿英、赵景深等对当时地摊上时调唱本的搜集,为我们今天的研究提供了宝贵的原始资料.顾颉刚、阿英、李家瑞、赵景深等还写有一些研究文字,更具草创之功.当今学界的车锡伦、黄霖等先生也有一些研究清末民初时调唱本的文章面世.     

Reasoned and Inspired Beliefs: A Study of Islamic Theology

Abstract: In most cases, Islamic theology has been examined as a sub‐field of Islamic legal studies. Ignaz Goldziher and Joseph Schacht for instance, see a link between Islamic law and theology. However, Islamic materials from the formative period of Islamic thought show that Muslim scholars distinguished between disciplines dealing with theological themes and those dealing with legal and jurisprudential topics. In this article, the author defines theology and identifies the major trends that contributed to the development of theological doctrines in Sunni and Shi‘ite Islam. He argues that, during the various historical periods, the scope and reach of Islamic theology depended on the political, social, and intellectual environment. He concludes that, in the end, Muslim theology could only be understood in a context radically different from its counterpart in Judaism and Christianity.     

A Sympathetic Appraisal of Cold War Modernization Theory

The apparent failure of recent US nation-building efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan has re-awakened interest in earlier American efforts at nation-building and the scholarly literature that provided the intellectual framework and justification for those efforts. In the aftermath of the Second World War, a generation of scholars, shaped by their wartime experience, contributed to that literature under the general label of modernization theory. Modernization theory was promulgated under the auspices of three major institutions: Harvard's Department of Social Relations, the Social Science Research Council's Committee on Comparative Politics and MIT's Center for International Studies. All three institutions provided homes for scholars conducting multidisciplinary research on conditions in the ‘new states’ – that is the former colonial countries. Drawing on the work of key scholars that contributed to modernization theory, this article offers a more sympathetic analysis than is typical of many contemporary assessments of the theory. In order to provide that sympathetic appraisal, the widest perspective on the various approaches to modernization theory is required so that the scholars whose work are highlighted include: Gabriel Almond, Lucian Pye, Karl W. Deutsch, Daniel Lerner, Alex Inkeles and Walt Rostow.     

Proselytizing Islam — Problematizing “Salafism”

This article discusses the contemporary European setting pertaining to Islamic interpretations, mainly so called Salafi Islam. The empirical material is based on publications by a Swedish group that conducts street da?wa, aiming to proselytize among non‐Muslims. The ideology, as presented in official publications to be used for da?wa, is described and analyzed as part of a larger da?wa‐movement with Salafi‐inclinations in Europe. The group is not unique, but rather one example of many in Europe, at least concerning the activism advocated. The presentation of the group serves to reflect upon global influences and similarities among contemporary Islamic da?wa activism, as well as effects that the national context has on the choice of predominant themes addressed by the group as well as interpretative strategies used. The overarching aim with the article is to problematize the common usage of the concept Salafi among scholars of religion to describe and characterize contemporary Islamic groups of various kinds. The conclusion calls for a more nuanced approach concerning conceptualizations and the use of typologies in studying contemporary Islamic groups in a minority setting.