This study explores the concept of self-reliance in Protestant mission work, with a focus on lessons from American Southern Presbyterian Church missionaries in Korea and the transfer of these insights to contemporary Korean missions. The research investigates how Korean missionaries working in 168 countries, especially in Asia (59% of the total), can achieve sustainable self-reliance both spiritually and economically in mission fields. Using a multidisciplinary approach, including biblical theology, coaching psychology, and cultural analysis, the study evaluates historical examples of missions and their relevance today. Significant findings include the effectiveness of self-reliance practices in the Sundam Bible School and Soong-il School, which enabled students to fund their education through labor and become leaders in Korean society. Additionally, the establishment of leprosy treatment centers underlined the importance of training marginalized individuals to contribute economically. The study identifies challenges faced by Korean missionaries, such as the competitive and performance-oriented culture that prioritizes rapid growth over sustainable development. Financial dependency on sponsoring churches has hindered the autonomy of local churches, emphasizing the need for a shift towards self-governance and collaboration. The research concludes that adopting self-reliance policies, as modeled by early American missionaries, is crucial for Korean missions to avoid resource misallocation and dependency in third-country mission fields. This comprehensive approach ensures long-term sustainability, fostering both spiritual maturity and financial independence among mission communities.
This article discusses the mythological interpretation of celestial patterns found on a starry bowl from the Iron Age Lorestan culture. Due to the abstract designs of Lorestan Iron Age bronzes and the lack of written sources, the interpretation of mythological patterns on these bronzes has been based on personal interpretations of researchers. The hypothesis of this research is that the religion and rituals of the Lorestan culture are connected to astronomy and celestial phenomena, and interpreting the celestial patterns on Lorestan bronzes can provide insights into their religion and rituals. The article focuses on a starry bowl with celestial patterns and Aramaic inscriptions, previously interpreted within the context of ancient Semitic cultures, but now being interpreted based on Indo-Aryan religions and ancient Iranian textual sources. The study is descriptive-analytical and relies on data collected from museum and library sources. According to the research findings, two sections, 4(a) and 8, have been identified with Ursa minor and Ursa major constellations and are symbolic of the cosmic balance pans, resembling a cosmic scale. Section 4(b), which embodies the ring and staff symbols representing the “pater” grade in the Mithraic ritual, has been identified with the celestial forms of 'Tishtrya/ Mirzam'. This section is considered as a symbol of the 'Gate of the ancestors' (= Pitri-yāna). In contrast, section 8 of the bowl is identified with the celestial form of ' Ursa major' and is considered as a symbol of the 'Gate of the Demons' or Hell. However, the most significant part of the bowl, the celestial pole at the center of bowl, is a symbol of the 'Gate of the Gods' (= Dēva-yāna). Those who, through their connection to the great secrets, return to their centers and the center of existence can pass through the 'Gate of the Gods', and attain eternity and become one with the unique essence of God. From the 'Gate of the Ancestors', they either return to the material world or experience gradual liberation through the levels of the heavens. Those who pass through the 'Gate of the Demons' or Hell are the ones who have returned to the material world more than three times. We have identified the two four-winged stars of sections 4(a) and 8 with the stars Tishtrya (= alpha Canis Major) and 'Spica'. They are considered as symbols of the two guardian dogs of the Chinvat Bridge and the cosmic scale. It appears that in Iranian tradition, the responsibilities of guarding the 'Gate of the Gods' and the 'Gate of the Ancestors' were assigned to the two deities ‘Mithra’ and ‘keyvân’ (Saturn). Based on some evidence, The Lorestan bowl is engraved with symbols related to pre-Zoroastrian tradition. On this bowl, the concepts related to gates are associated with "polar symbolism", unlike the Indian tradition in which the "Gate of the Gods" were related to solar symbolism and the winter solstice.
