Search Results (138)

This article examines the development of Islamic education in Islamic primary schools in the Netherlands from 1988 to 2025. Since the early 1970s, the Muslim population in the Netherlands has grown significantly—initially due to labor migrants from Turkey and Morocco, and later as a result of asylum seekers from countries such as Somalia, Iraq, and Syria. The desire to practice and pass on their faith led to the establishment of mosques, educational centers, boarding schools, and eventually Islamic primary schools. In 1987, some of the founders of Islamic primary schools aspired to establish institutions similar to Madrasas, focusing heavily on Islamic instruction such as Qur’an recitation and Hadith studies. However, these ambitions could not be realized due to funding requirements. Others were inspired by the Imam Hatip schools in Turkey, which offer religious subjects such as Qur’an, Hadith, and Sira (the life of the Prophet Muhammad) alongside the national curriculum. Ultimately, a Dutch model of Islamic education emerged—partly influenced by the Imam Hatip concept, yet possessing a distinct identity. This study investigates how Islamic education has evolved in practice through semi-structured interviews, school observations, document analysis, and a national survey of religion teachers. The findings indicate that the desire to provide Islamic religious education was the primary motive behind the founding of the first Islamic primary school in 1988. Since then, this objective has remained central to school boards and parents alike. Religious education has progressed from fragmented teaching materials rooted in Arabic and Turkish contexts to coherent, Dutch-language curricula. By 2025, the teaching materials of Worden wie je bent (“Becoming Who You Are”) and the Amana have become dominant. Instruction encompasses not only religious knowledge and Qur’an recitation but also social-emotional development, citizenship, and sexuality education within an Islamic framework. Full article

Background/objectives: Geographic and ethnic differences influence the genetic landscape of hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) and the frequency of familial HLH (FHL); this in turn can affect outcomes. Methods: We collected data on 98 patients treated for HLH between 1 January 2001 and 31 July 2024 at four tertiary centers, characterizing the genotype/phenotype correlations. Results: Half of the patients, 51 (52%), were symptomatic by age 1 year and 43 (44%) were diagnosed by that age. Our varied population included 43% Sephardic/Ashkenazi/Ethiopian Jews, 50% Muslim Arabs, and 7% Druze. Molecular analysis was performed on 90.5% of patients and revealed an FHL-related variant in 72%. The genetic variation included biallelic variants in PRF1 (21), UNC13D (12), STXBP2 (15), and STX (1). Eight hemizygous variants were found in X-linked lymphoproliferative disorder-related genes. A RAB27A monoallelic variant in an infant with a severe phenotype was considered pathogenic. The recently described HLH-related gene, ZNFX1, was mutated with varying penetrance in three symptomatic siblings. Overall, of the 94/98 with follow-up, 77% are alive. Strikingly, 5/12 (41.6%) patients with UNC13D variants died while 14/15 (93.3%) patients with STXBP2 variants survived. Logistic regression found poor prognosis associated with young age at diagnosis (p < 0.001), any variant (p = 0.016), UNC13D variant (p < 0.001), poor initial treatment response (p = 0.009), and no BMT (p = 0.005). Conclusions: Our cohort included an extremely high rate of genetic testing and detection of FHL-related variants. UNC13D variations are associated with exceedingly poor outcomes. Response to initial treatment seems crucial for positive outcomes, as does access to hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Overall, we report a high survival rate, possibly due to a high index of suspicion and prompt diagnosis. Full article

