Category Archives: Scholars

Amat Al Alim Alsoswa on the Yemeni National Dialogue

"Arab Spring", Conferences and Talks, Development, Scholars, Terrorism Issue, Yemen


ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION;
YEMENI COMPREHENSIVE NATIONAL DIALOGUE: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS

The International Peace Institute (IPI) is pleased to host a roundtable discussion on the Yemeni Dialogue with Ms. Amat Al Alim Alsoswa, former Assistant Secretary-General, Assistant Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau for Arab States, United Nations Development Program on Wednesday, February 13, 2013, from 1:00pm–2:45pm at IPI’s Trygve Lie Center for Peace, Security & Development on the 12th floor, located at 777 United Nations Plaza.

Yemen’s transition began on November 23, 2011, when an agreement was brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) creating a two-year transitional government led by President (and former Vice-President) Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi. The agreement mandates holding a National Dialogue to decide the formation of the new movement and address other pressing national issues. According to the GCC agreement, the National Dialogue conference must include “all forces and political actors, including youth, the Southern Movement, the Houthis, other political parties, civil society representatives and women.” Continue reading Amat Al Alim Alsoswa on the Yemeni National Dialogue →

Iranian Studies Directory Online

Anthropology/Sociology, Archaeology and Antiquities, Iran, Scholars, Shi'a, Teaching Resources


Putting the world’s scholars and organisations at your fingertips, the Iranian Studies Directory (ISD) is a pioneering initiative to develop a comprehensive reference and research facility that will open up the fields of Persian and Iranian studies to academics, teachers, students, curators, professionals and lay enthusiasts across the globe.

If you are in any way involved in the world of Iranian or Persian studies, get networked now! Register with this public resource and connect yourself to other professionals and institutions in your field throughout the world.

Central Asia Archaeology Conference at Hofstra

Archaeology and Antiquities, Art, Central Asia, Conferences and Talks, Scholars


Colloquium at Hofstra University
Art and Archaeology of Central Asia: Works in Progress
Saturday, January 26, Breslin Hall 105

Session I
11:00 am – 12:45 pm

Michael D. Frachetti
Washington University in St. Louis
Agriculture and Mining among Highland Mobile Pastoralists of Semirech’e (3000 – 1500 BCE)

Claudia Chang
Sweet Briar College, Virginia
Progress on the Archaeological Researches
on Iron Age settlements on the Talgar Fan

Perry Tourtellotte
Sweet Briar College, Virginia
Mortuary and Settlement Landscapes of the Iron Age:
Talgar Fan and Beyond

Lunch
12:45 pm – 1:30 pm

Session II
1:30 pm – 4:15 pm

Pavel Lurje
Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia
Personal Names throughout the History of Chorasmia

Fiona Kidd
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Some New Thoughts on the Procession Scene
in the Paintings of Akchakhan-kala

Anna Feuerbach
Hofstra University
Recent Research on Industrial Remains at Ancient Merv Continue reading Central Asia Archaeology Conference at Hofstra →

The School of Mamlūk Studies

Egypt, Islamic History, Scholars, Syria, Teaching Resources


The School of Mamlūk Studies (SMS) is administered by the Universities of Chicago (Ill., USA), Liège (Belgium), and Venice (Italy), respectively represented by Marlis Saleh, Frédéric Bauden, and Antonella Ghersetti. It is currently based at the University of Chicago, where Mamluk-related projects such as Mamlūk Studies Review, the Chicago Online Bibliography of Mamluk Studies, and the Chicago Online Encyclopedia of Mamluk Studies are managed. The mission of SMS is to provide a scholarly forum for a holistic approach to Mamluk studies, and to foster and promote a greater awareness of the Mamluk sultanate (1250–1517). It aims to offer a forum for interdisciplinary debate focused on the Mamluk period in all its historical and cultural dimensions in order to increase, address, investigate, and exchange information and knowledge relevant to Mamluk studies in the broadest meaning of the term. Conceived as a meeting for scholars and graduate students working on any of the many aspects of the Mamluk empire, without neglecting its contacts with other regions, SMS offers to everyone working in the field of Mamluk studies the opportunity to attend annual conferences organized in turn by each of the three collaborating institutions.

The annual conferences will be organized around a general or a more specific theme which scholars will be invited to address. In addition, proposals for panels on other relevant subjects may be submitted by individuals, research teams, or institutions. Accepted panels will be held at the end of the thematic conference. On an irregular basis, SMS will also organize seminars in various fields (such as diplomatics, paleography, codicology, numismatics, epigraphy, etc.) which will be aimed at graduate students. These seminars will be planned to take place prior to or following the annual conference in the institution where the conference is held.