The ongoing secularization of religion, which is associated with the development of a “post-secular society,” also manifests itself in a major controversy in analytic theology, which not so long ago remained a stronghold of religious traditionalism. The belief in the inseparability of essential atemporality of the Divine from creationism, which lies at the core of Christianity and other monotheistic religions, is in the process of being revised by a growing majority of Christian theologians. The conception of a timeless God that is currently under attack by temporalist theologians is criticized as an outdated commitment on the part of traditional theology to the Neoplatonic doctrine of a “static” Absolute. However, the desire for a “static” Absolute is not limited to Greek thought but has intercultural foundations, and in reality, no contradiction between Divine activity and atemporality can be derived from the Greek, Arabic, and Indian texts dealing with it. The increasing popularity of theological temporalism is explained in terms of a scientistic attachment to evolutionism and associated urge to “democratize” a transcendent God. Some parallels from Continental “post-secular” theology, including the anthropocentric turn that replaces a theocentric vision of the world with a humanistic orientation, are also discussed.
In order to be formidable and great in any given civilization, gender equality is a necessary condition. The fundamental formula for a functioning society calls for partnership and a fair division of labour between the sexes. Yet, a skewed approach has been used in which masculinity has taken precedence over femininity and women have constantly been left out of decision-making throughout history and in various communities. They are routinely
discriminated against within political structures. These power structures are to blame for the ongoing underdevelopment, marginalization, and imbalance that they bring about. Recently, the Neo-Pentecostal movement have taken a significant step in the recognition and maximization of the inclusion of women in its religious hierarchy. As such they are giving women an eminent place of equal impetus with men, as such paving positive ways and encouraging gender sensitization in Nigerian society which is highly male oriented. This paper
sees this move as a pathway for gender balanced education in Nigeria. The method applied in this research is a literary and descriptive method. It involves a qualitative approach which recruits the use of preliminary and post preliminary sources of data collection. The study found that the inclusiveness of women in the leadership hierarchical order in the neo-Pentecostal movements is a substantial achievement and it is worth emulating. It is a clear pathway to
gender balanced education in Nigeria. It was recommended that 50% inclusion of women in all human endeavours will engender sustainable development in Nigeria and promote needed unity and above serve as a role model for other masculine oriented communities where justice and fairness are sorely needed.
In the article, the author examines the gastronomic culture and its regulatory function, expressed in the regulation of eating behavior and food consumption by people through the existence of prohibitions and permits. In particular, it is indicated that such tools, as a rule, find their place in religious canons (codes of rules).
Speaking about the religious regulation of consumption, the author examines Protestantism and its currents and trends. According to the results of the study, it was revealed that within the framework of Adventism, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc., there are tools for regulating food consumption that have a characteristic similarity with those in Judaism, Islam and Catholicism. Of course, Protestantism, being a denomination of Christianity, along with Catholicism, can borrow some rules and features. Meanwhile, drawing an analogy with these religions and confessions, we can talk about the existence of prohibited and permitted food, while in some areas of Protestantism restrictions are not as strict as in others.
Religion, acting as a regulator of eating behavior, designates products originating from “unclean” and “pure” animals and birds. At the same time, in the Bible, the signs that make it possible to differentiate food have a symbolic meaning – “unclean” food sources symbolize mundanity, the impossibility of turning to God, the sinfulness of man.
As a result, a gastronomic cultural layer is formed, within which the nutrition of believers, that is, the products they use daily, also taking into account national characteristics, not only have an impact on health, but also have a symbolic meaning of commitment to God, enlightenment, etc.
According to the results of the study, the author formulated the factors that are important in determining eating behavior and consumption: a) symbolizing; b) cleansing; c) providing and d) adapting (relevant to the current situation of globalization of the world space and the technologization of life spheres).
After the emergence of Islam in the early seventh century, the Arabic language saw its rapid expansion and eventually become a theological language as well. Non-Muslim theologians living in the Islamic world began to express themselves in Arabic and wrote polemical literature against their adversaries from different religions and religious denominations. Of special importance were also Jewish theologians who wanted to demonstrate the correctness of their own religious beliefs and the ill-foundedness of Christian and Muslim doctrines. This paper is dedicated to the Arabic speaking Jewish theologian Dāwūd al-Muqammaṣ (the 9th century A.D.), whose work Twenty Chapters (ʿIšrūn maqāla) is the earliest extant summa theologiae in Arabic, i.e., a work which aims to address the totality of theological teachings of a certain religion. The eight chapter of this work contains a critique of the Christian doctrine that God is three, while the tenth chapter refutes the Christian teachings that the Son is from eternity begotten by the Father and that God was incarnated in reality. This paper places Dāwūd’s critique in the broader context of trans-confessional polemic in the medieval Islamic world with special attention to Judeo-Arabic tradition.
