Session 1

Theme

Continuity, Contestations and the Future

Convenor

Omar Farouk (Hiroshima City University, Japan)

chair

Omar Farouk

Speakers

1. Michael Gilsenan (New York University, USA)
   Problems and Approaches in Anthropologies of Islam and Society
2. Leif Manger (University of Bergen, Norway)
   One Religion, Two Decades, Three Problems: Reflections on the Study of Islam by an Anthropologist
3. Abdulkader Tayob (University of Cape Town, South Africa)
   Taking Religion Seriously: Understanding Islam in Society
4. Hood Salleh (The National University of Malaysia, Malaysia)
   Islam on the Margin: Ethnographic Perspectives
5. KOSUGI Yasushi (Kyoto University, Japan)
   Islamic Area Studies: Japanese/Global Perspectives
6. Nelly Hanna (American University in Cairo, Egypt)
   Some Future Perspectives for the Study of Ottoman Courts of Law

The last decade or so has witnessed an unprecedented proliferation of Islamic think-tanks, research institutes, centres of learning, schools, faculties and universities all over the world. The desire to know more about Islam, albeit for all kinds of different reasons, now seems to be universal. However, traditional or classical Islamic studies which used to be conceptualized, taught and developed essentially as text-based and faith-centred subjects, incorporating the study of Islamic sources and methodology, the Quran, hadith and the sciences of exegesis, morality, law and jurisprudence, Arabic language, while arguably may be still relevant and necessary in certain contexts, have already countenanced internal tensions and contradictions which have highlighted their structural and functional limitations. At the same time the paradigmatic changes that have been unfolding in the knowledge landscape encompassing all fields and subjects including Islamic studies are too far-reaching and telling not to be noticed. The image of Islamic Studies as the strict preserve of the traditional ulama or the domain of the believers only which is out-of-bounds to others has already been shattered. Today the need to re-invent and re-generate Islamic scholarship to take into account both the role of the classical texts as well as the ever-changing contexts, and the amazing diversity of sources of Islamic knowledge that has evolved today especially in cyberspace and through the media has already been widely recognized. The corpora of academic and popular literature that have been produced as a result of this transformation are enormous. The idea that scholarship on Islam will continue to be dominated by the traditional centres of Islam in the Middle East has become increasingly untenable. Islam at the margins; in Southeast Asia, Europe, America and Africa is also asserting its role. Even in a country like Japan, which is relatively new to Islamic Studies, there already exists an impressive stock of serious and systematic research-based works on various aspects of Islam and the Muslim peoples. The amount of new knowledge that has been generated by this development is amazing. A casual survey of works produced on Islam and the Muslims elsewhere in the world and their manner of production seems to reinforce this trend. What has actually changed about scholarship on Islam and the Muslims? What are the elements of continuity that can be observed in the new generation of Islamic scholarship and how can they be rationalized? How has the new Islamic scholarship been received and how has it been contested? To what extent, for example, has e-fatwa been accepted and how has it been resisted and by whom? What is now expected of Islamic studies not just in esoteric terms but more so at the practical level? How can Islamic scholarship benefit humanity? In an increasingly globalized and digitalized world where science and technology continue to prevail, what place can we envisage for Islamic Studies in the future? Will it become less or more relevant? These are some of the critical questions that this Plenary Session hopes to address.

Session 2A

Theme

'Islamic Homelands' inside Regional Powers

Convenor and Chair

YAMANE So (Osaka University, Japan)

Speakers

1. Moinuddin AQEEL (International Islamic University, Pakistan)
   The Muslims, the Sharia, and the Land: Problems, Concepts and Conflicts in South Asia
2. MA Qiang (Shaan Xi Normal University, China)
   Loving of the Nation and Loving of the Din: A Historical Analysis on Formation of Hui Muslim Minority’s Dual Identities in China
3. NAGANAWA Norihiro (Hokkaido University, Japan)
   The War on Pan-Islamism in the Multi-Confessional Setting of Russia’s Volga-Urals Region, 1905-1917

The purpose of this session is to compare how Muslims living in "Regional Powers in Eurasia" have viewed these homelands within the Islamic concepts of Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. Specifically, we want to examine the thoughts and actions of religious minority Muslim populations in Russia, China, and India in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This was a time when colonial expansion radically transformed the local political, societal, and economic structures in Muslim regions and cross-border Muslim networks. In these areas, Muslim thinkers of the day spoke about their homelands in the context of Islam. Some considered their homelands to be Dar al-Harb and called on Muslims to migrate to Dar al-Islam. Others argued that their homelands should be seen as Dar al-Islam, since they could live there in accordance with Islamic law.

