Author: George Muishout

Supervisors: Pof. Gerard Wiegers and Prof. Hanneke van Laarhoven

University: Faculty of Humanities, Amsterdam School of Historical Studies (ASH)

Date of Award: May 2, 2023

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the role of religion in palliative settings involving Muslim doctors or religious professionals and Muslim patients and their relatives. It seeks to answer the question how religion shapes Muslim attitudes in medical decision-making in palliative care in the Netherlands.

The thesis demonstrates that in classical Islamic discourse, medical treatment may be withheld or terminated in the case of incurable illness, while modern Islamic discourse tends to put great emphasis on prolonging life through maximum treatment.

The results of the empirical part of the thesis suggest that the professional practice of Turkish imams and Muslim doctors regarding palliative decision making are embedded in the religious and medical institutions they represent and cater to the demands that are part of their jobs within these institutions.

The thesis demonstrates that Muslim doctors take a comfort-oriented approach aimed at preventing suffering from pain, which for some of them conflicts with their personal religious beliefs. Turkish imams predominately advocate for maximum treatment in their advice regarding medical decision-making to their congregants, for the conviction that all Muslims involved will be held accountable by God for questioning His omnipotence.

Together the results create the picture of a healthcare environment in which medical practice and religious beliefs are rather at odds.

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Muslims and medical treatment: An exploration of the ethical-legal status of treatment within the Sunni Islamic tradition
• Muslim jurisprudence on withdrawing treatment from incurable patients: A directed content analysis of the Islamic Fiqh Council of the Muslim World League
• Turkish imams and their role in decision-making in palliative care. A directed content and narrative analysis
• Muslim physicians and palliative care: Attitudes towards the use of palliative sedation
• Muslim doctors and decision making in palliative care: A discourse analysis
• General discussion

Read the full thesis HERE.

Source: University of Amsterdam

Author: Nael Abd El-Rahaman

University: McGill University

Date of Award: Winter 2023

Abstract:

This thesis is primarily a study of the concept of Hell in Islam as it was imagined by early Muslims. Hell in Islam has received limited attention by Muslim and Western scholars of Islam, even though it occupies an important place in the events of the Day of Judgment and in the minds of those interested in learning about the Day of Judgment according to Islam.

The relative lack of information about Jahannam, particularly in languages other than Arabic, is among the reasons for the paucity of literature by Western scholars. This study provides information about Jahannam and takes on the task of giving Jahannam the attention it deserves. A general view of Jahannam in Islam will be introduced as well as its topography, its inhabitants, and the types of punishments used in it. In addition, the issue of its permanency will be discussed.

This investigation will focus on the thoughts of the first three generations without introducing later understandings, beliefs, or imaginations. Therefore, it will set aside what is currently said about Jahannam and examines what early generations said about it.

Nael Abd El-Rahaman argues that authentic hadith did in fact reflect early Muslims’ understanding of Jahannam. Therefore, the study will substantially rely on what was said by the Prophet related to Jahannam in addition to what is written in the Qurʾān regarding it. As hadith serves as a lamp to shed light on the way early Muslim perceived Jahannam, this study will address methodological and terminological issues related to hadith and discuss how the methods of early hadith critics proved to be reliable in hadith authentication processes.

In relation to the issue of hadith authenticity, the study will introduce and explore what later came to be the science of Uṣūl al-Hadith and its related genera. It will also touch on the problem of tadlīs (concealing the defects in a hadith) and how hadith critics were aware of it.

Furthermore, because Western scholars generally agree that early hadith critics limited their authentication of hadith to examining isnād (the chain of narrators), the study will also discuss matn or naṣṣ (text) criticism, in particular during the early period of Islam, by providing examples of such criticism applied by al-Ṣaḥābah.

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Source: McGill University

Author: Robert Don Deal

University: Columbia International University

Date of Award: October 1, 2023

Abstract:

The Islamic Law of the Dhimma is conventionally viewed among Muslims as the proper legal framework for the presence of non-Muslims within an Islamic Society. It provides the legal rights and restrictions on the “People of the Book,” primarily Jews and Christians living under Islamic rule. Under this view, the law can be traced to the lifetime of the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad. This view, though typical, does not accord with the currently available historical evidence.

The study of the history of Islamic Law is limited in the Western tradition of learning. Among the scholars studying the discipline, Ignaz Goldziher (1850-1921), Joseph Schact (1902- 1969), Wael Hallaq (b. 1955), Ahmad El-Shamsy (b. 1974), and John Esposito (b. 1940), are among the few to attempt a historical account. None of these scholars wrote on the specifics of the creation of the Law of the Dhimma.

