Rev. John G. Lansing (1851–1906) on Preaching the Gospel to Muslims

At the turn of the twentieth century, the interest of American Protestant churches in foreign missions increased dramatically. “The evangelization of the world in this generation” became a powerful slogan and a new understanding of the Great Commission or the instruction of the resurrected Jesus Christ to his disciples, was among factors that “revolutionized American missionary movement.”¹ This article presents the views on Islam of Rev. John G. Lansing from the New Brunswick Seminary of the Reformed Church of America,² and suggests that Lansing changed the view that Islam is not approachable and awakened the imagination of his disciples concerning the land of Islam and its inhabitants as people to whom the words of the gospel should be addressed. Although the Arabian Mission established by Lansing in 1889 finally failed in ensuring mass conversions of Muslims, it did result in a great discovery of Islam by the missionaries.     

The Roots and Achievements of the Early Proto‐Sunni Movement: A Profile and Interpretation

In recent years, the term “proto‐Sunni” has become common in scholarship on the early centuries of Islam. Drawing on categories developed by Peter Berger, this study seeks to move toward a more inclusive portrait of the early proto‐Sunni movement and a more organic understanding of the movement's success. It argues that owing to the erosion of several of the “plausibility structures” of earliest Islam, three tendencies emerged among the proto‐Sunnis between the early 8^th and mid‐9^th centuries C.E.: proto‐Sunnis as traditionist ?ulamā?, proto‐Sunnis as pious ascetics, and proto‐Sunnis as volunteer holy warriors. The prestige acquired through their activities in these areas enabled the early proto‐Sunnis to “objectify” and “legitimize” new plausibility structures which would prove decisive to an eventual Sunni consensus.     

The Islamic Republic of Iran and the Holocaust: Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism

Iran espouses the most radical anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist position in the Muslim Middle East, calling for the elimination of Israel. Drawing on anti-Jewish traditions in Shi^ci Islam, Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, maintained that Zionism is the culmination of the Jewish-Christian conspiracy against Islam and undermines its historical mission. Fusing together Islamic and European anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist ideologies, Iran became a disseminator of Holocaust denial in the Middle East and a sponsor of Western Holocaust deniers. Iran's Holocaust denial, which aims at demolishing the legitimacy of the Jewish state, denies Jewish history and deprives the Jews of their human dignity by presenting their worst tragedy as a scam.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Iran Between Two Revolutions , By Ervand Abrahamian Mollā Sadrā Sh?rāz?: Le Livre des pénétrations métaphysiques (Kitāb al-Mashāir). Translated from the Arabic, with an Introduction and Notes, by Henry Corbin Le livre du licite et de l'illicite (Kitāb al-halāl wa-l-harām , Book XIV of Al-Gazāl?'s Ihyā Ulūm ad-D?n). Introduction, translation and notes by Régis Morelon Society, State, and Urbanism: Ibn Khaldun's Sociological Thought. By Fuad Baali Shari'at and Ambiguity in South Asian Islam. Edited by Katherine P. Ewing The Making of the Last Prophet: A Reconstruction of the Earliest Biography of Muhammad. By Gordon Darnell Newby Muslim Hausa Women in Nigeria: Tradition and Change. by Barbara J. Callaway Neopatriarchy: A Theory of Distorted Change in Arab Society. By Hisham Sharabi The Islamic Impulse. Edited by Barbara Freyer Stowasser Christians and Muslims Together: An Exploration by Presbyterians. Edited by Byron L Ägypten unter Mubarak: Identität und nationales Interesse. by Gudrun Krämer Towards Understanding the Qur⁾ān. Vol. 1, Sura 1–3. English version of Sayyid Abul A⁽la Mawdudi's Tafhim al-Qur⁽ān, translated and edited by Zafar Ishaq Ansari Middle East Contemporary Survey. Vol. IX. Edited by Itamar Rabinovich and Haim Shaked. The Sufi Path of Knowledge : Ibn al-⁽Arab?'s Metaphysics of Imagination. By William C. Chittick Colonising Egypt. By Timothy Mitchell Past-Revolutionary Iran. Edited by Hooshang Amirahmadi and Manouchehr Parvin Sacred Performances: Islam, Sexuality, and Sacrifice. By M. E. Combs-Schilling Islam: The Straight Path. By John L. Esposito Islam, Politics, and Social Movements. Edited by Edmund Burke, III, and Ira M. Lapidus Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society. By Lila Abu-Lughod     

