Browsing by Subject "Islam"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    An Ethnographic Study on Heritage Preservation in Bo-Kaap
    (2020) Correia, Shannon; Haupt, Adam
    This research paper analyses the culture and community in Bo-Kaap, which is battling to preserve its heritage amid growing gentrification. Gentrification in this area is analysed as a special case in point, as although gentrification is happening in other neighbourhoods in Cape Town, Bo-Kaap is the home of Islam in South Africa, and is geographically set in a prime location of the city. This research paper includes an ethnographic study, as well as a photographic essay and a podcast series which supports the research in creative forms.The researcher interviewed several people from the area to discern the culture and the issues faced by the community. This paper examines the ethnographic lived experience of the researcher, as well as that of a local family. Three main events are examined to provide insight into the culture and community, namely an AirBnb traditional cooking experience, Eid AlAdha and the visit to the area by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. The findings of this paper show that significant changes have and continue to occur, although the community is resilient in their efforts to preserve the culture. This research aims to provide additional and alternative records of the culture of the community as it stands in present day, in a holistic research effort. It also showcases the importance of the rich culture of the community which society needs to ensure is preserved.
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    Code-Switching among Bilingual Speakers of Cape Muslim Afrikaans and South African English in the Bo-Kaap, Cape Town
    (2020) Cozien, Christine; Mesthrie, Rajend
    The Bo-Kaap is traditionally a Cape Muslim Afrikaans-speaking community, and sociohistorically it is particularly relevant to the development of Afrikaans at the Cape (Davids 2011, Mahida 1993). The Cape Muslim Afrikaans spoken in the Bo-Kaap is a sub-variety of Standard Afrikaans (Kotzé 1989, Davids 2011) and is distinguishable by its retained lexis (Mesthrie and Bhatt 2008) from languages historically spoken by slaves at the Cape, such as Malay, Arabic, Gujarati, and Konkani. Over time a number of socio-cultural, geographic, and historical factors have introduced the use of South African English alongside Cape Muslim Afrikaans in this speech community. The goal of this study was to provide insight into the nature of bilingual talk in the Bo-Kaap community, and to make a useful contribution to the growing body of codeswitching1 (hereafter CS) research generally. Based on natural language data collected during group interviews with members of the community, the study explored the language contact situation in the Bo-Kaap today, taking the viewpoint that what is occurring presently may be considered CS Three aspects of the CS documented were analysed and quantified. Specifically, the study investigated language interaction phenomena (Myers-Scotton 1995, Deuchar et al 2007) triggers (Clyne 1987) and directionality (Muysken 1997, Deuchar et al 2017, Çetinoglu 2017). A quantitative approach was taken to the data analysis. The interview audio files were downloaded and transcribed in ELAN. (Max Planck Institute). The annotations2 produced in ELAN were organised in a spreadsheet for analysis, resulting in a data set comprised of 356 annotations. The full data set was divided into subsets and tagged for language interaction phenomena, triggers, and directionality. These data sets were then sorted and quantified to identify trends in these three areas of interest. The study found Intra-sentential switches to be the most common type of language interaction phenomenon in the CS of this speech community, being present in 79% of the sampled annotations. Results from other CS studies echo this finding in other speech communities (Al Heeti et al 2016, Koban 2012, Falk 2013). The most common trigger for Intra-word switching in this corpus was in the head of the past tense Verb Phrase. Out of 27 occurrences of Intra-word switching, 16 were of this nature. In all of those an English verb head was housed within an Afrikaans past tense structure. No exceptions were observed in the data set, a strong indicator of the relationship status of the two languages involved. Cape Muslim Afrikaans almost certainly playing the role of the Matrix language, with South African English embedded. In terms of directionality, switching from Cape Muslim Afrikaans into South African English was by far the most common, at 85%. This further supports what the findings on triggers suggest about the hierarchy between these two languages.
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    A critique of contemporary Islamist political philosophy with specific regard to the concept of Islamic state
    (1996) Patel, Azizur Rahman; Tayob, Abdulkader
    The Islamist/fundamentalist movements of the twentieth century, such as the Jama' ate Islami of Pakistan, the Ikhwan al Muslimin of Egypt, and the FIS of Algeria, have committed themselves to the ideal of attaining an 'Islamic state'. In their quest for the realization of this objective, they envisage a total mobilization of Muslim societies in accordance with "the Islamic shari'a law" under a universal state. The main architects of this ideal of Islamic state in recent times have been Sayyid Abu al-A'la Mawdudi and Sayyid Qutb. This thesis is an attempt to appraise these Islamist theories of statehood and governance in the light of traditional juristic theories of governance as well as modern and postmodern forms of democratic political formations. In this thesis I assert that the contemporary Islamist political blueprint, like traditional Muslim political philosophy is geared towards the establishment of Gemeinschaft (community) in the traditional sense, and not Gesellschaft (society/state) in the modern sense. State in the modern sense is to be understood as a complex form of social organization and public power that has authority independent from any particular office holder such as a king. The modern state is an association between the members of a society which assumes supreme authority to make and enforce laws that regulate social arrangements and social relationships. It encompasses various diverse groups, a multiplicity of religious communities, and largely disparate interests, under certain broad common goals. It is also a contention of this thesis that while Islamist political ideology condemns and challenges modernity and its modem forms of political and social organization, it has itself acquired very 'modern' traits of power, control, and statehood. It is further asserted that the juristic model of state, upon which the Islamist worldview is selectively based, is incapable of functioning as a power polity in the world of territorial states.