Today, the lasting imprint of colonialism continues to greatly influence the development of Islamic revivalism. While Islam has functioned as a cause for protest against imperialist rulers, Muslims have also often used Islam as grounds for negotiations between states. How have Muslims modified Islamic terms and concepts in the course of their interactions with empires? How have they transmitted Islamic knowledge to successive generations, and even expanded it to other parts of the Muslim world? How do they reconcile being members of the global Islamic community and simultaneously citizens of "infidel" states? When states rely on Muslim travelers to exert their influence abroad, are these Muslim agents carrying out a form of imperialism? How have rivalries between the great powers in history affected this? Within the framework of the comparative research project "Regional Powers in Eurasia," this session will tackle these and other questions, fostering dialogues between international scholars studying Islam and empires.

(This session is supported by the "Beyond the Contours of the State" research project of Comparative Research "Major Regional Powers in Eurasia", a recipient of five-year grant-in-aid from Japan’s Ministry of Education and Science for scientific research in innovative areas.)

Session 2B

Theme

Continuity and Change of Legal Institutions: Modernization and the Sharia Courts in the 19th and 20th Centuries

Convenor

MIURA Toru (Ochanomizu University, Japan)

chair

OKAWARA Tomoki (Tohoku University, Japan)

Speakers

1. Paolo Sartori (Martin Luther University, Germany)
   The Birth of a Custom: Nomads, Sharia Courts and Established Practices in the Tashkent Province, ca. 1868-1919
2. AKIBA Jun (Chiba University, Japan)
   Sharia Judges in the Nizamiye Court System in the Late Ottoman Empire
   (Read on behalf of Paolo Sartori by ISOGAI Ken'ichi)
3. Léon Buskens (Leiden University, Netherlands)
   The Genesis of the Modern Judicial System in Morocco

Discussant

HORII Satoe (J. F. Oberlin University, Japan)

The Islamic Area Studies Center at the Toyo Bunko collects and studies Islamic source materials, and develops study tools to facilitate their systematic use. As a research project, we have been focusing on a comparative study of institutions based on archival documents, such as sharia court records. At international IAS conferences in 2008 and 2009, we organized sessions entitled "The Mosque and Local Society" and "Theory and Practice of Sharia Courts," respectively. The latter shed light on the involvement of muftis, administrators, and non-ulama judges in the judicial process, and rethought our understanding of the qadi's role in Sharia courts.

At the Kyoto Conference this year, we are organizing a session focusing on the notion of change in Sharia courts in different parts of the Islamic world from the mid-19th to mid-20th century. During this period, wide-ranging legal and judicial reforms were introduced in Muslim countries, largely inspired or imposed by European countries. This process would generally lead to the creation of a new court system or the institutionalization of existing judicial mechanisms that would adjudicate cases according to state law. However, in colonized regions and independent states, Sharia courts survived side-by-side with new judicial institutions, while their jurisdictions were largely reduced to matters of personal status. The Sharia courts were reorganized into a centralized system, and Sharia itself was partially replaced by applying codified laws based on Sharia, the most prominent example being the Mecelle (Majalla), the civil code compiled by the Ottoman state.

This panel will use case studies from the Ottoman Empire, Central Asia, and Morocco to examine continuities and changes within the institution of the Sharia court during the reform period, when Sharia courts were put under the centralized state’s strict control and faced challenges from the newly emerging judicial institutions. Each paper sheds light on the actual operations of the Sharia and other courts, and the activities and backgrounds of the judicial officers and other legal experts, such as judges, muftis, and notaries. Comparison of these three geographic regions will deepen our understanding of 'modern' Sharia as it is implemented in courts and other arenas, and its influence on society at large.

