Translation as a Form of Da’wah: a Unique Cultural Experience of King Fahd Glorious Qur’an Printing Complex and Its influence on Islamic Ummah

Established in 1405 A.H. (1984 CE) by His Royal Highness King Fahd bin ‘Abd al-Aziz Al Sa’ud (rahimahu Allah) Qur’an Printing Complex quickly became one of the most eminent institutions that are related not only to the propagation of Qur’anic knowledge, but to Islamic Affairs in general. The main goal of our article is to explore how the Qur’an Printing Complex obtained its highest position in Islamic world and which efforts, with the help of Allah the Almighty, were made by the wise government of Al Sa’ud and Islamic scholars from the Kingdom on the way to these achievements. It is proved that Qur’an Printing Complex completely realized Islamic view on the translation of the Glorious Qur’an and the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) that is stated in the words of Sheikh al-Islam Ahmad ibn Taymiyah (rahimahu Allah) in his work “Refutation of Greek Logic”: “Islamic community is obliged to convey (tabligh) The Qur’an, its words and meanings… if its conveying to the foreigners needs a translation, let them [i.e. Muslims] translate it as much as possible”. We assume that King Fahd Glorious Qur’an Printing Complex is a unique religious institution in the world, since no other religion has such a powerful scientific and cultural organization that deals with sacred texts and their edition. The level of published editions, interpretations and academic requirements to the translations received the highest evaluation not only from Muslim scholars, but also from Orientalists. The well-known edition of the Glorious Mushaf (al-Mushaf al-Madinah an-Nabawiyyah), published by Complex, constitutes one of the most referred sources in the present-day Qur’anic Studies. Our article affirms that methods and other features of Islamic call, used by Qur’an Printing Complex and based on the path of as-salaf as-salih, provide a wide scientific experience that is useful for Islamic ummah in every corner of the globe

Saudi-Arab Emerging Video Game Cultures, Archetypes, Narratives, and User Experiences

Arab representation in media has been a major focus of many works of renowned scholars, such as Edward Said (1978), Shaheen (2000), Karim (2005) and others. Journalism, film, television, and ancient literature have all been studied in these works. A recent addition to the study of Arab representation is the medium of video games. This was first examined by Reichmuth and Werning (2006) and Machin and Suleiman (2006) and extended by many works that are discussed in this thesis. The vast majority of the literature on Arab representation in video games focuses on Western video games and the reaction of Arab developers to these representations. Lack of specificity is another characteristic of this field. Both characteristics manifest in repeated comparative studies, where scholars select one local culture as an archetype, then embark on a comparative study of the global gaming community. In so doing, there is an unfair generalisation of Arab identity across broad and diverse regions, in terms of ethnic, ideological, national, historical, and even linguistic components. The present investigation critiques the shortcomings of this previous literature, while testing some alternative methods and approaches needed to re-examine the lack of access, language barriers and the aforementioned generalisations that have limited this field until now. Rather than assuming a single archetype for Saudi culture, this thesis departs from previous scholarship by examining the various aspects of the transformation process leading to what could be called an emergent “Saudiness”. Specifically, this study examines the construction and depiction of Saudi-Arab identity through the narratives and audiovisual content of video games, paying close attention to recent developments in Saudi cultural and media policy and the mandates set forth by the Vision 2030 development plan (SCEDA, 2016). Using theories on participatory culture (Jenkins, 2009) and spreadable media (Jenkins, Ford, and Green, 2013) as well as a content analysis of previously understudied material shared by a cohort of Saudi gamers, this research investigates the particular markers and strategies used to distinguish the spectrum of cultural aspects and elements with which Saudi gamers identify. To achieve this, the analysis focuses on three distinct archetypes of Saudi Arabs in video games: (a) the Saudis in Western video games, as suggested by previous works; (b) the Saudi citizen archetype, as recommended by state policy; and (c) the Saudi culture, as represented by Saudi gamers and Saudi game producers -- who in many cases reject the idea of a single archetype. In sum, this research sheds new light on the interactions between centralised and decentralised media in Saudi Arabia, as well as the Saudi gamers\u27 sense of agency, demonstrating how Saudis perceive Saudi representations in video games as part of a complex spectrum of interactions within a larger global gaming community