Source: ProQuest

Author: Hassanah El-Yacoubi

University: University of California, Riverside

Date of Award: September 2023

Abstract:

The Modest Fashion Phenomenon has created new ways of understanding the complexities of Muslim womanhood through Islamic corporeality and entrepreneurial engagement within the United States. By moving beyond the veil as a mere marker of a collective religious identity and instead as an expression of hyper-individualized female Muslim subjectivity, new regimes of visibility and entrepreneurial activity are recognized. Female Muslim entrepreneurship has created a space of empowerment fostered through the neoliberal marketplace, catapulting female Muslims and their enterprises into the mainstream like never before altering Islam’s cultural footprint with the west.

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Source: ProQuest

Author: Maryam Siddiqa Hasan

University: University of Florida

Date of Award: August 2023

Abstract:

In the U. S., Muslim students have faced bias, bullying, and Islamophobia since the attacks on 9/11. This qualitative study aimed to investigate how educational leaders influence the experiences of Muslim students in public schools. Data for this exploratory investigation was collected via three one-on-one, semi-structured interviews of educational leaders who serve Muslim students in public schools. Although there were some limitations, the interviews resulted in three themes as findings. The first theme was that educational leaders’ cultural knowledge was used to implement accommodations that influence the experiences of Muslim students in public schools. The second theme was that educational leaders’ promoting social justice through inclusive practices influences the experiences of Muslim students in public schools. The third theme was that educational leaders’ cultural responsiveness with a caring attitude and critical self-reflection influences the experiences of Muslim students in public schools. In conclusion, educational leaders must seek knowledge about their Muslim students’ cultural and religious practices and must use this knowledge to implement accommodations for Muslim students. Educational leaders must strive to build relationships with Muslim students to understand their experiences and create warm, inviting, and welcoming spaces for them. Educational leaders should care about Muslim students’ experiences in schools by informing the school staff of the basic needs of Muslim students. Educational leaders must self-reflect and think critically about their own beliefs and values to be better suited to execute decisions, practices, and policies that influence students of all cultural and religious backgrounds.

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Source: ProQuest

Author: Keith Matthew Miller

University: Indiana University

Date of Award: April 2023

Abstract:

This study aims to examine American Muslim well-being and social capital in the face of Islamophobia. Ecological frameworks and social capital theory were synthesized to provide an approach for research, analysis, and social work practice. A mediation analysis was conducted to test the mediating effect of cognitive social capital on the relationship between structural social capital and distress. The paths of structural social capital, cognitive social capital, and distress were conceptualized using the ecological framework of Berkman and colleagues. Special attention was paid to how experiences of Islamophobic discrimination affect cognitive social capital and distress. Structural social capital was operationalized as the number of active memberships in civic organizations; Cognitive social capital was operationalized as trust in major institutions such as schools and the local police and Distress was operationalized using the Kessler Distress Scale. It was hypothesized that an increase in structural social capital would show a decrease in distress with cognitive social capital mediating the path. Results showed that cognitive social capital mediates the relationship between structural social capital and distress. However, an inconsistent mediation was found where an increase in cognitive social capital shows a decrease in distress, but higher levels of structural social capital show an increase in distress. Lastly, the results of the analysis were interpreted to inform current interventions with the American Muslim community through a social work lens.

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Source: ProQuest

Author: Sharifa Khalid Muhanna Al Battashi

University: University College London (UCL)

Date of Award: 2022

Abstract:

Young children’s translanguaging between different languages is underexplored and often examined in relation to questions of learning and teaching. In contrast, this study examines young Muslim children’s translanguaging in a London-based Islamic school. The context is one in which they and their teachers face contradictions about supporting language diversity, and public discourses and policies post 9/11, which regard practices related to Islam, including using Arabic, as suspicious. This study explores the interface of Muslim children’s translanguaging and negotiations of intersectional Muslim identities in the school setting, set within this broader Islamophobic context. Using a linguistic ethnographic approach informed by Bakhtinian heteroglossia, intersectionality and the social studies of childhood, this study examined young reception children’s engagement with translanguaging in formal and informal activities across different spaces. Al Battashi draws on participant observations, informal conversations, and video recorded social interactions. He argues that young children translanguage in complex ways, shaped by institutional practices, broader social-historical discourses and language ideologies, creating dynamic language hierarchies. While Standard English dominated formal pedagogical spaces, Quranic Arabic was valued as the liturgical language of Islam. Similarly, while French was linked to social prestige, Urdu was viewed simultaneously as ethnic pride and a source of racialized mockery. Whereas the use of Somali was considered a source of deficiency and meaning-making for the Somali speaking children. The author identifies the common forms of translanguaging the children used in this setting depending on interlocutors, specific language ideologies and activities across space-time. Together, translanguaging and these factors produce heterogeneous translanguaging spaces. He contends that the children translanguage by using varieties of Arabic and English to imagine and negotiate idealized gendered, racialized and generationed Muslimness. Developing these analyses, The author suggests that translanguaging is simultaneously used to suggest asserted Muslimness and for including or excluding certain children from idealized Muslimness using ‘race’, language and generation. This study contributes to the academic conversations related to translanguaging, multilingualism, inclusions and exclusions in school settings and intersectionality as follows. He advances the complexity of translanguaging as an act of racialization embedded within tension-filled contexts. The author extends the concept of translanguaging spaces, highlighting how translanguaging shapes and is shaped by multiple activities and interlocutors across space-time. Further, He enriches intersectional analysis by offering insights into the complexity of young children’s Muslim identities and how they interlink with different social categories such as ‘race’, gender, language and generation.