History and principles of religions, Practical Theology
The city of Alexandria in Egypt was and remains the centre of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, and it was one of the major centres of Christianity in the Eastern Roman Empire. St. Mark the Evangelist was the founder of the See, and the Patriarchate's emblem is the Lion of Saint Mark. It was in this city where the Christian faith was vigorously promoted, and in which Hellenic culture flourished. The first theological school of Christendom was stablished
which drove catechesis and the study of religious philosophy to new heights. It was greatly supported in its quest by numerous champions of the faith and early Church Fathers such as inter-alia, Pantaenus, Clement, Dionysius, Gregory, Eusebius, Athanasius, Didymus and Origen. Both the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria and also the Coptic Church, lay claim to the ancient legacy of Alexandria. By the time of the Arab conquest of Egypt in 641 CE, the
city had lost much of its significance. Today the Greek or Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria remains a very important organ the dissemination of Christianity in Africa especially due to its missionary activities. The head bishop of the Patriarchate of Alexandria and all Africa, Theodore II, and his clerics are performing meritorious works on the continent to the glory of God’s Kingdom. This article traces, albeit it in a limited sense, the history of the faith in Alexandria using a desk-top research methodology. In order to trace Alexandria’s historical development and especially its Christian religious focus, existing relevant primary and secondary data considered to be relevant was utilised including research material published in academic articles, books, bibliographic essays, Biblical and Church documents, electronic
documents and websites.
India was under British colonial rule for a good number of years with her plural ethno-religious background and identity, which was to become the basis of an unending conflict. Several pre-colonial and post-colonial conditioning antecedents have been marshalled to buttress the premise leading to the conclusion that the British colonial era laid the time bomb along ethno-religious contours which exploded in 1947 thereby giving rise to the balkanisation of India into two separate states, that is India and Pakistan. Two major religious groups that is Hindus and Muslims became the gladiators in India’s partition. The Kashmir region of India, a town of religious confluence, has a history of conflicts that is perceived by different people as politico-religious and socio-economic. This article focuses on religion as a core tenet of every cultural worldview and its significance to both Hindus and Muslims, and how it has become the progressively vital central marker of identity and a smouldering keg of gun powder for conflict in Kashmir. Furthermore, this article contends that religion plays a key role in the conflict between Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir because of its significance and influence on both religions. India that is known as a mother to various religions cannot relegate the primary role of religion in their political and socio-economic affairs. Therefore, it is right to acknowledge politico-religious and socio-economic factors in the Hindu–Muslim conflict in the state of Kashmir. And, it will not be wrong to affirm that religion plays a key role in the conflict between Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir.
Contribution: The article is a contribution in religious issues in India. It reveals how political power and sociopolitical antecedents are mostly recognised by religious scholars and historians as the reason for the fracas between Hindus and Muslims. It explains the influence and implication of religion in the Hindu-Muslim relations in Kashmir region.
