Personal status laws in Morocco and Tunisia: A comparative exploration of the possibilities for equality-enhancing reform in Bangladesh

This paper focuses on successful reform strategies invoked in parts of the Muslim world to address issues of gender inequality in the context of Islamic personal law. It traces the development of personal status laws in Tunisia and Morocco, exploring the models they offer in initiating equality-enhancing reforms in Bangladesh, where a secular and equality-based reform approach conflicts with Islamic-based conservatism. Recent landmark family law reforms in Morocco show the possibility of achieving ‘women-friendly’ reforms within an Islamic legal framework. Moreover, the Tunisian Personal Status Code, with its successive reforms, shows that a gender equality-based model of personal law can be successfully integrated into the Muslim way of life. This study examines the response of Muslim societies to equality-based reforms and differences in approach in initiating them. The paper maps these sometimes competing approaches, locating them within contemporary feminist debates related to gender equality in the East and West.

'Thou glorious kingdome, thou chiefe of empires': Persia in seventeenth-century travel literature

Bringing together a range of little-considered materials, this article assesses the portrayal of Persia in seventeenth-century travel literature and drama. In particular it argues that such texts use their awareness of Islamic sectarian division to portray Persia as a good potential trading partner in preference to the Ottoman Empire. A close reading of John Day, William Rowley and George Wilkins’ The Travailes of the Three English Brothers (1607) demonstrates how the play develops a fantasy model of how relations between Persia and England might function. The potential unity between England and Persia, imagined in terms of both religion and trade, demonstrates how Persia figured as a model ‘other England’ in early modern literature.

Al-Qaeda - terrorists, hypocrites, fundamentalists? The view from within

This article investigates the ideology of Al-Qaeda as perceived from within the network. Particular attention is paid to the ideological background of Al-Qaeda's intellectual leadership, its sociopolitical context and the nature of its recruits. The inner logic of the Al-Qaeda organisation advances an intellectual concept that is not based on the main schools of Islamic theology, but on a new ideological starting point that results from the application of Islamic principles to sociopolitical change. With its political goals reinforced by the teachings of the Quran, exemplified by the content and rhetoric of a recently discovered training manual, the organisation creates powerful imagery embedded in the collective consciousness of the Muslim community. Thus, the message provided by Al-Qaeda inspires its followers to commit violent acts of destruction while being fully convinced that they are fulfilling the ordained will of Allah.

The EU, counter-terrorism and the protection of Muslims as European minorities

This article examines the EU’s promotion of the religious identity of Muslims within the context of European counter-terrorism measures. Counter-terrorism laws of the EU and its Member States impact on the religious identity of Muslims. They have an arguably disproportionate effect on the civil rights of individuals in the quest to combat terrorism and can be seen to increase Islamophobia in two ways: a rise in general discrimination against Muslims and a requirement on Muslims to distance their connection to Islamic practice and traditions. EU law dealing with terrorist offences speak little of this backlash that Muslims face in European countries. Although the EU has somewhat of a framework in place which concerns the protection of Islamic identity, the reluctance of the EU to take a determined stance on the issue of the protection of religious identity is illustrated through the ambiguous nature of its legislation.

The Byzantine Church of the Nutrition in Nazareth rediscovered

Although Nazareth has usually been seen by scholars as a relatively minor Byzantine pilgrimage centre, it contained perhaps the most important ‘lost’ Byzantine church in the Holy Land, the Church of the Nutrition ‐ according to De Locis Sanctis built over the house where it was believed that Jesus Christ had been a child. This article, part of a series of final interim reports of the PEF-funded ‘Nazareth Archaeological Project’, presents evidence that this church has been discovered at the present Sisters of Nazareth convent in central Nazareth. The scale of the church and its surrounding structures suggests that Nazareth was a much larger, and more important, centre for Byzantine-period pilgrimage than previously supposed. The church was used in the Crusader period, after a phase of desertion, prior to destruction by fire, probably in the 13th century.

'Thou glorious kingdome, thou chiefe of empires': Persia in seventeenth-century travel literature

This article discusses a series of texts by or about travellers to Safavid Persia in the early seventeenth century, and in particular the literature surrounding the Sherley brothers. It looks at the ways in which, in order to encourage support for the voyages they described, English travel writers emphasised the potential for closer Anglo-Persian relations. In doing so, such narratives took advantage of a developing awareness of sectarian division within Islam in order to differentiate Persia from the Ottoman Empire. The article then examines how The Travailes of the Three English Brothers (1607) by Day, Rowley and Wilkins, built on the possibilities suggested by the travel writings, and specifically their recognition of Islamic sectarian division, to develop an idealised model of how relations between Persia and England might function. More broadly, these texts demonstrate travellers’ interest in looking for potential correlation between Christian and Muslim identities during this period.