Read the full thesis HERE.

Source: EThOS

Author: Norah Al-Abdallah

University: Birkbeck, University of London

Date of Award: 2022

Abstract:

This thesis examines the way in which cultural critique and representation of Islamic traditions have been achieved through images, multi-narrative perspective, and verbal description of images using Western symbols to avoid offense against religious doctrine. The first introductory chapter sets out the argument of the thesis. Norah Al-Abdallah examines the representation of Islam through the two literary modes of realism and magical realism. Chapter One focuses on why The Satanic Verses cannot be considered as a magical realist novel in its representation of orthodox Islam. She argues that the novel is not a magical realist novel because part of the magical realist literary mode must conform to the canons of literary realism; this criterion is not satisfied in The Satanic Verses. Chapter Two examines Orhan Pamuk’s The Color Red where the representation of Islamic culture and tradition is achieved through the prism of European realism. The discussion of The Color Red shows a way of critiquing the Islamic tradition in a positive way through respectful questioning of prohibitions and finding a way to enhance Islamic culture. The Western fantasy of the Other is turned on the West through the Westernization of Islamic art. Chapter Three is an anthropological analysis of the representation of a Saudi Arabian culture through Western symbols in Yousef Al-Mohaimeed’s Wolves of the Crescent Moon. Western culture is mistranslated by the Arabian adoption of Western symbols, and this is used by the novelist as a form of critique. Some cultural actions reveal corrupt actions that take place in an Islamic society. These cultural actions do not fall under Islamic tradition and indeed violate it. Chapter Four on Michel Tournier’s The Golden Droplet critiques the Western representation of Islamic cultural appropriation which forces and imposes a false image of the Algerian Islamic world during French imperialism. The Islamic representation of the West creates a critique of the colonial gaze. In this section the Islamic form of representation is shown to mediate truth more than Western form of representation.

Source: EThOS

Author: Mohsen Melanie Ghassan

University: George Washington University

Date of Award: May 15, 2022

Supervisor: Mohammad H. Faghfoory (Professor of Islamic Studies)

Abstract:

In Twelver Shia Islam, the line of 12 Imams occupies the highest religious authority after God and the Prophet. While the Imams are venerated in Shia communities and amongst Shia scholars, the extent of the Imams’ abilities and their exact level of purity have been debated extensively by scholars. Contemporary Shia scholars do not agree on the nature of Imamate and hold different viewpoints on the status of the Imams in terms of their infallibility. It is critical to harken back to the original Shia community and analyze their beliefs concerning the Imams’ infallibility. This will create a lasting dialogue between the Shia and Sunni branches, and this dialogue will serve as a means of understanding theological differences and rapprochement efforts between the two branches. Ultimately, this thesis argues that the infallibility of the 12 Shia Imams is grounded in early Shia literature, has shaped Shia theology, and has become a significant part of the Shia identity today.

Read the full thesis HERE.

Source: Proquest

Author: Jeni A. Groot-Begnaud

University: The Chicago School of Professional Psychology

Date of Award: February 1, 2022

Supervisors: Patricia H. A. Perez, Patricia Donovan, Laura A. Zimmerman

Abstract:

This research examined the lived experiences of Muslim populations in Western societies with a focus on stigma and marginalization. The objective was to gain insight on how the impact of stigma and marginalization may potentially influence an individual’s trajectory toward radicalization. Inquiry was accomplished through phenomenological reflection on data elicited through semi structured interviews focusing on the perceptions of Muslim individuals in Denver, Colorado regarding stigma and marginalization and the impact of those influences on psychological outcomes. Data analysis was conducted via methodology that maintained prioritization of participants’ voices, and results are presented primarily using their own words. The objective was to respect the contributions and perspectives of participants by developing a revelatory and cohesive narrative through an orderly but dynamic approach to best facilitate meaning-making by the reader. Results of data analysis yielded five overarching themes related to global trauma and foundational international psychology principles and reinforcing the relevance of that field. Those themes were nuanced existence, frustrating representation, complexity of interaction, vulnerability, and resilience factors. Numerous superordinate themes within participant narratives were also identified.

Source: proquest.com