ANDRADE, NATHANAEL J. (2018). The Journey of Christianity to India in Late Antiquity. Networks and the Movement of Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 312 pp., 64,46€ [ISBN 978-1-1082-9695-3] [Book review]
Məqalədə Qacarlar dövrü İranının dini, siyasi, maarifçilik durumu Mirzə Mülküm xanın yaradıcılığı əsasında tədqiq, təqdim və təhlil olunub. XIX-XX əsrlərdə yaşamış Qacarlar dövlətinin ictimai-siyasi xadimi Mirzə Mülküm xanın maarifçilik fəaliyyəti mövcud mənbə və ədəbiyyatlar sayəsində müasir Azərbaycan tarixşünaslığında ilk dəfə olaraq kompleks şəkildə araşdırılır. Qacarlar dövrünün ən məşhur ziyalılarından biri Mirzə Mülküm xan olub. Müsəlman xalqlarının maariflənməsi yolunda fəaliyyət göstərən Mirzə Mülküm xanın yaradıcılığı M.F.Axundzadə, C.Məmmədquluzadə, C.Əfqani, S.H.Tağızadə kimi azərbaycanlı ziyalılar tərəfindən təqdir edilmişdir. Mirzə Mülküm xanın fikirləri məşrutə dövrünün Cənubi Azərbaycandan olan ziyalılarına böyük təsir göstərmişdir. İranda məşrutə inqilabının qələbə çalmasında Mirzə Mülküm xanın ideyaları dayaq rolu oynamışdır. “Molla Nəsrəddin” jurnalında Mirzə Mülküm xanın demokratik ideyaları təbliğ edilirdi. Şahlıq rejiminə və xurafatçı ruhanilərə qarşı demokratik ideyaları müdafiə edən Mirzə Mülküm xan ərəb əlifbasının islahatını, din xadimlərinin nüfuzunun azaldılmasını, feodalların zülmünə son qoyulmasını, parlamentarizm və demokratik quruluşun bərpasını istəyirdi. O, müsəlmanların elmi, ictimai-siyasi inkişafı üçün demokratik Avropa qanunlarının İranda tətbiqini zəruri sayırdı. Mirzə Mülküm xanın Londonda çap etdirdiyi “Qanun” qəzeti İrandakı feodalizm rejimini ciddi tənqid edirdi və bu səbəbdən, İrana gətirilməsi qadağan idi. Xurafatçı ruhanilərə və şahlıq rejiminə qarşı mübarizə aparan Mirzə Mülküm xanın əsərlərinin tədqiqi XIX və XX əsrin əvvəlləri İran və Yaxın Şərq tarixinin öyrənilməsi baxımından və mütəfəkkirin Azərbaycanla əlaqəsini tədqiq etmək üçün xeyli əhəmiyyətə malikdir. Məqalədə bu məsələlər təqdim edilib.
Religion (General), Philosophy of religion. Psychology of religion. Religion in relation to other subjects
Gelatin is a solid and transparent material that has wide application in various industries, especially for the production of food and pharmaceutical. This material is mainly made from meat, skin and bones of pigs and cows around the world. The industrial process of gelatin production is a long and costly process Also; these sources of gelatin production are prohibited in many religions and cultures in the world and they have a lot of health hazards. Therefore, this study was aimed at reviewing the alternative sources of gelatin production and the disadvantages and benefits of each of them. Relevant articles were searched from Google Scholar, Pub Med, Scopus, Science direct, and Cochrane library. According to the results of this article, gelatin with a source of animal can have many harmful effects on human health. While it is possible to produce good and useful gelatin using plant sources. Almighty Allah has always recommended humans to consume halal foods while avoiding haram foods. Extensive research is required from the Islamic world to replace haram products with halal and Islamic products. Nowadays, from materials such as agar, pectin, carrageenan and konjac that are mentioned above, and as well as other materials, very good gelatins are prepared. And further researches are needed to find the rich sources of good gelatins or to find plants that have appropriate gelatin.
Se analiza la conexión entre Ceres y las dinastías alto imperiales a través de las imágenes de las emperatrices representadas como Ceres. Se presta especial atención a la vinculación de la adormidera con Deméter/Ceres y la dinastía antoniniana.
Tan sólo la consciencia permanente, en mujeres y hombres, de la discriminación negativa (pasada y presente) puede justificar e impulsar, en aras de la igualdad, la absolutamente indispensable discriminación positiva de la mujer en la vida cotidiana, en la política ... y en la historiografía. Desde esta perspectiva tiene sentido el estudio de la "dualidad del espacio", de "los espacios de género", como manifestación (causa y consecuencia) más evidente del Sistema Patriarcal. Las fuentes orales, con las peculiaridades y límites de su aplicación a la Historia Antigua, permiten establecer su validez (en la Antigüedad y en cualquier época) igual de bien que los intentos de legitimarlo por medio de la apelación a la naturaleza y a la divinidad.