Discovering the Colonial Discourse in Lawrence in/of Arabia: A Postcolonial Reading

Middle Easterners and Arabs are frequently depicted as backward, inferior, and primitive in Western literature and media. One of the works which focuses on the lives of the Arabs is the novel Lawrence in Arabia (2013) by Scott Anderson. Although the author has spent some time in the region that he has depicted, his descriptions consist of stereotypical generalizations about the Arabs. Hence, this study tries to investigate the partial intentions of the author throughout his novel. Moreover, the influences of media and Western sources about the Arabs' lives in his work are traced. To support its claims, the thesis sheds light on the discourse of the novel with the help of Foucault's definition of “Discourse”, Said's “Orientalism”, and Bhabha's “Stereotype”. These concepts help this study display how the novel presents the Arabs as exploited, marginalized, inferior, and in need of control in every aspect of their lives (i.e. cultural, social, economic, and political). Also, it is discussed how the author, as a colonizer, stereotypes the colonized in his text. In addition, the study tries to find the same trend in Lean’s movie, Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and show how it influences Anderson’s view on representing the Arabs. Consequently, the findings prove that Anderson is influenced by the Western sources in his writing and media has a significant role in transferring a degrading picture of the Arab to its audience. Keywords: Discourse, Orientalism, Other, Middle East, Stereotype, Postcolonialism, Scott Anderson’s Lawrence in Arabia (2013), David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962). DOI: 10.7176/JEP/10-15-10 Publication date:May 31st 2019

A standard tag set expounding traditional morphological features for Arabic language part-of-speech tagging

The SALMA Morphological Features Tag Set (SALMA, Sawalha Atwell Leeds Morphological Analysis tag set for Arabic) captures long-established traditional morphological features of grammar and Arabic, in a compact yet transparent notation. First, we introduce Part-of-Speech tagging and tag set standards for English and other European languages, and then survey Arabic Part-of-Speech taggers and corpora, and long-established Arabic traditions in analysis of morphology. A range of existing Arabic Part-of-Speech tag sets are illustrated and compared; and we review generic design criteria for corpus tag sets. For a morphologically-rich language like Arabic, the Part-of-Speech tag set should be defined in terms of morphological features characterizing word structure. We describe the SALMA Tag Set in detail, explaining and illustrating each feature and possible values. In our analysis, a tag consists of 22 characters; each position represents a feature and the letter at that location represents a value or attribute of the morphological feature; the dash ‘-’ represents a feature not relevant to a given word. The first character shows the main Parts of Speech, from: noun, verb, particle, punctuation, and Other (residual); these last two are an extension to the traditional three classes to handle modern texts. ‘Noun’ in Arabic subsumes what are traditionally referred to in English as ‘noun’ and ‘adjective’. The characters 2, 3, and 4 are used to represent subcategories; traditional Arabic grammar recognizes 34 subclasses of noun (letter 2), 3 subclasses of verb (letter 3), 21 subclasses of particle (letter 4). Others (residuals) and punctuation marks are represented in letters 5 and 6 respectively. The next letters represent traditional morphological features: gender (7), number (8), person (9), inflectional morphology (10) case or mood (11), case and mood marks (12), definiteness (13), voice (14), emphasized and non-emphasized (15), transitivity (16), rational (17), declension and conjugation (18). Finally there are four characters representing morphological information which is useful in Arabic text analysis, although not all linguists would count these as traditional features: unaugmented and augmented (19), number of root letters (20), verb root (21), types of nouns according to their final letters (22). The SALMA Tag Set is not tied to a specific tagging algorithm or theory, and other tag sets could be mapped onto this standard, to simplify and promote comparisons between and reuse of Arabic taggers and tagged corpora