This article explores the evolving roles of Sunnī and Shīʿī political actors in the current Gaza crisis, with a focus on how Iran has come to occupy the rhetorical and symbolic space once dominated by Sunnī Arab leadership. Historically, since the establishment of Israel in 1948, Sunnī regimes positioned themselves as the primary defenders of the Palestinian cause. However, recent shifts—originating in the late 1970s and evolving into the current wave of normalization agreements between Arab states and Israel—have weakened this leadership role. In this vacuum, Iran has articulated a theological-political narrative grounded in Shīʿī doctrines of resistance, martyrdom, and moral duty toward the oppressed, reframed through Khomeinist ideology to legitimize its regional geopolitical ambitions. Drawing on political theology as a theoretical framework, this article analyzes how sacred history shapes Iran’s foreign policy discourse and legitimizes its regional role. This article argues that the current Gaza crisis illustrates a significant transformation in the religious-political landscape of the Muslim world, as Iran leverages its Shīʿī identity to assert moral and political leadership over a cause once firmly associated with Sunnī solidarity. This study concludes that Shīʿism, led by Iran, has shown unwavering support for the Palestinian cause through its backing of Hamas in its latest conflict, despite Iran’s simultaneous pursuit of wider regional drives and ideological goals. Still, Iran’s foreign policies cannot be separated from the historical incidents that gave rise to the Shīʿī tradition of protest and resistance, which remain integral to how Iran’s Shīʿism positions itself in the present conflict. Full article

Since the 1980s, a theology of injustice has gained prominence in Islamic thought as a large body of literature has been written on the subject. One of the main tenets of this theology is the punishment of injustice in the afterlife, which emphasizes how unjust individuals will endure different punishments, including suffering in darkness on the Day of Resurrection. Some theologians use the divine punishment of unjust individuals in the hereafter as a rhetorical method of dissuasion from injustice in conjunction with warnings against the injustices that Muslims are currently facing or committing. Taking an ethical and normative stand, other theologians prohibit injustice, including violence against innocent people. Other Muslim theologians adopt an analytical perspective, developing concepts to understand the causes, effects, and ways to prevent injustice, including via God’s love. All theologians agree that God will punish the unjust on Earth and in the hereafter. This article discusses how injustice is explained in modern Muslim theology and closely examines and critically analyzes twelve contemporary theological Muslim texts in Arabic that have been produced in recent decades. In addition, I will place these modern theological discussions within the context of the development of modern Islamic thought and in relation to the ongoing discussions about theodicy, ethics, and the imagery of (after) death in modern society. This article argues that the theology of injustice has two purposes: it calls the unjust to accept responsibility and promises the victim delayed justice and retribution. I conclude that the punitive stance on injustice can be explained by the ongoing political and social struggles in the Muslim world as well as the spreading of traditionalist Islamic theology. Full article

Looking into early Christian–Muslim relations seems to be the outcome of greater interest in Islam transcultural encounters due to current issues of mass migration. Sicily presents an informative example of the interaction between different ethnic and religious groups over centuries. Several scholars, including Jeremy Johns, Alex Metcalfe and Julie Taylor, have explored the social and administrative position of Christians and Muslims within the complex society of Sicily, although their contributions were largely from the umbrella of Norman Sicily from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries. Thus, there is a need to shift away from the Normans’ experience to exploring Christian–Muslim relations in Sicily during the ninth through eleventh centuries, especially the expansion, society and activities during the rule of the Fāṭimids of Ifrīqiya (909–965) and their Kalbid allies (948–1053). These forms of relationships are not only important for Sicily but for the whole region of the central Mediterranean. This paper will build on the works of Umberto Rizzitano and other scholars to explore the relations between the Arabs and Muslims and the Christians in Sicily during the Muslim rule of the Island. Using Arabic and Islamic sources, including travel accounts by the Muslim geographer Ibn Ḥawqal (d. 988), this paper aims to discuss the lives of Christians and their dynamic exchanges with Muslims within the social and political complexities of Aghlabid and Fāṭimid Sicily as well as Sicily’s link to North Africa (Ifrīqiya). Sicily’s proximity to North Africa and to Europe has been an essential aspect of its history, which facilitated movement of communities between these regions. The paper will also compare the policies of the Fāṭimids towards Christians in Sicily with their relations towards their Christian subjects in Cairo, Egypt. It will show the pragmatic aspects of this relationship concerning marriage, legal status, the movement of people, and cultural and intellectual exchange. Christians and Muslims practised cultural hybridisation that brought changes in Sicily with respect to language, religion, and social habits, resulting in a distinctive Sicilian multicultural identity. Full article