This panel positions itself in the context of Toyo Bunko IAS research activities on the question of modernizing Sharia and its institutions, through examination of the Mecelle and the memoirs of Ahmed Cevdet Paşa, the central figure in the codification of the Mecelle.

Session 3A

Theme

Islamist Discourse in Media: Papers, Computers, and Satellites

Convenor

HOSAKA Shuji (JIME Center, the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan)

chair

TANAKA Koichiro (JIME Center, the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan)

Speakers

1. Gary R. Bunt (University of Wales, United Kingdom)
   E-jihad: a Brief History
2. Zahid Munir Amir (al-Azhar University, Egypt; University of Punjab, Pakistan)
   Iqbal's Rationale of an Independent Homeland for the Muslims of South Asia

Discussants

HOSAKA Shuji

ABE Ruri (Sophia University, Japan)

YAMANE So (Osaka University, Japan)

This session will focus on the expanding role of new media platforms in Muslim societies, and on the changes media has brought to international, national and regional organizations in the Islamic world. This session is organized by two groups, both research units of the Center for Islamic Area Studies at Kyoto University (KIAS). One group, Research Unit 2 headed by YAMANE So, investigates moderate trends in the Islamic world, and the other, Research Unit 3 headed by HOSAKA Shuji, studies contemporary Islamic radical trends.

These two groups conduct research, both basic studies and case analysis, on the historical developments and the present status of organizations originating in the Middle East and South Asia, their mutual relationships, their networks, their social backgrounds and leadership, and trends in the ideas they represent. This research has lead the two groups to a shared view that the organizations they investigate, whether described as "moderate" or as "radical", are inevitably participants in the broad-scale transmission of media. In other words, their establishment and transformations are strongly dependent on the effects of media. This implies that the role of media is, in a sense, more important to the elucidation of these organizations than such cursory classifications as "moderate" or "radical."

In light of this shared view, we will begin by outlining the role of the media, which communicates the ideas of these Islamic organizations. We will then look at individual cases from the Middle East, South Asia, and other regions, giving special attention to the different types of media and the emergence of new media. We expect that these considerations will provide new possibilities for further study of international, national and regional organizations in the Islamic world.

Session 3B

Theme

Towards a Comparative Study of Southeast Asian Kitabs

Convenor

KAWASHIMA Midori (Sophia University, Japan)

chairs

KAWASHIMA Midori

ARAI Kazuhiro (Keio University, Japan)

Speakers

1. Oman Fathurahman (Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Indonesia)
   Understanding Islam In Southeast Asia Through The Kitab Collection
2. ARAI Kazuhiro & YANAGIYA Ayumi (National Institutes for the Humanities/The Toyo Bunko (Oriental Library), Japan)
   Notes on the Catalog-making of Southeast Asian Kitabs: Linguistic and Bibliographical Characteristics of the Kitabs
3. Ervan Nurtawab (Jurai Siwo State Islamic College, Indonesia)
   From Arabia to the Land below the Winds: The Authorship of Kitabs Spread in Southeast Asia as Seen in the Sophia University Collection
4. SUGAHARA Yumi (Osaka University, Japan)
   The Changes in Kitab Users Resulting from the Transition from Manuscripts to Printed Kitabs
5. KAWASHIMA Midori
   A Preliminary Study of Networks of the Mindanao Ulama: A View from the Kitabs

Southeast Asia is a region wherein people of diverse cultures have traversed and interacted. In this process, various social networks were formed, which coexisted at different levels and transformed in response to changing social, political, and economic conditions. Through such complex, multi-layered, and ever-changing networks, Southeast Asians have interacted among themselves and with those outside the region, incorporating diverse ideas and cultural elements introduced from abroad, integrating them with those that existed among themselves, and thereby created their own ideas and cultures. It is in this context that people in the region accepted Islam, and incorporated and indigenized its beliefs and practices.