The world-wide spread of journalism convergence

Convergence is a likely destination for news media in many parts of the world, though the duration of the journey will vary from country to country. This paper defines convergence as well as it is possible to do so, traces its spread around the world, and describes some of the most common business models. It looks at the forces driving convergence, and factors common to the most successful converged operations. The paper also describes the uncertain scenario in Australia now the Howard government has announced plans to change media ownership laws. It ends with discussion about changes in curricula at journalism programs in the United States in the light of the spread of convergence.<br /

Social Sciences in the Arab World: Forms of Presence

Last month, Carnegie Corporation of New York hosted an event marking the launch of the inaugural Arab Social Sciences Report, "Social Sciences in the Arab World: Forms of Presence." According to lead author, Mohammed Bamyeh, the report uncovers a "silent revolution of knowledge production" in the Arab region. Social transformation has enlivened the region's campuses, think tanks, and social media networks, and recent years have seen a sharp rise in the number of universities and research centers engaged in matters of political science, economics, sociology, and history. Bamyeh stressed the vital role the report has played in highlighting growth and development that may have gone otherwise unnoticed, stating that without this effort, the "silent revolution" would remain an undocumented phenomenon. Grantees in this story The difficulties encountered in developing and publishing the report illustrate the inherent obstacles facing the social sciences in the Arab region. Director General of the Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS), Seteney Shami, cited the dearth of resources, lack of access to data, and the fragmented nature of research in the Arab world as some of the major challenges currently facing the disciplines. Furthermore, the majority of universities across the region are still in the process of evolving into established research centers, and according to Lisa Anderson, former president of the American University in Cairo (AUC), "75 percent of universities in the Arab region are less than 25 years old.

Terrorism and the Internet: new media - new threat?

The Internet is a powerful political instrument, which is increasingly employed by terrorists to forward their goals. The five most prominent contemporary terrorist uses of the Net are information provision, financing, networking, recruitment, and information gathering. This article describes and explains each of these uses and follows up with examples. The final section of the paper describes the responses of government, law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and others to the terrorism-Internet nexus. There is a particular emphasis within the text on the UK experience, although examples from other jurisdictions are also employed

Content Evaluation of Jawaharlal Nehru University and Banaras Hindu University Library Websites in India

The study evaluates the content of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Banaras Hindu University (BHU) library websites using qualitative (11 checkpoints) and quantitative (170 checkpoints) evaluation. The qualitative parts covered 11 features which belong to the homepages of the websites, which helps as recording devices of the descriptive information, moreover, quantitative part of the checklists covered 170 dichotomous question affiliated to the different aspect of the features such as; multimedia, general information, services, resources, my library features, web2.0/library2.0 features, currency accuracy and relevance, organization and structure features, links and maintenance features, user-interface features, search features and informative feedback and support features. A quantitative 5-points rating scales was executed to provide a numerical rating for each feature and rank them on the bases of numerical facts. The study has shown that the library websites are lagging behind to take full advantage of advance web2.0 features. Findings show that the JNU library website is scored 128 out of 170 (75.29%), which ranked above average, whereas BHU library website has ranked average by scoring 74 out of 170 (43.52%) features. This research is one of the unique studies should help the website developers in both the Universities to improve the quality of library websites. The study attempts to show certain features in both the libraries that need enhancement to make them user-friendly and improve user engagement. The study can serve as a benchmark for other library websites for evaluating the progress of their websites. Moreover, it can also help in discovering the nature of library websites in the era of ICT