Digital games have become a popular form of entertainment among different people specially adults and adolescents. The game Grand Theft Auto series has taken a lot of attention from young people around the world so that according to Wikipedia game sales the version of San Andreas has sold more than 43 million copies around the world. With the release of the series of this game, politicians have criticized them for their aggressive content. The review of literature confirms that game researchers have mainly analyzed the game effects on young players, but they have seldom critiqued misrepresentation of minor ethnicities and minor religions. In this paper, with the methodology of game feature analysis of the games including Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Kumawar, Splinter cell: Black List, Delta force, Sandstorm: Pirate Wars, Total warrior and America’s Army we indicate how they misrepresent ethnical minors such as African-Americans and Muslims with stereotypes or how they justify aggressive tendency and behavior in the stressful public places of U.S.A. after September 11th attacks.
The application of the construct of new creation as the narrative substructure of Paul's letter to the church at Rome provides a coherent framework for drawing together the various motifs in the letter. Paul roots the story of Jesus Christ in the symbolic world of Israel's Scriptures and resocializes the Christ-movement into the symbolic world of new creation inaugurated in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Drawing intertextually from Isaiah (Genesis and the Psalms), Paul depicts Jesus Christ as embodying the promises of YHWH, construed as his return and reign, to liberate Israel from exile, summon the nations to pledge allegiance to his absolute lordship and kingship, and transform natural creation. Three dimensions to the meta-narrative of new creation are identified: sociological, political, and ecological. In this article the sociological dimension will be discussed. In a subsequent article the political and ecological dimensions will be addressed.
Ricko Damberg Nissen, Frederik Gildberg, Niels Hvidt
Postsecular theory is developing in academic circles, including the psychiatric field. By asking what the postsecular perspective might imply for the secular discipline of psychiatry, the aim of this study was to examine the postsecular perspective in relation to the secular nature of psychiatry, by way of a narrative review. In a systematic search for literature, relevant articles were identified and analyzed thematically. Thirteen articles were included, and three intertextual themes were identified, which represented ongoing international dialogues in relation to psychiatry and religion—such as intervention, integration, identity, the religious or irreligious psychiatrist, and the multicultural setting of the discipline. Furthermore, the postsecular perspective reveals a (potential) bias against the religious worldviews inherent in the secular. Postsecular theory can contribute to the ongoing discussions of how psychiatry, as a secular discipline, approaches the religious in the lives of patients and psychiatrists.
There is a tendency in academic literature to compare and contrast reli- gions to try to understand the motivations of the convert. What are the costs and benefits of conversion? What is gained and what is lost? Thinking in these utilitarian terms can lead to a focus on causality and materiality, rather than the metaphysical and ephemeral aspects of religious thought and practice. Furthermore, religious conversion to Islam is often mired in the same prejudices and stereotypes of the orient found in western and predominantly Judeo-Christian depictions of the Middle East, the region that Islam is most often associated with. In Everyday Conversions: Islam, Domestic Work, and South Asian Migrant Women in Kuwait, Attiya Ahmad moves away from the emphasis on what distinguishes religious traditions and discursive communities to focus on what religious conversion means to the individual convert. Ahmad seeks to counter the notion that conver- sion must have some material benefit to the convert and instead looks at the quotidian character of religious transformation. Ahmad argues in her eth- nographic work that conversion can be understood through the minutiae of daily interactions, conversations, and affections that develop over time. She follows the lives of migrant domestic workers in the Gulf and their relationships with their employers as well as their own families over the course of their conversions and argues that it is neither the strength of the da'wa movement in Kuwait, nor the benefits gained by conversion to the employee/employer relationship that effectively describes the reason the women convert (although Ahmad is admittedly not looking for causality). Instead, Ahmad writes: “I have sought to