This article examines the Qurʾānic portrayal of Jesus (ʿĪsā al-Masīḥ) and the naṣārā in comparison with Samaritan and Nazarene/Ebionite profiles, situating them within the Arabicised debatespace of Late Antiquity and early Islam. Building on recent studies of Qurʾānic Christology and interconfessional exchange as well as Macdonald’s work on Samaritan theology and Thomas’s research on Christian–Muslim polemic, the study argues that overlaps in prophetology, law-centred piety, and divine transcendence reflect shared category availability rather than genealogical dependence. Methodologically, the analysis combines close readings of Qurʾānic passages (e.g., Q 4:171; 5:72–75; 4:157) with textual variants from the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP), the Septuagint (LXX), and the Masoretic Text (MT), alongside patristic notices of Jewish–Christian groups. Evidence from Sinai Arabic MS 154, an early Christian apologetic treatise preserved at St Catherine’s Monastery, illustrates how Arabic-speaking Christians engaged Qurʾānic categories in staged dialogue. The findings clarify where conceptual overlaps (titles, law, divine unity) coexisted with decisive non-overlaps (worship, sonship, atonement), showing that the Qurʾān’s Christology participated in a common discursive field while maintaining distinct theological boundaries. On this basis, the article proposes a historically grounded “Bridge-First” model for Muslim–Christian dialogue, beginning with Qurʾān-affirmed titles for Jesus and advancing toward contested claims in sequence. Full article

The integration of ethnoreligious minorities into labor markets, particularly among women, is a key contemporary issue. The present study examines the associations among labor market outcomes (employment status, job type—full-time/part-time, wages, and rank), level of religiosity and residential area (in or outside ethnic enclaves) among Arab Muslim and Christian women in Israel. Both groups reside in predominantly Jewish and Arab localities but differ in terms of religiosity, with Muslims being substantially more religious. Utilizing official data from the Social Survey of the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, covering a decade between 2013 and 2022, with a sample of 4112 participants, the study finds that both residential area and religiosity are associated with labor market outcomes, particularly among Muslim women. Religiosity is negatively associated with employment quality measures (job type, wages, and rank), while residing in predominantly Jewish localities is positively associated with labor market participation. An interaction effect is observed regarding wages and type of position (full/part time). This study contributes to theory by introducing residential area as a new factor explaining the negative association between religiosity and labor market outcomes, as well as advancing agent-based approaches to study ethnic enclaves. Full article

Cultural and religious norms significantly influence reproductive decisions, including prenatal testing and pregnancy termination. We conducted a cross-sectional study among Muslim women living in mixed Jewish-Arab cities compared to those in predominantly Arab cities in Israel. Data for all co-variates were obtained through participants’ self-reports by an online questionnaire of 36 items for adequate content validity between July 2022 and June 2023. In total, 1081 Israeli Muslim women aged 18–49 years were enrolled. Religious affiliation has been shown to influence individuals’ attitudes toward abortion, with members of religious communities often holding more restrictive or negative views on the subject. Muslim women residing in mixed Jewish-Arab cities demonstrate significantly higher uptake of both non-invasive and invasive prenatal testing, as well as pregnancy terminations following abnormal diagnoses, compared to those in predominantly Arab cities (p < 0.001), which indicates that proximity to Jewish communities, greater availability of health services, and exposure to more permissive social norms in mixed cities may reduce religious and cultural barriers, thereby facilitating more informed reproductive decisions. Older women (≥35) in mixed cities had a higher tendency to birth a child with abnormalities in the past than Arab cities (80.9% vs. 70.0%, respectively), However, women who lived in mixed cities underwent more non-invasive (87.2% vs. 64.8%, respectively), invasive prenatal tests (85.1% vs. 69.7%, respectively), and pregnancy termination (88.3% vs. 64.1%, respectively) than those in Arab cities, p < 0.001. Our findings indicate the importance of gaining a deeper understanding of the relations between religious convictions, cultural standards, and medical practices that should contribute to reducing the prevalence of genetic disorders with their associated adverse impact on families, communities, and healthcare systems. Full article