清季支那史、东洋史教科书介译初探

清季对日本之支那史、东洋史教科书的介译,是清末教育改革的产物,对清末早期新式学堂的历史教育,对国人自编本国史教科书的出现,都产生了深远影响;支那史、东洋史的介译亦是20世纪初年新史学思潮的重要组成部分,对新史学思潮的深入发展起到了推波助澜的作用;介译支那史、东洋史之主旨在于弘扬爱国主义精神,表现出较为浓厚的功利色彩。支那史、东洋史教科书在中国近代教育史、史学史上应有一定的地位。     

The Pillars of “Mahathir's Islam”: Mahathir Mohamad on Being-Muslim in the Modern World

Unlike his bourgeois economic nationalism or diplomatic posturing on behalf of the developing world, Mahathir Mohamad's encounter with Islam remains a largely understudied aspect of his 22-year rule of Malaysia (1981–2003). There is a marked reluctance to take seriously his pronouncements on Islam and engage with his representations of what being-Muslim should entail in the modern world. This essay takes the view that Islam, in fact, represents a significant component of the former Malaysian prime minister's political repertoire, and that an analysis of what may be described as “Mahathir's Islam” can provide a compelling alternative account of his momentous premiership. It argues that while Mahathir's engagement with Islam was fraught with contradictions and has produced a number of negative consequences that affect Malaysian society as a whole, his discourse also contained the ingredients of what Bellah and Hammond (1980) have famously described as civil religion. Mahathir's public representations of Islam – in particular, his championing of the individually responsible believer and interpretation of the message to the Prophet Muhammad as a this-worldly and pro-active “theology of progress” – can thus provide religious validation to the cosmopolitanism of the street that has helped underwrite the social peace of multi-religious Malaysia.     

Review

Book reviewed in this article: Muhammad and the Origins of Islam, F.E. Peters Islamic Thought: 23 Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammad ^cAli Dashti, F.R.C. Bagley, translator     

The Lost Intermediaries: The Impact of 1870 on the European System

Abstract

Among the colourful characters that populate eighteenth-century military history, the French-born comte de Bonneval (1675–1747) has been kept alive in historical memory longer than most. His surprising conversion to Islam and contribution to Ottoman military reform long made him a popular subject for biography in his own right. Nowadays, he mainly features in biographies of Prince Eugene of Savoy. Both were commanders in the Habsburg army, and for nineteen years they were close companions in war and peace.¹ The circumstances that turned Bonneval's friendship with Eugene to enmity also led him in 1729 to offer his services to the Ottoman Empire. For most scholars, this is the moment when his actions became of lasting historical significance. The Ottomans, who suffered in the eighteenth century a series of military defeats, employed foreigners to help them reform their army. After converting to Islam and renaming himself Ahmed Pasha, Bonneval became the first of these when the grand vizier, Topal Osman, invited him in 1731 to reform the Ottoman artillery corps. He moved to Constantinople, added the sobriquet ‘Humbaracl’ (bombardier), and became a noted figure at the court of Sultan Mahmud I. Until Bonneval's death in 1747, Europeans having dealings with the Ottoman regime looked to him for assistance in navigating its internal politics.²     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Review in this Articles al-wādi al-Muqaddas. By M. Kāmil Husayn. al-Kindi: The Philosopher of The Arabs. By George N. Atiyeh. Ta'llm al-Lugh. al-'Arabiyya fi Nigeria. (Teaching the Arabic Language In Nigeria). By Salim Le Réformisme musulman en Alagérie de 1925 à 1940: Essal d'histoire reli-gieuse et sociale. By Ali Merad. Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan, 1857–1964. By Aziz Ahmad. Islam in China. By Yang I-fan. Afghanistan, 1900–1923: A Diplomatic History. By Ludwig Adamac Liqā' 'ind Bawwãbat Mandelbaum (Meeting at Mandelbaum Gate). By Ahmad Fawzi ^CAbd al-Jabbãr. Paintings From Islamic Lands. Edited by R. Pinder-Wilson. Ten Muslims Meet Christ. By William McElwee Miller.     

