Marriage and Kinship among the Amirs of the Banū al-Ḥusayn: The Rise of the Buḥturid Qadis in Rural Mamluk Syria (Eighth/Fourteenth Century)

The clan structure of the Banū Buḥtur is particularly well documented during the third reign of al-Nāṣir Muḥammad. Within this extended family from rural Syria, the amir al-Ḥusayn was renowned for his political skill, which allowed his descendants, the Banū al-Ḥusayn, to become local authorities for nearly two centuries. In this article, I focus on the role played by this eminent figure in founding an amirate in his native village of ʿBayy and advancing the economic and political interests of his kin, known as “the amirs of Gharb.” Through an anthropological reading of the local chronicles, I show how al-Ḥusayn implemented a bilateral rather than a purely patrilineal kinship system, which became the good practice (sunnah) of the Banū Buḥtur and drove their esprit de corps. I also examine al-Ḥusayn’s redefinition of clan kinship, including the notion of elective kinship, which resulted from exogamous matrimonial alliances forged with families outside the house of Buḥtur and enabled the amir to confer the local judicature (niyābat al-quḍāh) to members of his family. The case of the Banū Buḥtur enriches our knowledge of the Mamluk judicial organization in which the exercise of justice in the outlying territories was delegated to qadi substitutes from local families

The Role of the Internet in Intelligence Gathering and Spreading Propaganda

The analysis of American intelligence as an academic discipline exhibits an excellent level of integration regarding subject matter and methods from military history and strategic studies. The knowledge and information revolution steered a different online culture of sharing and oversharing. While the study of intelligence has primarily been associated with historical methods thus far, opportunities for innovation are also afforded by advances in theoretical and conceptual thinking about intelligence. Such revolutions can help intelligence history while concurrently enlightening the disputes on intelligence in the twentyfirst century. The takings from the information age consist of low cost for access to data and significant dependence on the Internet. Intelligence agencies profit from the Internet equally through open sources and concealed data gathering from networked computers (Haines, 2004). In addition, Information gathering through Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, blogs, and several social media sites, to name a few, facilitated intelligence gathering all over the world. While some researchers may argue that social media may be an intelligence-gathering tool, several reports revealed that it could also be used for propaganda and misinformation or is intelligence in support of secret operations. This project will investigate how the Internet and the use of Social Media in particular, along with the military strategy of a country, can affect the design of its market intelligence processes

Rethinking Credentials for Aviation Sustainability: A DACUM Approach

The pandemic of COVID-19 Millennials aren\u27t the youngest working generation anymore, and Gen Zers are the new kids on the block. This group of individuals, born between 1995 and 2019, already makes up 5% of the total U.S. labor force, roughly 9 million people. However, the skills gap is real and exists, one in which research shows that new college graduates either do not have all the skills employers want, or they are not doing an excellent job of demonstrating those skills in their resumes. Sustainability programs consistently encounter challenges that threaten the future as a viable academic discipline. It is exceptionally critical that academicians recognize these challenges, their implications and thus devise particular approaches to address them. Therefore, this research aims to identify what constitutes aviation and aerospace sustainability job skills to align better, improve, and fortify course content to support undergraduate and graduate students\u27 future employment. Furthermore, this research intends to reinforce a present research effort to bridge the skills gap between industry needs for sustainability in aviation and aerospace workforce and university curricula

Écrire et réécrire l'histoire druze des origines

Abstract: In his work ʿUmdat al-ʿārifīn, Šayḫ al-Ašrafānī, a Druze scholar living in Syria in the 11th/17th century, composed a Druze history of origins for the entire community. This universal history portrays Druzism as an inherent part of human history, like the other monotheistic doctrines. The author thus offers a theological account of the birth of Druzism by tracing a linear discourse of world history from Adam to the Druze daʿwa (preaching) in the 5th/11th century. Al-Ašrafānī also attributes an Islamic character to Druzism by drawing on the Druze sacred text as well as exegetical literature from the late 9th/15th century, while highlighting the Islamic nature of Druzism and its pre-eminence. This rewriting of history in the 11th/17th century contributed to the popularization of Druzism as attested in other texts from the same period. While al-Ašrafānī did not greatly influence his contemporaries, his work was of considerable importance in the Druze communities of Bilād al-Šām afterwards. Indeed, ʿUmdat al-ʿārifīn had such a substantial impact on Druze historiography that it became a historical source for writing and rewriting the Druze history of origins. Despite being quoted extensively by modern Druze historians, it remains unpublished, being kept secret in the community

Ethical Attitudes of Business Information Systems Students: An Empirical Investigation

This paper discusses attitudes toward ethical issues in information systems. Approximately 150 subjects were drawn from two populations: full-time undergraduate business information systems students and full-time master’s students. The subjects read a subset of six ethical scenarios. Hypotheses were tested for significant differences between the undergraduate students’ beliefs and those of graduate students, and female and male students who responded to the same scenarios

Cyberspace: A Venue for Terrorism

This paper discusses how cyberspace has become a venue for terrorists groups for recruiting and proliferating propaganda and terrorism. Moreover, this study explores how the low cost Internet infrastructure and social media sites (such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube) have contributed to their networking and operations due to the convenience, in terms of availability, accessibility, message redundancy, ease of use, and the inability to censor content. Concepts such as cyber-weapons, cyber-attacks, cyber-war, and cyber-terrorism are presented and explored to assess how terrorist groups are exploiting cyberspace