tell a more modest and mundane set of stories that convey moments of slippage, tension and traces of feel- ings, thoughts and impressions of everyday conversion” (194). The strengths of Ahmad’s ethnography lie in its attention to detail and equanimity in representing the challenges of migration and domestic labor. Ahmad is careful not to create victims, nor inflate the value of the women’s migration and conversion to their economic or personal well-being. In this approach, there are hints of Lila Abu-Lughod’s and Saba Mahmood’s work with women who appear to be in marginal or precarious positions. Like these feminist ethnographers, Ahmad is attuned to the ethics and politics of representation, but with an eye towards transnational and cultural stud- ies. In its theoretical framing, the ethnography calls to mind the work of Michel DeCerteau in The Practice of Everyday Life, which rejects theories of production to focus on the consumer. Furthermore, by placing conversion in light of transnational migration, Ahmad also shows how the individu- al convert navigates her conversion through the complex nexus of Kuwait City as well as her own home town. Thus, the individual convert as artist of her own conversion is the primary subject of Ahmad’s book. My one cri- tique of the book would be in the area of theory, where Ahmad is hesitant to challenge others who have written on the subject of Islamic religious faith and practice, despite the theoretical weight evident in her ethnography. In the introduction, Ahmad begins with Talal Asad and Saba Mah- mood’s seminal arguments in the field of anthropology of Islam, which she argues “relativize and provincialize secular modern understandings of sub- jectivity, agency and embodied practice” (9). She distinguishes her work from Asad and Mahmood’s by utilizing a transnational feminist framework that highlights the process of “mutual constitution and self-constituting othering, as well as sociohistorical circumstances” (10). Ahmad wants to go beyond discursive narratives of secular liberalism and the Islamic piety movement. Specifically, Ahmad follows the approach of Eve Sedgewick, who eschews Judith Butler’s “strong theory” in exchange for an approach that looks at factors that “lie alongside” gender performativity (23). Ahmad does this by showing “how religious conversion also constitutes a complex site of interrelation through which religious traditions are configured and reconfigured together” (24). Instead of showing conflict or contrasting discursive traditions, Ahmad contends that the best way to understand the lives and stories of her interlocutors are in the quotidian affairs of the households they work and live in. She divides the chapters into the affec- tive experiences the women have as a result of their migration experiences, which in turn spur their conversions. Chapters one and two cover the political and geographic terrain that the women must cut across, which produces an overwhelming feeling of being neither here nor there, but temporarily suspended between states, households, and religions. Chapter one paints a somewhat grim picture of the politically precarious position of migrant women within the kefala sys- tem, labor laws, and bans on migrations often creating impossible condi- tions for migrant woman. Chapter two sets out to “discern, document and describe” (66) the migratory experience and why it produces uncertainty about one’s place in the world. It follows the women back and forth between Kuwait and their home countries, emphasizing the socio-historical context that requires a transnational feminist framework. The four women that Ah- mad follows throughout the book share their migratory journeys and their sense of “suspension” between two households. This chapter segues neatly into chapter three, where the women share how being a female migrant and domestic laborer requires knowledge of cross-cultural norms regarding gender, all of which require the women to be naram, “a gendered, learned capability of being malleable that indexes proper womanhood” (122). In their own eyes, a successful domestic worker from South Asia bends to the norms of the society they are in, and they attribute male and female migrant failure to being too sakht, or hard and unyielding. Here, I would have liked a stronger connection between how she describes naram and how Mahmood describes malaka. Does being naram lay the groundwork for women’s conversion to Islam, a religion which requires the ability to engage in rituals entailing patience, modesty, and steadfastness? Ahmed hints at this connection in the conclusion to the chapter—“Being naram resonates with the fluid, flexible student-centered pedagogies of Kuwait’s Islamic dawa movement, thus facilitating domestic worker’s deepening learning of Islamic precepts and practices” (123)—but she could have spent more time discussing the overlap in