中国西南早期对外交通——先秦两汉的南方丝绸之路

中外古文献里多有先秦两汉时期中国西南对外交通的记载。古希腊罗马文献中关于东方的赛里斯、长寿者等貌似怪诞现象的记述,并不完全是无稽之谈,而有着几分中国古史传说的真实素地,在上古时代的中国西南有迹可寻,应是古希腊罗马作家根据他们在中亚和印度时的耳闻所作的记述,表明当时已有从中国西南至印度和中亚的交通线。先秦两汉中国古文献的有关记载,可以证实中国西南早期对外交通的实际情况。成都平原三星堆文化和金沙遗址考古中不少印度和近东文化因素的发现与研究,则从考古学上证明了商周时期中国西南对外交通的存在。     

Between Islam and the nation; nation-building,the ulama and Alevi identity in Turkey

This article analyses the relationship between Islam and nationalism by considering the role of the ulama in Turkey, housed within the Presidency of Religious Affairs (PRA). The ulama – religious scholars and experts of Islamic law – in Muslim majority contexts are typically closely linked with the state and play a key role in shaping the boundaries of Islam and of what is Islamically acceptable. However, this is also of consequence for the boundaries of the nation, since in Turkey Islam and nationalism has been intertwined, with Islam playing a central role in nation-building, as a basis of ethnic identity formation and a source of symbols and myths. This articles shows, firstly, that the PRA has acted as a carrier and preserver of Sunni (Hanefi) Muslim identity in continuity with the Ottoman ulama and, secondly, that it has delimited nation-building, by considering its approach to and interventions against Alevi identity.     

两汉诸侯王墓出土葬玉及葬玉制度初探

在中国玉文化发展进程中,两汉是一个重要的转折时期,玉器的神秘作用在经历了新石器时代和商周的发展之后达到了巅峰。汉玉的一大特色是走向极端迷信化的葬玉,而这也是玉器神秘化在汉代达到巅峰的标志。这之后的玉器,佩玉逐渐融入了现实生活,葬玉逐渐消失,进入了中国玉器发展的新阶段——世俗化发展阶段。因此可以说汉代是葬玉的黄金时代。     

Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens) and his anti-war and pro-peace protest songs: from hippy peace to Islamic peace

ABSTRACT

In the 1970s Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens) inspired a generation with his songs on anti-materialism, finding self and peace in such classic albums as Tea for the Tillerman (1970, US 3x platinum) and Teaser and the Firecat (1971, US 3x platinum). In December 1977 he converted to Islam, gave up popular music and focussed on humanitarian and educational work, until he returned to popular music in 2006. Meanwhile, Muslims became associated in the West as intolerant and violent. Yusuf has emerged in the last decade as a voice for progressive Muslims. This article explores the continuities in his music from his Cat Stevens days to his comeback and how he has reconciled popular music and his Cat Stevens past with his understanding of Islam. The focus is on his anti-war and pro-peace songs. It argues that his earlier songs are similar in their messages of world peace through love and unity, though less dark than his post-2006 songs. Additionally, his recent songs have a new message that the world must be more inclusive to achieve world peace. This is connected to him being a Muslim in the West and his feeling of exclusion, in an age when many in the West portray all Muslims as extremists. Consequently, in his recent music he reflects his experience as a Muslim, in the same way as his earlier music reflected the counter-culture of that period. Thus he has gone back to his earlier self after adopting a progressive understanding of Islam. Not Started Completed Rejected.     

