The persistence of the caliphate debate in Egyptian legal thought: Historical analysis from 1925 to 2014

In the early centuries of Islam, the term caliph was referred to the highest leader of the Muslim community. He had two roles; firstly as a ruler practicing the roles of the Prophet and secondly as a religious leader leading the communal prayers. The Caliphate has appeared for fourteen centuries and was abolished by Mustafa Kemal Atātūrk in 1924. Although Muslims have been without caliph for ninety years, heated controversy on the restoration of the Caliphate has been debated among Egyptians since 1920s until 2015. This thesis aims to answer the caliphate question,” is the Caliphate obligatory in Shari’a?” by conducting a historical analysis of the views of six sunni scholars and the group of Islam State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) on the caliphate from 1920s to 2014. Two of the six sunni scholars, ‘Alī ‘Abdal Rāziq and Nasr Hāmyd Abū Zayd argued that the Caliphate had no foundations neither in the Qur’an nor Sunna. The other sunni scholars, ‘Abdal -Rāziq al-Sanhūrī, Muhammad ‘Imāra, Hasan al-Banā, Ibn Taymiyya and ISIS believed in the obligation of the Caliphate in Shari’a

Islamic risk management and its role in defending from the global financial crises : useful practices for traditional banks

Stability is a basic requirement for the proper functioning of the banking system and a key to its contribution to growth and development. During the 1980s, the failure of banks became a common phenomenon that preceded economic crises. Bank insurance funds in countries with deposit guarantee schemes have lost substantial amounts, causing the loss of taxpayers’ money. The hope was that the crisis would be restricted to financial markets, with few repercussions on the real economies. This hope was shattered in September 2008 as the crisis entered an acute phase, with strong downward fluctuations in the stock markets and reduced rates of economic growth. Despite the financial crisis of 2008 is nearly five years behind us, yet its impact on financial markets persists. Financial institutions face a “New Reality” of lower returns, higher volatility and increased scrutiny from boards and regulators. In the meanwhile, Islamic finance has been experiencing a rapid acceleration worldwide. According to reports, which conducted a worldwide survey of the development of Islamic financial institutions comparing to traditional financial institution during 2009, it shows a two-digit growth by the Islamic industry despite the severe impact of the global financial crises of 2008 and 2009. While Islamic financial institutions have successfully qualified the robustness test by exhibiting greater resilience during the recent global financial crises, regulatory regimes are under review in the wake of the financial crisis as regulators seek to bolster financial stability and avoid a repeat of the problems that led to the current situation. The financial crisis has demonstrated the need for an integrated approach to risk management and one that encourages risk managers to think in terms of scenarios. In my research, I will discuss the challenges and opportunities of implementation the Islamic financial engineering methods that may assist conventional institutions facing in a changing market environment and frequent financial crisis

Matrix Jacobi Biorthogonal Polynomials via Riemann-Hilbert problem

We consider matrix orthogonal polynomials related to Jacobi type matrices of weights that can be defined in terms of a given matrix Pearson equation. Stating a Riemann-Hilbert problem we can derive first and second order differential relations that these matrix orthogonal polynomials and the second kind functions associated to them verify. For the corresponding matrix recurrence coefficients, non-Abelian extensions of a family of discrete Painlev\'e d-PIV equations are obtained for the three term recurrence relation coefficients

Pharmacological Challenge Models in Clinical Drug Developmental Programs

Early phase clinical research for drug development requires the investigation of safety, tolerability and efficacy of novel compounds. The latter is hampered by the absence of the disorder in healthy volunteers, which is why challenge models are often applied in order to demonstrate ‘proof of pharmacology.’ These challenge models can often be translatable from animal work and can inform the drug developer which dose, dosing regimen or application frequency should be selected prior to phase II studies in the target population. Furthermore, these challenge models represent well-controlled settings to perform activity screening of the compound. The following skin challenge models will be reviewed in this chapter: inflammation induced by Toll-like receptor agonists such as imiquimod, KLH challenge, UV-B irradiation and histamine

