Covid-19 and the Clash of Narratives: From Cold War to End of Time (1989-2023)

This paper discusses the impact of Covid-19 on Islamist narratives of end time scenarios that predict the annihilation of a corrupted world and its ultimate replacement by a world order based exclusively on Islam. It does this against the backdrop of Islam’s antagonistic relationship with the West, particularly from the ending of the Cold War in the early 1990s to the present day, a relationship conducted within the shadow of the US’s attempts to establish a new world order based exclusively on its own values and interests. In the light of the contrary predictions of Francis Fukuyama that the resulting Pax Americana will bring a century of peace and S. P. Huntington a century of conflict, the paper goes on to examine the vastly different world views of the United States on the one hand and Al Qaeda and Islamic State on the other and how they envisage the future unfolding. What the paper shows is that the advent of Covid-19 has served not only to convince traditional Islamic Scholars that Al Mahama, the great battle at the end of time, is well on the way and may even have started, but also to make Muslims in the streets more receptive to such a doomsday message

The Muslim Women's Movement in Indonesia: A Study of the Aisyiyah Organisation, 1966-2001

This thesis examines the role and social involvement of Aisyiyah, the female section of the Muhammadiyah, within the context of the Indonesian women's movement. This is achieved by analysing the development of the organisation visa vis other women's organisations. It looks at the activities of Aisyiyah during the period 1966-2001 which is a critical period of socio-political change in Indonesia. As the socio-political situation changed from the authoritarian New Order regime 1966-1998 to a democratic Reformation Era, from 1998 onward, Aisyiyah's activities and development during the period underwent significant change as well. Under the New Order regime, Aisyiyah was forced to design its activities to be in line with government policy in order to be socially and politically acceptable. One could even say that Aisyiyah provided justification for the government's national development policies, and seldom, if ever, opposed these. However, following the Reformation Era begun in Habiebie's government in 1998, Aisyiyah transformed itself into a socially and politically active movement that is no longer hidebound by its Muhammadiyah affiliation or by its Muslim orientation. It has readily taken up a range of national issues and has arguably become much more than simply a women's auxiliary of Muhammadiyah. Indeed, it is acquiring a life and rationale of its own

China and Muslim Separatism: The Case of Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region

Today, confrontations and conflicts between different ethnic groups have become a major issue in many countries, which has been threatening the stability and unity of these countries. These issues have been highlighted in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and Central Asia, by the destabilization of these states through a process of bloody disintegration. In consequence, many ethnic groups in multinational countries demand self-determination or secession from the dominant states by using violent action, therefore, there are many small independent states, which have emerged suddenly around the world. Since ethnic issues can be used against a country's interests, the stability of a country to a great extent depends on the degree of the relationship among its different peoples. Among these issues, ethnic conflict is considered as one of the main sources of a series of localized, international confrontations. For this reason, the issue of ethnic conflict is likely to become a big concern for the state authorities and regional government

Islamic Schools in Australia: Muslims in Australia or Australian Muslims?

The impetus for this research comes from the ongoing community debate over the increasing number of Islamic schools being established in order to meet the needs of Australia's growing Muslim population. The thesis traces the history and development of Islamic schools in Australia in the last thirty years. It acknowledges some of the early difficulties that they faced but then seeks to explore the apparent contradiction between the growing demand for the schools and increased public opposition, in particular since the events of September 2001. In Australia this took the form of growing Islamophobia accentuated by the Australian values debate after 2003, and the portrayal of the Muslim community by the media as a monolithic entity tainted by radicalised militant Islam. The research carried out over several years, starting in 2004, seeks to fill a gap in the limited literature on the subject to date. While there has been growing research on what Muslims think about life in Australia and how the wider community perceives Islam, there has been very little work done on the Islamic schools which are currently attended by about 20% of young Muslims in Australia. This thesis is constructed around three central questions posed to staff and former students at the schools. The first looks at what is taught in the faith units and who teaches these subjects. Linked to this is the question of the extent to which an Islamic ethos pervades the 'hidden curriculum', that is the other subjects taught in the curriculum and the daily rhythm of school life. The second question considers the impact of the Australian values debate and whether staff and students agree with the charge that Muslim values are different from Australian values. This question also takes into account the frequently made accusation that the schools teach intolerance of other faiths as a central tenet of Islam. Finally the thesis seeks to respond to the allegation that the schools form ghettos that isolate the students from mainstream Australian society and thus function as agents of exclusion