The article is aimed at building on the existing studies devoted to the last stage of the assimilation policy directed at the Muslim population in Communist Bulgaria during the second half of the 1980s. The 40th anniversary of the forced change of the given Turkish–Arabic and Persian names of this population is an occasion to revisit this dark period of the recent past. This study focuses on the short- and long-term consequences of the political measures, which became known as the ‘Revival process’ (1984/1985–1989). For the first time, the author presents new written sources, including analytical and field reports commissioned by the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party and prepared by Bulgarian scholars during the second half of the 1980s, as well as later collected biographical data related to Muslims affected by the events, derived through an (auto)ethnographic method of research among Turks, Crimean Tatars and Muslim Roma. Full article

The Tunisian uprisings projected an elusive surrealistic scene that was an aberration in a part of the world where Islamic ideology had been considered the only rallying force and a midwife for regime change. However, this sense of exceptionalism was short-lived, as the religiously zealous Islamist expats and their militant executive wings infiltrated the power vacuum to resume their suspended Islamization project of the 1980s. Brandishing electoral “legitimacy”, they attempted to reframe the bourgeoning indigenous democratization project, rooted in an evolving Tunisian intellectual and cultural heritage, along the neocolonial ideological underpinnings of the “Arab Spring” metanarrative, which proffers the thesis that democracy can be promoted in the Muslim world through so-called “Moderate Muslims”. This paper challenges this dominant narrative by offering a counter-narrative about the political transition in Tunisia. It takes stock of the multidisciplinary conceptual and analytical frameworks elaborated upon in postcolonial theory, social movement theory, cognitive neuroscience theories, and digital communication theories. It draws heavily on socio-narrative translation theory. The corpus analyzed in this work consists of disparate yet corroborating narratives cutting across modes, genres, and cultural and linguistic boundaries, and is grounded in insider participant observation. This work opens an alternative inquiry into how the processes of cross-cultural knowledge production and the power dynamics they sustain have helped shape the course of the transition since 2011. Full article

Background: Syndromic inherited retinal diseases (IRDs) are a clinically and genetically heterogeneous group of disorders, involving the retina and additional organs. Over 80 forms of syndromic IRD have been described. Methods: We aimed to phenotypically and genotypically characterize a cohort of 171 individuals from 140 Israeli families with syndromic IRD. Ophthalmic examination included best corrected visual acuity, fundus examination, visual field testing, retinal imaging and electrophysiological evaluation. Most participants were also evaluated by specialists in fields relevant to their extra-retinal symptoms. Genetic analyses included haplotype analysis, homozygosity mapping, Sanger sequencing and next-generation sequencing. Results: In total, 51% of the families in the cohort were consanguineous. The largest ethnic group was Muslim Arabs. The most common phenotype was Usher syndrome (USH). The most common causative gene was USH2A. In 29% of the families, genetic analysis led to a revised or modified clinical diagnosis. This included confirmation of an atypical USH diagnosis for individuals with late-onset retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and/or hearing loss (HL); diagnosis of Heimler syndrome in individuals with biallelic pathogenic variants in PEX6 and an original diagnosis of USH or nonsyndromic RP; and diagnosis of a mild form of Leber congenital amaurosis with early-onset deafness (LCAEOD) in an individual with a heterozygous pathogenic variant in TUBB4B and an original diagnosis of USH. Novel genotype–phenotype correlations included biallelic pathogenic variants in KATNIP, previously associated with Joubert syndrome (JBTS), in an individual who presented with kidney disease and IRD, but no other features of JBTS. Conclusions: Syndromic IRDs are a highly heterogeneous group of disorders. The rarity of some of these syndromes on one hand, and the co-occurrence of several syndromic and nonsyndromic conditions in some individuals, on the other hand, complicates the diagnostic process. Genetic analysis is the ultimate way to obtain an accurate clinical diagnosis in these individuals. Full article