Review of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery in a General Hospital Setting: Experience from a Developing Country

Background: Plastic and reconstructive surgery in developing countries and underserved areas are significantly limited and face changes to start a proper service. This study presents a review of plastic surgery services and experiences in a district hospital located in an underserved area.Methods: This descriptive, retrospective, hospital-based study was conducted to review patients who presented to the plastic and reconstruction departments from January 2014 to January 2015. All patients seen in the outpatient clinic or emergency departments for plastic surgical consultation or management were included in the study.Results: The total of 403 cases fulfilled the inclusion criteria. The emergency surgical operation performed in our unit were distributed in the following descending order; fingertip injury (32%), cut wrist (12.7%), cut extensor tendon (9.9%), gunshot injuries (9.4%), fracture of a small bone of the hand (8.3%), and lower limb trauma. Surgery for congenital deformities constituted the most elective operation done in our unit (31.6 %), followed by tumor surgery (18.7%), burn surgery (17.3%), aesthetic surgery procedure (12.2%), and other miscellaneous cases (12.2%).Conclusion: This report demonstrates the efficacy of secondary hospital setting to accommodate a large volume of patients during the first year of establishment, and further predicting development needs, staff training, and governmental support

Note: Accounting for pressure effects on the calculated equilibrium structure of glassy GeSe2:

First-principles molecular dynamics (FPMD) data on the structural properties of glassy GeSe2 under ambient conditions are produced by carefully considering and minimizing the effect of a residual pressure on the periodic system. When compared to previous FPMD results, this strategy leads to an improved agreement between theory and neutron diffraction experiments

A Series of 4- and 5-Coordinate Ni(II) Complexes: Synthesis, Characterization, Spectroscopic, and DFT Studies

A series of four- and five-coordinate Ni(II) complexes CztBu(PyriPr)2NiX (1–3 and 1·THF–3·THF), where X = Cl, Br, and I, were synthesized and fully characterized by NMR and UV–vis spectroscopy, X-ray crystallography, cyclic voltammetry, and density functional theory calculations. The solid-state structures of 1–3 reveal rare examples of seesaw Ni(II) complexes. In solution, 1–3 bind reversibly to a THF molecule to form five-coordinate adducts. The electronic transitions in the visible region (630–680 nm), attributed to LMCT bands, for 1 → 3 exhibit a bathochromic shift. The thermochromic tendency of the five-coordinate complexes implies the loss of THF coordination at elevated temperatures. Finally, the electronic properties of all Ni(II) complexes were studied by time-dependent density functional theory calculations to characterize the nature of the excited states

Affordable Double-Reference Approach for Simulating Electrified Pt(111)/Water Interfaces

The electrified solid-liquid interface plays an essential role in many renewable energy-related applications, including hydrogen production and utilization. Limitations in computational modelling of the electrified solid-liquid interface have held back the understanding of its properties at the atomic-scale level. In this study, we applied the grand canonical density functional theory (GC-DFT) combined with a hybrid implicit/explicit solvation model to reinvestigate the widely studied electrified platinum-water interface affordably. This GC-DFT method was validated by successfully reproducing the experimental potential of zero charge (PZC) of the Pt(111)-water interface. The calculated capacitances of the Pt(111)-water interface over the applied bias potential closely match the experimental and previous theoretical data from expensive ab-initio molecular dynamics simulations. The structural analysis of the interface models reveals that the applied bias potential can significantly affect the Pt(111)-water atomic interface configurations. The orientation of the water molecules next to the Pt(111) surface is vital for correctly describing the PZC and capacitance. Additionally, our GC-DFT results confirm that the absorption of the hydrogen atom under applied bias potential can significantly affect the electrified interfacial properties. The developed affordable GC-DFT approach, therefore, offers an efficient and accurate means to enhance the understanding of electrified solid-liquid interfaces.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures, supporting information, still under revie