We focus our attention on networks of Muslims in Southeast Asia from this viewpoint, and particularly on those related to the production, publication and circulation of kitabs. By examining how, why, and by whom these kitabs were produced, circulated, and used, we can identify networks of communication, education, and business that are linked together through the medium of kitabs. Furthermore, by examining the text of the kitabs and comparing them with those of different times and places, we can further our understanding of the way in which Southeast Asians interpreted and understood Islam, and how they attempted to convey their ideas to others. In particular, comparing texts of different versions of a certain kitab in diverse languages (such as Malay-Indonesian, Javanese, Sundanese, Acehnese, southern Philippine languages, Cham, Arabic etc), would shed light on various aspects of the phenomena of Islamization, indigenization of Islam, and re-Islamization, that occurred in the region.

In order to establish a solid foundation on which such a comparative study could develop, Group 2 of the Section for Islamic Area Studies of Sophia University has been collecting kitabs from various parts of Southeast Asia and compiling a catalog, in collaboration with Toyo Bunko (Oriental Library). In this session, we shall present the general view and characteristics of the collection and its catalog, and some of the findings of our research concerning the collection and catalog-making. We shall also discuss the prospects, potentials and strategies for the further development of this field of study.

Session 4

Theme

Islam and Multiculturalism

Convenor

Hamidin Abd Hamid (Razak School of Government, Malaysia)

Chair

Hamidin Abd Hamid

Speakers

1. Hanan Rafik Mohamed El-Kawiish (Cairo University, Egypt) and YOSHIDA Shohei (Yokohama National University, Japan)
   When Arabic Finds its Way Abroad: the Pronunciation Difficulties as Encountered in Japan
2. Osman Bakar (International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies, Malaysia)
   Najib’s 1-Malaysia Policy in the Light of Past Government Islam Policies
3. Hamidin Abd Hamid
   Islam and Multiculturalism: the East African Context

Contrary to the image portrayed by news reports and the mainstream media, there are more Muslims outside than inside the Arabian homeland of Islam. Sixty percent of Muslims reside in Asia whereas another twenty percent are represented by societies in Africa. The spread of Islamic religious doctrine and practice has maintained its momentum most likely because it left room for practical negotiation, reinterpretation and syncretic absorption of local cultures and beliefs. At the same time, economic and political power are also interwoven into the complexities of the many faces of Islam that we see today, particularly in terms of the political aspects of Muslim societies. Looking at practiced Islam “on the ground” from community to community highlights the vast diversity in the interpretation of Islamic doctrine and religious practice. These features form the basis for talking about Islam and multiculturalism in the same breath.

With the spread of Islam, Arabic also emerged as a lingua franca in the sub-regions of the various continents. How does language figure into the discussion on Islam and multiculturalism in a plural society? Both the religion and the language transcended the different pre-Islamic ethnolinguistic backgrounds of the new Muslim communities. Scholars continue to argue, however, on the nature of the relationship between Islam and multiculturalism. The fact that Islam has been adopted by a multitude of ethnic groups in any one locality supports the argument that Islam can coexist in a plural society.

Session 5A

Theme

Faith-Based NGOs in the Muslim World

Convenor

NEJIMA Susumu (Toyo University, Japan)

Chair

Omar Farouk (Hiroshima City University, Japan)

Speakers

1. NEJIMA Susumu
   Hamdard Foundations in India and Pakistan
2. HOSOYA Sachiko (Toho University, Japan)
   Caregiving Volunteer Activities in Kahrizak Charity Care Center in Iran
3. Amy Singer (Tel Aviv University, Israel)
   Waqfs: faith-based Islamic institutions before modern NGOs
4. Erica Bornstein (University of Wisconsin, USA)
   Religion, Charity, and Law in India: Historical and Contemporary Reflections

This session will examine faith-based NGOs in the Muslim world. The NIHU IAS study group “Islam and NGOs” has been researching this issue for the last five years, covering a wide range of the activities of medical and educational projects financially supported by waqf, community efforts for environmental protection in Indonesia, volunteer activities for the elderly and the handicapped in Tehran, pro-veil advocacy by professional women in Ankara, and so on. This session is the group’s final presentation of results. Two additional participants will provide material for comparative studies; Amy Singer will speak about the role of waqf in Islamic societies historically, using the past to shed light on the present. Erica Bornstein will speak about the colonial and post-colonial history of India’s secular state in relation to the regulation of religious charity, particularly, sacred Hindu conceptions of da(a with overline)n (donation) that continue in the present.