Suulise tõlke areng Eesti riikluse kujunemisel

Väitekiri on esimene terviklik uurimus suulise tõlke arengu ajaloost Eestis, hõlmates kahte perioodi: iseseisvat Eesti Vabariiki (1918–1940), ja Nõukogude Eestit (1944–1991). Autori tõestab, et tõlkimist on kasutatud riigi toimimise esimestest päevadest alates, hoolimata murrangulistest poliitilistest, majanduslikest ja ühiskondlikest sündmustest. Väitekiri annab põhjaliku ülevaate suulise tõlke erisustest eri perioodidel, esitab varaseid fakte järel- ja sünkroontõlke ning varaseimate dateeritud tõlgi kasutamiste kohta Eesti Vabariigis. Suulise tõlke uurimist raskendab aga terminoloogiline segadus: sageli ei tehta vahet mõistetel tõlk ja tõlkija. Audiovisuaalsed ja dokumentaalsed allikad, mälestused, arhiividokumendid, ajalehed ja ülemnõukogu istungite stenogrammid võimaldasid koguda usaldusväärse andmestiku. Autor leidis tõlkimise kohta sõjaeelsest perioodist 364 ajaleheartiklit: 278 artiklis oli mainitud tõlkimist Eestis ja 86 artiklis välismaal. Aastate 1944–1991 kohta kogus autor 145 filmikroonikalõiku ja 524 fotot, mis tõendasid suulist tõlkimist nõukogude perioodil ning intervjueeris 69 tõlki ja tõlke värvanud ning tõlget kasutanud inimest. Juba riikluse kujunemise algul, Venemaaga peetud läbirääkimistel kasutati Eesti Vabariigi riigikeelt koos tõlkega vene keelde. Laiendades Pierre Bourdieu sümboolse kapitali mõistet üksikisikult riigile, näitab autor, et eesti keele kasutamine oli otseselt seotud riigi prestiižiga ning osutas riigi sümboolse kapitali kasvule. Diplomaatilist tõlget käsitletakse kui mõjufaktoreid riigi sümboolse kapitali akumuleerimisel. Peale teist maailmasõda muutus Eestis mitte ainult riigikord, vaid ka keelekeskkond. Muutused ühiskonnas avaldasid mõju ka suulisele tõlkele: suuline tõlge eesti keelest vene keelde võimaldas jätkata eesti keele kasutamist ka avalikel ametlikel üritustel, ajal, mil vene keelt suruti peale rahvastevahelise suhtluse keelena. Autor käsitleb suulist tõlget kui eesti keele kasutamist domineeriva võõrkeele keskkonnas.The present dissertation is the first to explore the evolution of interpreting in the Republic of Estonia over two different periods: the Republic of Estonia (1918–1940) and Soviet Estonia (1944–1991). The author provides factual evidence that interpreting has been used in Estonia, despite different political orders and throughout periods of profound political, economic and social transformation. The research provides a comprehensive overview on interpretation in Estonia, maps the factual evidence, identifies interpreters and finds the potentially earliest cases (since independence in 1918) of consecutive and simultaneous interpretation in the country. The authentic material gathered comprises archival, audiovisual and documentary sources, memoirs, 69 interviews, newspapers and verbatim reports. To cover the first period the author’s search yielded 364 newspaper articles: 278 referred to interpretation being used in Estonia and 86 informed readers about international events. For the second period, 145 film clips and 524 photos retrieved are informative. This dissertation is, to the author's knowledge, the first to associate interpreting in Estonia with the creation of symbolic capital for the state. Expanding upon Pierre Bourdieu’s approach to symbolic capital, the author applied it not just to individuals but to states. The use of the state language (and interpretation) was directly linked with the prestige of the state and enhanced the state’s symbolic capital. After World War II not only the political order but also the linguistic environment changed in Estonia, and with an influx of Russian-speaking population there was obviously the need to ensure communication between the two population groups. In post-war Estonia the use of interpreting became highly contextualized: the dominant Soviet ideology aimed at expanding the use of Russian, whereas interpreting into Russian allowed Estonian to be used in the conference room, as well