Papers presented at each conference on the selected theme will be published as a monograph, while papers presented at the panels will be considered for publication in Mamlūk Studies Review.

The first annual SMS conference is planned for 2014 in Venice. A call for papers will go out in 2013.

On War: A Sociologist’s Take

Anthropology/Sociology, Bible and Holy Land, Scholars, Terrorism Issue


Sociologist William Graham Sumner was an outspoken critical of American imperialism in the Spanish American War

by William Graham Sumner (1903)

Can peace be universal? There is no reason to believe it. It is a fallacy to suppose that by widening the peace-group more and more it can at last embrace all mankind. What happens is that, as it grows bigger, differences, discords, antagonisms, and war begin inside of it on account of the divergence of interests. Since evil passions are a part of human nature and are in all societies all the time, a part of the energy of the society is constantly spent in repressing them. If all nations should resolve to have no armed ships any more, pirates would reappear upon the ocean; the police of the seas must be maintained. We could not dispense with our militia; we have too frequent need of it now. But police defense is not war in the sense in which I have been discussing it. War, in the future will be the clash of policies of national vanity and selfishness when they cross each other’s path.

If you want war, nourish a doctrine. Doctrines are the most frightful tyrants to which men ever are subject, because doctrines get inside of a man’s own reason and betray him against himself. Civilized men have done their fiercest fighting for doctrines. The reconquest of the Holy Sepulcher, “the balance of power,” “no universal dominion,” “trade follows the flag,” “he who holds the land will hold the sea,” “the throne and the altar,” the revolution, the faith — these are the things for which men have given their lives. What are they all? Nothing but rhetoric and phantasms. Doctrines are always vague; it would ruin a doctrine to define it, because then it could be analyzed, tested, criticised, and verified; but nothing ought to be tolerated which cannot be so tested. Continue reading On War: A Sociologist’s Take →

Have Muslims Misunderstood Evolution

Anthropology/Sociology, Conferences and Talks, Ethics, Islamic Sciences, Scholars


The importance of Evolution and Islam debate in London

by Salman Hameed, Irtiqa’, January 7, 2013

I’m now back in US and I’m glad that I had a chance to attend the London debate, Have Muslims Misunderstood Evolution? It was organized by The Deen Institute and I posted some quick thoughts on Saturday.

You can find a good summary of each speaker’s presentation at Farrukh’s blog.

Here are a few reasons why I think the London debate on evolution and Islam may turn out be a game-changer in the way Muslims look at evolutionary biology, and science, in general.

This was an intra-faith debate. There is no question that the topic was controversial. However, the conversation on evolution often gets derailed by common misconceptions and juvenile creationist ideas. The debate would have been a failure, had it been simply between biologists and those who follow Harun Yahya. There is no common ground – as Yahya’s group has no understanding of science.

The reason for the success of the debate was that almost all of the speakers (with the exception of Harun Yahya acolyte, Oktar Babuna) accepted the scientific consensus on evolution. Then the question became: Can Muslims reconcile human evolution with their faith? Now this is an important question.

Here are a few take-aways from the London debate: Continue reading Have Muslims Misunderstood Evolution →

ISLAM IN THE COLUMBIA CURRICULUM, 1886-2012

Conferences and Talks, Islam in America, Scholars


This photo shows Jackson with his student Dhalla, the financier Henry Clews (1836-1923), and Djelal Munif Bey (d. 1919), the Ottoman Consul General in New York. The other two men are unidentified.


The Columbia University Seminar on Religion and Writing and the American Institute of Iranian Studies are pleased to announce:

ISLAM IN THE COLUMBIA CURRICULUM, 1886-2012: FROM ORIENTAL LANGUAGES TO AREA STUDIES AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES

Thursday, January 31, 2013
Faculty House (400 West 117th St)

The one-day conference will explore the history of Islamic Studies in North America in general, and at Columbia University in particular. Its starting point is the observation that Islamic Studies slipped into the Columbia curriculum when in the late 1880s Oriental languages were first added to the fledgling University’s course offerings. For a detailed schedule, please see the conference website at
https://researchblogs.cul.columbia.edu/islamicbooks/religionwriting/conference/

The conference accompanies the exhibition “Collecting Oriental Books for the Columbia Libraries, 1886–1936” in Columbia’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The exhibition explores the beginnings of the University’s Islamic book collections, and will be on view in the Chang Octagon from December 19, 2012 until March 2013.

This conference is open to the public, but we request that you register, as seating is limited. Please RSVP to icc1886@gmail.com.

For further information contact icc1886@gmail.com.