NGOs based on the Islamic faith and its institutions are active in a variety of fields, including social welfare, education, health services, and disaster relief. Some are also involved in more contemporary issues, such as gender equality, environmental protection, and inter-religious dialogues. These NGOs transcend the traditional geographic scope of the Islamic world (from Morocco to Indonesia), with some of them being headquartered in Muslim minority communities in Europe and North America. This session will show the diversity of activities by these NGOs, and show how they reflect various aspects of Muslim life.

The objectives and activities of these NGOs are rooted in Islamic values, discourses, and institutions. Inspired by the Qur'an and Hadith, discourses are usually created around the basic ideals of qurba and thawab (good deeds), which Muslims have historically attempted to institutionalize in their societies. Institutions such as zakat, sadaqa and waqf, together with ideals, have been utilized in the establishment of numerous schools, orphanages, and hospitals. The organizational device of waqf afforded legal status to social service and welfare endeavors, protecting both the endowed properties and the beneficiaries, while anchoring the practices associated today with emergency relief and basic development in sustainable institutions. Endowment deeds also articulated clearly the framework of belief and religious practice within which such activities were conceived.

Session 5B

Theme

Discovering Oral History in Central Asia

Convenor

KOMATSU Hisao (The University of Tokyo, Japan)

Chair

KOMATSU Hisao

Speakers

1. Güljanat Kurmangaliyeva Ercilasun (Kwangwoon University, Korea; Maltepe University, Turkey)
   Islam in the Soviet Kyrgyzstan: Practices in an Atheist State
2. Timur Dadabaev (University of Tsukuba, Japan)
   Nostalgia for Soviet Times in Central Asia: The Case Study of Post-Soviet Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan
3. KAWAHARA Yayoi (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)/Chuo University, Japan)
   The Uyghurs of the Ferghana Valley and Their Recollections of Crossing the Border

Discussant

KONAGAYA Yuki (National Museum of Ethnology, Japan)

More than twenty years have passed since the collapse of the USSR. This passage of time calls for a re-examination of the modern history of the former Soviet countries of Central Asia, one that will give us a better understanding of the many changes that Central Asian societies formed during the seventy years of Soviet rule have undergone since 1991.

During the Soviet era, the development of these societies was overwhelmingly influenced by the ideology of the Communist Party, which described its actions as the successful establishment of socialism in the "backward" countries of Central Asian. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, the revised national histories of these newly independent countries have tended to depict the Soviet period in relatively negative tones, while emphasizing the progress brought to these societies through their new independence. These contradictory and often mutually exclusive interpretations of historical events and their significance result in urgent needs; to re-evaluate our approach to the construction of histories, and to develop more effective research methodologies that depict history in less extreme tones.

In response to these needs, the Islamic Area Studies group at the University of Tokyo has joined with regional scholars to set up an oral history project that locates, collects, records, and analyzes the memories of daily life as related by the senior citizens of Central Asia. Through this documentation, these memories can reveal hitherto unknown aspects of the lives of ordinary citizens during the Soviet era. Further, these memories can provide the oral accounts which have been thus far ignored or largely undervalued by both Soviet and post-Soviet national historiographers. The core thrust of this project is the message that people's collective memories constitute an invaluable resource on the history of Soviet Central Asia. They can provide scholars and the public at large with invaluable empirical information on the past, which can very often complement the bulk of information available in official Party and other Soviet documents. Moreover, these oral accounts are also an exclusive source of information not taken into account by Soviet and post-Soviet historiographers, who undervalued its importance. If not properly recorded, preserved, and analyzed, these narratives and memories may disappear with the succession of generations in these post-Soviet countries.

This session will present the findings of the two-pronged research project on memories of the Soviet past conducted in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan from 2006 to the present. The first group of scholars has focused on collecting, recording, and analyzing oral accounts of daily life (employing maximum variation sampling) in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. And the other group has focused on the collection of oral historical sources from people who have preserved the historical memory of migration from Xinjiang to the Ferghana Valley in the last centuries.