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    Freedom of Religion and the headscarf: a perspective from international and comparative constitutional Law
    (2013) Osman, Fatima; Chirwa, Danwood M
    his thesis analyses whether a legislative ban on wearing a headscarf breaches the right to freedom of religion, as such right is universally understood. It describes the ambit of the right to freedom of religion by examining the theoretical justification and importance of the right and thereafter analysing how the right is recognised in international and regional treaties and domestic constitutions. It demonstrates that religious freedom comprises of the right to hold a religion and the right to manifest a religion in the form of worship, observance, practice and teaching. Religious freedom, however, is not absolute and the thesis explains in the light of international and comparative case-law that the right to freedom of religion may be limited by a law that pursues a legitimate state interest and is reasonable. In light of this theoretical framework the thesis examines the practice of Muslim women wearing a headscarf and argues that the practice constitutes a manifestation of Islamic belief protected by the right to freedom of religion. Thereafter this thesis examines French, Turkish and German prohibitions on wearing a headscarf, the effect of these laws on Muslim women and the justifications furnished for such laws. It is argued that the state interest of preserving secularism relied upon to justify a headscarf ban is not legitimate and does not justify a headscarf ban. Furthermore, even where the state has a legitimate interest in preventing the coercion of young girls, promoting the equality rights of women and maintaining safety and order, a headscarf ban does not constitute a reasonable limitation of religious freedom. Ultimately, this thesis argues that a headscarf ban exacerbates the problems it is meant to solve and constitutes an unjustifiable infringement of religious freedom.
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    Living French colonial theory : an examination of France's complex relationship with Islam in its African colonies as viewed through the lives of Octave Houdas and Xavier Coppolani
    (2010) Masey, Rachael; Jeppie, Shamil
    In current scholarship, the colonial period within Africa has long been defined as a controversial era, almost encapsulating the entirety of Occidental hubris in one distinct age of time. By and large, the European powers invaded foreign lands, claimed them as their own by right of superior cultural standing, attempted to spread their way of life, and manipulated both the occupied territories and their inhabitants for their own economic, cultural, and spiritual gain. Such incursions were morally justified by the Oriental paradigm, which broadly claimed that European cultural and intellectual superiority gave the cultural Occident the authority to control, speak for, and know the entirety of the Oriental world. As a colonial power, France brought its own unique perspective to the pursuit of colonial might in the form of the concept of the mission civilisatrice and the legacy of the French Revolution. Within the auspices of the larger Orientalist paradigm which guided the second colonial empire, France imposed its civilizing mission on the largely Muslim North and West African colonies. These occupied lands posed a special threat to French hegemony because they shared a common monotheistic religion which could not be easily dismissed on the basis of Orientalist logic and could potentially pose a very real threat to French control. Thus, French policy toward Islam was unceasingly suspicious of Islam ' evolving in its understanding of the religion and Muslim African culture but always with an eye to the practical aspects of administrating and controlling an Islamic colony. This paper utilizes the larger complexities surrounding the French relationship with Islam as the basis for an examination of the lives of two colonial figures, Octave Houdas and Xavier Coppolani. Both men were prominent Islamists with career trajectories deeply steeped within Orientalist rhetoric in the late nineteenth-century and with strong ties to Algeria. However, a detailed and comprehensive accounting of the significance of their contributions and how they each advanced the Orientalist perspective has not yet been a focus of scholarly historical inquiry. Octave Houdas functioned within the realm of scholarly study ' educating a new generation of Orientalists at institutions in both Algeria and France and translating documents relative to the Islamic histories of North and West Africa. In contrast, Xavier Coppolani worked as a self-styled Islamists for the French colonial government, exploring and writing strategic treatises on how the pre-existing Muslim culture could be best employed to French gain. During their respective lifetimes both men played a critical role in the evolving French conceptions of Islam yet have had their lives and works essentialized and undervalued by modern historical study. By employing a wide variety of their works, spanning from French archival material to government reports to textbooks, this paper will address both their individual contributions to Franco Islamic relations and the larger roles they, as the Orientalist scholar and administrator, respectively, played in the perpetuation of the Orientalist paradigm. Many documents represented primary sources which were in French and were reviewed at locations in France.
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    Revolution in Egypt and the Middle East
    (2014-09-08) Pallo, Jordan Z.; Jeppie, Shamil; Saleh, Ibrahim; Tayob, Abdulkader
    This lecture can be used to supplement lectures in history, film and media or politics related to the 2011 revolution in Egypt. The lecture can be used as a general interest podcast. This seminar discusses the revolution in Egypt and the Middle East, specifically: 1. Events in Egypt and how it relates to politics in Africa and South Africa 2. Events that led to the revolt in Egypt 3. Egypt and political communication - as well as personal reflections by Dr Ibrahim Saleh 4. Role of islam and politics of the Muslim Brotherhood The image used is Victory-Crowd by darkroomproductions and is available under a Creative Commons Non Commercial Lincese.