A Core-Periphery GIS Model of the Historical Growth and Spread of Islam in China

Abstract

This study presents the methodology and results of a core-periphery GIS model of the historical growth and spread of Islam in China based on a dataset of 1,774 mosques. These sites were organized into data subsets according to their founding dates during five major dynastic periods in Chinese history: Tang/Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing, and Republican. Core areas were identified and mapped based on where mosques clustered during each period. North China was the paramount core region in all periods. Not until the late Qing and Republican periods did the Northwest and Yunnan compare with North China, while coastal China never developed into a core area.     

“Catching the Yellow Ghost”: A Case Study of Popular Religious Activities and Social Transformation in Rural North China

This article studies the relationship between local society and social change in rural north China from the late Qing dynasty to the People’s Republic of China period through the activity of “Zhuo huanggui” (literally, “Catching the Yellow Ghost”). “Catching the Yellow Ghost” is a ritual activity in Guyi village, Wu’an county, Hebei province. According to villagers there, “Catching the Yellow Ghost” has been celebrated since the late Qing dynasty. However, due to political pressures in the 1950s, it was not until the 1980s that “Catching the Yellow Ghost” began to be revitalized. Since that time, “Catching the Yellow Ghost” has gained rapid popularity and fame in north China. Through the lens of the “Catching the Yellow Ghost” ritual, this article explores social transformation in China from the late 19th to the early 21st century. By analyzing the continuity and discontinuity of “Catching the Yellow Ghost,” this article offers a new understanding of the relationship between local society and social change in rural north China.     

汉画祥瑞龙

龙经过几千年的传演,到汉代,已经成为最为吉祥的动物之一.龙表现在汉画中,有应龙、青龙、黄龙等,它们象征着皇权和君德吉祥,同时还有辟邪驱灾的吉祥寓意,又是求雨的符瑞和好道者驾驭成仙的工具.汉代的龙瑞对中华民族的吉祥文化产生深远影响.     

The future of political Islam: the importance of external variables

Much has been written about the potential of political Islam to affect in major ways the future of Muslim societies and polities around the world. However, most analyses of political Islam that explicitly try to assess its future potential concentrate on its innate characteristics as a political ideology with the propensity to mobilize its adherents for purposes of regime change or social transformation or both. Therefore, these analyses emphasize the inherent nature of, and the in-built contradictions within, Islamism. Far less has been written about the environment external to the phenomenon of Islamism, namely, the milieu in which Islamist groups operate and propagate their ideology. Moreover, only a minuscule portion of the writings on political Islam try explicitly to analyse the impact that variables external to the inherent characteristics of political Islam are likely to have on Islamism's future prospects. This article attempts to fill this gap by putting Islamism in a wider perspective and by analysing the impact of environmental factors external to Islamism as an ideology, and largely outside the control of Islamists, on the future potential of political Islam.     

An Analysis of the “Little China” Ideology of Chosŏn Korea

The Chosŏn dynasty founded by Yi Seong-gye was closely involved in the tributary system of the Ming dynasty. Chosŏn Korea called itself “Little China” due to the following two policies: mohwa (admiring China) and sadae (serving the greater). Chosŏn Korea traced its origin back to the dongyi (Eastern Barbarians) and claimed itself the only nation that had transformed itself from “Yi” (barbarian) to “Hwa” (Chinese) in the Chinese world system. References to the sage Kija (Jizi) in moral, historical, and political writings indicated the beginning of this transformation and thus the worship of Kija was consistently implemented. The ritual and cultural systems in Chosŏn Korea imitated those of China. The policy of admiring China, Confucian thought, and the worship of Confucius comprised a significant part of the “Little China” ideology. After the Ming-Qing transition, Chosŏn Korea did not acknowledge the legitimacy of the Qing dynasty and considered itself the only and true China.     

商代的生态环境与农业发展

从整体上看,商代的生态环境处在"中国全新世大暖期".但在长达约600年的商代历史中,以气候为主要因子的生态环境也出现有不小的波动,表现为商代早期出现有短暂的干旱,中期到后期有较长时期的温暖适宜期,商末环境又有转为干旱的迹象.商代的生态环境对农业生产有直接的影响,形成了"粟稻混作区".商代农业确定了中国古代农业发展的方向,并为商王朝的崛起和兴盛奠定了坚实的基础.