Recognition of "difference" in Shari'a: a feminist scrutiny through the lens of substantive equality

The paper looks at the works of notable Islamic feminists to examine whether Islam can be reconciled with a substantive approach to gender equality. Located within contemporary feminist debates related to gender equality, it considers the Qur’anic verses related to two controversial areas of Shari’a law, namely, duty of obedience and polygamy, to explore how Islamic scriptures perceive ‘difference’ and its implications for substantive equality-based legal reforms in a Muslim society.

Peaceful coexistence? The role of religious schools and NGOs in the growth of female secondary schooling in Bangladesh

Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), runs a large number of non-formal primary schools in Bangladesh which target out-of-school children from poor families. These schools are well-known for their effectiveness in closing the gender gap in primary school enrolment. On the other hand, registered non-government secondary madrasas (or Islamic schools) today enrol one girl against every boy student. In this article, we document a positive spillover effect of BRAC schools on female secondary enrolment in registered madrasas. Drawing upon school enrolment data aggregated at the region level, we first show that regions that had more registered madrasas experienced greater secondary female enrolment growth during 1999–2003, holding the number of secular secondary schools constant. In this context we test the impact of BRAC-run primary schools on female enrolment in registered madrasas. We deal with the potential endogeneity of placement of BRAC schools using an instrumental variable approach. Controlling for factors such as local-level poverty, road access and distance from major cities, we show that regions with a greater presence of BRAC schools have higher female enrolment growth in secondary madrasas. The effect is much bigger when compared to that on secondary schools.

What determines religious school choice? Theory and evidence from rural Bangladesh

This paper looks at the determinants of school selection in rural Bangladesh, focusing on the choice between registered Islamic and non-religious schools. Using a unique dataset on secondary school-age children from rural Bangladesh, we find that madrasah enrolment falls as household income increases. At the same time, more religious households, and those that live further away from a non-religious school are more likely to send their children to madrasahs. However, in contrast to the theory, we find that Islamic school demand does not respond to the average quality of schools in the locality.

MA TEFL programmes in Iran: change in a globalised era

This chapter is a modest attempt to investigate how MA TEFL programmes in Iran are changing in a globalised world. Our previous research in this area (Hasrati & Tavakoli, in print; Tavakoli & Hasrati, in preparation) has shown how MAs in English Language Teaching programmes are developing in Anglophone countries, but little or no research has been conducted to study changes in MA TEFL programmes in Iran. In what follows, we will first introduce MA TEFL programmes in Iran, before presenting and discussing different definitions of globalisation. We will then explain how we collected the data for this study and report our findings, making comparisons with the other contexts when appropriate. We will conclude by elaborating on possible extensions of this study in similar contexts.

Persia and kingship in William Cartwright's The Royall Slave (1636)

The recent reorientation of early modern studies draws attention to the Renaissance stage as a site of exploration of images of the Islamic world. This article examines the use of ancient and contemporary Persia in William Cartwright’s The Royall Slave (1636), in which Persia figures as a convenient space through which to examine political issues relevant to the audience at home in England. Assessing the construction of idealized societies and rulers in the play, The Royall Slave is a contemporary Court and academic drama that demonstrates its importance as one of a number of synchronous texts that represent Persia.

Conversion in late antiquity: Christianity, Islam, and beyond

The papers in this volume were presented at a Mellon-Sawyer Seminar held at the University of Oxford in 2009-2010, which sought to investigate side by side the two important movements of conversion that frame late antiquity: to Christianity at its start, and to Islam at the other end. Challenging the opposition between the two stereotypes of Islamic conversion as an intrinsically violent process, and Christian conversion as a fundamentally spiritual one, the papers seek to isolate the behaviours and circumstances that made conversion both such a common and such a contested phenomenon. The spread of Buddhism in Asia in broadly the same period serves as an external comparator that was not caught in the net of the Abrahamic religions. The volume is organised around several themes, reflecting the concerns of the initial project with the articulation between norm and practice, the role of authorities and institutions, and the social and individual fluidity on the ground. Debates, discussions, and the expression of norms and principles about conversion conversion are not rare in societies experiencing religious change, and the first section of the book examines some of the main issues brought up by surviving sources. This is followed by three sections examining different aspects of how those principles were - or were not - put into practice: how conversion was handled by the state, how it was continuously redefined by individual ambivalence and cultural fluidity, and how it was enshrined through different forms of institutionalization. Finally, a topographical coda examines the effects of religious change on the iconic holy city of Jerusalem.