the concepts in either chapter three or five, where she discusses the da'wah movement. Chapters four and five deal directly with questions of religious thought and practice and illustrate how the women grapple with Islamic practices in the household as their relationships with their employers deepen. Chapter five is about the household and the everyday conversations or “house talk” that Ahmad argues are the touchstones for the women’s conversion. The daily relations in the household make blending and layering practices of Is- lam onto older traditions and rituals seem easy and natural. Ahmad argues that “the work undertaken by domestic workers—such as tending to family members during trips and caring for the elderly or the infirm—necessari- ly involves the disciplining and training of their comportment, affect and sense of self ” (129) and makes Islamic practices easier to absorb as well. Chapter 6 is a foray into the da'wah movement classroom. Like Mahmood’s Politics of Piety, Ahmad shows how the teachers and students use the space to create “intertwining stories” of patience in the face of hardship and the eventual rewards that come from this ethical re-fashioning, which mirror their own hardships as converts and help them deal with the dilemmas of being female migrant and domestic workers. The chapter ends with a sense of uncertainty, returning to the themes of temporality and suspension that began the book. Ahmad can’t say whether the conversions will remain fixed pieces or will bend and move with the women as their circumstances change. In the epilogue, Ahmad follows the “ongoing conversions” of her inter- locutors as some of them return home as Muslims and encounter new chal- lenges. As a book that focuses on the everyday, it is fitting to end on a new day and possibly, a new conversion. The strength of Ahmad’s ethnography is in giving center-stage to the considerable creativity and diligence mi- grant women show in piecing together their own conversions. This piecing together is perfectly captured by the book’s cover, which features Azra Ak- samija’s “Flocking Mosque”. The structure of a flower illustrates how believ- ers form a circular and geometric shape when gathered in devotion to God. Like Aksamija’s patterns, which build into a circular design, Ahmad’s chap- ters each represent a key piece of the story of migrant domestic workers’ conversion to Islam as a gradual process that blends nations, households, and individuals together to create a narrative about the women’s newfound faith. Scholars should read this book for its textured and detailed observa- tions about migrant women’s daily lives and for its treatment of religious conversion as a gradual process that unfolds in the everyday experiences of individuals. It would also be a great book for students as theory takes a back seat to the ethnography. The book is a refreshing, graceful approach to the subject of religious conversion and Islamic faith. Ahmad stays focused on telling her interlocutors’ stories while navigating often conflicting posi- tions.
Rehenuma Asmi
Assistant Professor of Education and International Studies
Allegheny College
Bu makalede toplumu bütünleştirici değerler dini ve felsefi açıdan tartışılmaktadır. Çalışmada dinî ve felsefi öğretilerin konuya ilişkin ortak söylemleri karşılaştırılarak analiz edilmekte, başta İslam filozofları olmak üzere Batı filozoflarının da konuya ilişkin düşünceleri değerlendirilmekte ve böylece toplumsal bütünlüğü sağlayacak değerler ve onlara ilişkin bilincin inşasının imkanı bir problem olarak İslam felsefesi, özellikle de İslam ahlak düşüncesi bağlamında tartışılmaktadır. Araştırma kapsamında günümüzde toplumsal bütünleşmeye ilişkin değerler bazında ne tür sorunlar olduğu ve bu sorunların temel etkenlerinin neler olduğu, toplumsal bütünleşmeyi sağlayacak olan ilkelerin hangi temel değerler üzerine inşa edilebileceği ve bu eksende felsefî ve teolojik tefekkürün yeri ve önemi gibi konular Fârâbî’den Taşköprîzâde’ye kadar İslâm felsefesinin temel ve tali kaynakları eşliğinde tartışılacaktır. Bu anlamda izleyeceğimiz yöntem filozofların toplumu bütünleştirici değerlere ilişkin görüşlerini teleolojik zeminde analiz etmek ve ortaya çıkan verileri tarihî tecrübeler eşliğinde analitik ve sentetik bir şekilde değerlendirmek olacaktır.
Religion (General), Philosophy of religion. Psychology of religion. Religion in relation to other subjects
Religion is one of the institutions which shapes the attitudes and behaviours of individual and social life. The opponents of globalization study various religious traditions instead of a single one. In global world, the Institutionalized religions often call people to come together and form a community in which the values of peace, love and altruism to be championed. Those who assume that globalization is unavoidable think that religion is a matter of relationship between individuals