This ethnographic book deals with the emergence of the Wali Pitu (seven saints) tradition and Muslim pilgrimage in Bali, Indonesia. It touches upon the issues of translocal connectivity between... Show moreThis ethnographic book deals with the emergence of the Wali Pitu (seven saints) tradition and Muslim pilgrimage in Bali, Indonesia. It touches upon the issues of translocal connectivity between Java and Bali, Islam-Hindu relationship, relations between Muslim groups, and questions of authority and authenticity of saint worship tradition. It offers a new perspective on Bali, seeing the island as a site of cultural motion straddling in between Islam and Hinduism with complexities of local figurations, and belongings of ‘Muslim Balinese’. The study also urges the intricate relationship between religion and tourism, between devotion and economy, and shows that the Wali Pitu tradition has facilitated the transgression of spatial and cultural boundaries. Show less
This dissertation provides a comprehensive and cross-religious analysis of representations of religious conversion in early modern English drama. An urgent topic due to the religious upheavals of... Show moreThis dissertation provides a comprehensive and cross-religious analysis of representations of religious conversion in early modern English drama. An urgent topic due to the religious upheavals of the early modern period, conversion provoked questions about a variety of religious and social issues, including divine and human agency, mystical experience, the demarcation of religious identities and the nature and possibility of religious transformation. The stage, which served an important socio-cultural role in early modern England, responded to these questions in dramatizations of conversion that investigated conditions under which it could be successful. By distinguishing between spiritual and interfaith conversion, this study demonstrates that in plays perceptions of faith in spiritual terms were increasingly replaced by an understanding of belief in terms of mutually exclusive denominational identities. Moreover, despite the great interest in interfaith conversion, and despite the importance of religious change and transformation on the stage, early modern playwrights did everything in their power to suppress conversion and the idea that the same depraved Muslim, Jewish, Catholic or pagan identities they had constructed could be shed and exchanged for a righteous (Protestant) Christian one. Show less
The main focus of this dissertation is exploring the position of people with disabilities within two Islamic sciences, namely, Islamic Theology and Islamic Jurisprudence as reflected in the early... Show moreThe main focus of this dissertation is exploring the position of people with disabilities within two Islamic sciences, namely, Islamic Theology and Islamic Jurisprudence as reflected in the early and modern writings of Muslim scholars. Within Islamic Theology, attention is paid to the opinions of early and modern Muslims theologians and philosophers on the existence of disability in this life, the wise purposes behind the existence of this phenomenon in addition to the efforts of these scholars in order to reconcile between the existence of this phenomenon on one hand and specific divine attributes such as the Mercy of God. Within Islamic Jurisprudence, the contentions of early and modern Muslim specialists in Islamic law have been probed into concerning a broad scope of topics with modern relevance such as the human dignity of people with disabilities, their employability, medical treatment, social life with main focus on marriage-related issues, financial life and means of living for this group of people. Show less