South Asian Studies Overseas: At The Crossroads of South Asia-Mindness in Britain, Australia, and New Zealnd

It is particularly apposite to review the state of South Asian studies in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand for the crossroads of their development and provision have dearly been reached. In the late 1960s, when I first became "South Asia-minded," South Asian studies were flourishing and clearly mainstream. Everywhere one looked there was expansion and funding with research activity and publishing output to match. In Britain, schools of postgraduates had gathered round A. L. Basham and Kenneth Ballhatchet at SOAS ' and c.c. Davies and J. Gallagher at Oxford; another school was starting to gather round Eric Stokes and Anil Seal at Cambridge. At Canberra, Anthony Low had turned the Australian National University into a world class centre for the study of modern India, and A.L. Basham" was about to turn it into a world class centre for the study of ancient India as well. New Zealand boasted an enclave of expertise on Sikhism which centred on Hew McLeod at Dunedin. Most their products soon scattered to universities around the world either going straight to "chairs" or soon to be elevated to them. It was something of a migratory merry-go-round. To New Delhi from London went Romila Thapar; R.J. Moore started at SOAS before heading for Canberra and eventually Adelaide; Peter Reeves did the round trip leaving Perth for Sussex before returning to Perth. Ravinder Kumar became Director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library via Canberra and Sydney. And so on and so forth. These were heady and exciting times

Contested Representations in Historical Perspective: Images of Islam and Australian Press, 1950-2000

Over the last fifty years, newspapers have provided Australians with much of what they know, or rather apprehend, about Islam as a religious system and about Muslim culture in general. This stands to reason. On the one hand, very few non-Muslims would bother going to the length of consulting the Koran, the prime source of Islamic theology, to discover for themselves the prescriptions for life that it lays down and embodies. On the other hand, the press has long superseded all other forms of literature as the instrument of mass communication, a register of current national and international information, and the medium through which the world's changing landscape can be regularly viewed. It follows that the popular conception of Islam, and things Islamic, is for the most part derived from journalistic coverage of events in the Muslim world as they unfold as news on a daily basis. Reports, feature articles, editorials, bold headlines, and the mandatory photograph, illustration, or cartoon supply a montage of intelligence and imagery that collectively sum up Islam and all that it seems to stand for. The question is, what does Islam seem to stand for, based on the kind of reports it has been, and continues to be accorded by the Australian press

Irish Home Rule politics and India 1873-1886 : Frank Hugh O'Donnell and other Irish 'friends of India'

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:D77929 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Reflections on History Today and the Appearance of a New World Disorder?

I was very tempted, when I received an invitation fresh off the press last month to attend my own inaugural lecture, to make inaugural lectures my theme tonight particularly in terms of the ground they covered and the perspectives they gave of the scholarly evolution of The University of New England. This temptation was made stronger by the fact that this is the 50th Anniversary of the Inaugural Lecture series. It was a temptation I eventually resisted because the archive of inaugural lectures was dauntingly vast and varied, and has been touched on anyway in Matthew Jordan's recently completed 'A spirit of true learning'

American Empire

Imperial history—the study of empires rising and falling—is making a comeback, if the recent outpouring of scholarly books on the subject is any indication. America’s current quest to install a system of international law and order in the 21st century—a 'pax Americana'—has rekindled this interest in empires. But so has the emerging framework of analysis within which imperial history is being debated and interpreted. That framework arises from the proposition that the United States is essentially an empire. It may be the most powerful of all time in military and economic terms, but America’s particular exercise of global ascendancy is characteristic of the empires which preceded it—especially Britain’s. Thus, the American empire is better understood when compared with and referenced against the kind of hegemony that empires of the past acquired and were able to exert (Ferguson 2004, p. vii). Though not the first to put this case, British historian Niall Ferguson has mounted it so forthrightly in 'Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire' that the key arguments of his book appear to have become standard points of concurrence or contestation for any subsequent reappraisal of American imperialism