This paper explores suicidality and suicide research from an autoethnographic analysis framed through grief concepts. Self-identifying as a Muslim in the United States, the author explains how lived experiences being racialized through Islamophobia, identifying as a genderfluid non-binary woman, being socially biracial, holding a postpartum bipolar diagnosis, and being connected to a diaspora, are critical elements to develop a deeper sociocultural understanding of suicide. Grief concepts that are used to analyze these themes include disenfranchised grief, ambiguous loss, anticipatory grief, and secondary loss. While these grief concepts are understood as part of the author’s embodied lived experience as an individual, there is also a collective grief that is explored through the author’s bilingual experience with Arabic as it relates to the topics of suicide and genocide occurring in the Arabic-speaking diaspora located in Gaza, Palestine. A conceptual framework is offered to make sense of the author’s lived experience by both incorporating and challenging existing academic perspectives on suicide and research. The emic, or insider, perspective is contextualized such that it may hold implications beyond the individual author, such as for U.S. Muslims and other hard-to-reach populations. A positionality statement demonstrates the author’s reflexivity of being an insider ‘participant’–researcher in conducting transformative research approaches with the U.S. Muslim community. Further directions are shared for scholars with lived experience who may seek to utilize comparable individual or collaborative autoethnographic approaches with such majority-world communities. Full article

This article analyses the spread of unbelief among conservative Egyptian and Syrian Muslims in the post-Arab Spring period. In this period, social media gave an unprecedented visibility to transgressive expressions of fiducial doubt, creating the impression of a ‘wave of atheism’ within the conservative milieu. Based on original sources and interviews, the article argues that what the participants called ‘atheism’ (ilḥād) must not be read from the perspective of preconceived notions of atheism, but examined inductively as an emergent phenomenon of nonreligion in a specific social context, the conservative Muslim and Islamist milieu. Its appearance can be traced to a multifaceted overlay of different developments and factors, including cultural and media globalisation, the unsettling social effects of the Arab Spring, and the severe doubts and disappointments suffered by sympathisers of political Islam in the post-2013 period. It is conceivable that a significant number of people defected from conservative Islam to other shapes of religion and nonreligion, but their personal trajectories await further research. More manifestly, the crisis provided an opportunity for a new generation of conservative religious guides and thinkers who have been leading an updating of religious socialisation and propagation methods among conservative Muslims. Full article

The rapid growth in interfaith peacebuilding has elevated the prominence of religion in theoretical and practical discourse, highlighting its importance in conflict dynamics. In dialogue-based encounters between distinct identity groups, religion often emerges as a key factor, regardless of participants’ specific affiliation or religiosity level. However, studies on religion-related tension typically adopt a polarized perspective, framing conflict in intergroup contexts while overlooking intra-group dynamics. This paper addresses this gap through a qualitative cross-case analysis of two studies, conducted in Israel during 2016–2019. Participants included 28 secular Jews and 28 secular Arabs (Christian and Muslim). Our findings reveal that non-religious individuals from both societies experienced similar challenges in navigating intra-group, religion-based encounters. Participants identified religion as defining boundaries of understanding, acceptance, legitimacy, and belonging within their societies. The study also highlights gaps in mutual recognition, whereby the participants expressed willingness to accept religion as integral to their religious counterparts’ identity, yet reported that this openness was not reciprocated. This gap created barriers to dialogue, weakening potential intra-group cohesion. This paper contributes to the literature on conflicts and peacebuilding, underscoring notable intra-group similarities between Jewish and Arab participants, and offers a novel framework for understanding religious dynamics across distinct social contexts. Full article

For various religious and political reasons, the idea of divine sovereignty (ḥākimiyya) has found support in many Islamic movements and discourses between the 1940s and the 1980s throughout the Muslim world. Nonetheless, in the 1990s, the consolidation of contemporary nation-states, the appeal of liberal democracy, and human rights in the Muslim world, along with the failure of Islamism, paved the way for a turn towards popular sovereignty in Islamic political thought. The emergence of a post-Islamist age in the Arab world and Iran, especially in the aftermath of the Arab Spring (2011), has changed the perspectives of many Islamic intellectuals and jurists, who now place a higher emphasis on popular sovereignty, depoliticizing divine sovereignty. This article offers an intellectual history of the shift from divine to popular sovereignty in modern Islamic political ethics, as well as a discussion of the factors that led to this change. Few critical voices on sovereignty highlight the ethical aspects of sharia’s governance and challenge the popular sovereignty narrative as authoritarian. Full article