Session 6A

Theme

Islamist Movements at a Crossroads: Legalization or Illegalization

Convenor

KISAICHI Masatoshi (Sophia University, Japan)

Chair

SHIMIZU Manabu (Teikyo University, Japan)

Speakers

1. MIZOBUCHI Masaki (Sophia University, Japan)
   'Is Resistance the Solution?': Lebanon Hizbullah's 'Resistance Society' and its Dilemma
2. MIICHI Ken (Iwate Prefectural University, Japan)
   Political Adaptation of an Islamist Party in Indonesia: The "Market Strategy" of the Prosperous Justice Party
3. François Burgat (CNRS, France)
   Islamist Trends and Political Opening in the Middle East

Discussant

YOKOTA Takayuki (Nihon University, Japan)

Michael Feener (National University of Singapore, Singapore)

Ever since the 1970's Islamist movements have disbursed extensive energy in creating political and social change, by utilizing the vast support they received from the people. This tendency encompassed not just the Middle-East and North African countries but also Central Asia, South-East Asia, and the sub-Saharan regions, and finally in 1979 it led to the birth of the “Islamic Republic of Iran.” The 1980’s were indeed a time when such Islamist groups attained the summit. However, with the advent of the 1990’s, violent conflicts between Islamist groups and regimes and also within the groups themselves became intensified, and a tempest of terrorism began to rage. This terrorism was a product both of the Islamists and the regimes, and the case of Algeria is typical. Later the path of the Islamist movements was divided in two. The first was a movement oriented towards legalization, and this achieved a certain degree of success in political participation. This too however split in two, namely into types such as the Hamas in Palestine that expressed a goal of state building in accordance with Islamic law, and another such as the case of Turkey, Morocco, and Indonesia, that did not reveal goals such as state-building in accordance with Islamic law. The Hezbollah in Lebanon recently changed their policy from the former to the latter. The second is the movement to remain in a state of illegalization, as is the case of the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt. An epigone arising from this tendency is the al-Qaida, which aims at global terrorism. Where then are the Islamist movements headed? This session aims to discuss the actual situation of the Islamist movements and their future perspectives.

There is no general consensus among researchers as regards the definitions of the terms "Islamism" and "Islamist Movements." Hence we have tentatively defined them as follows: (1) Islamism and Islamist Movements are phenomena that made their appearance either during or after the modern period. (2) Islamism is Islamic thought with a political intention. (3) Islamist movements are political, economic, and social movements based on such Islamic thought. Therefore, certain Islamist movements and parties (as for example the AKP of Turkey and the PJD of Morocco) which do not clearly present a concept of state-building based on Islamic law (Sharia), but are linked to political, economic, and social movements, should be included in the discussion.

Session 6B

Theme

Natural Resource Use and Environmental Conservation in the Arabian Peninsula

Convenor

NAWATA Hiroshi (Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Japan)

Chair

SATO Yo-ichiro (Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Japan)

Speakers

1. Dorian Q. Fuller (University College London, United Kingdom)
   Arabian Economic Pursuits in Prehistory: Coastal Resource, Trade, Pastoralism and Cultivation
2. Lutfallah Gari (Saudi Arabia)
   Three Hima-s, Past and Present
3. NAWATA Hiroshi
   Traditional Natural Resource Use and Conservation of Juniper Woodlands in the Arabian Peninsula: A Case Analysis of Raydah Nature Reserve in Southwestern Saudi Arabia

Al-hima is a traditional system for managing natural resources that was once used throughout the Arabian Peninsula. Modern scientists and international organizations have started to re-examine this approach and its practices as a means of managing natural resources today.

In this session, we focus on environmental conservation and the use of natural resources in the Middle East. In this context, these traditional resource-use mechanisms, which have survived through the pre-oil and oil eras, must be studies so that we may build viable future societies for the post-oil era.

Tree resources are one of the best specific examples to use in identifying and analyzing the interactions and variations between local communities, from the pre-oil era, to the oil era, and into the forthcoming post-oil era. Trees, as a renewable source of energy sources, should be included among the alternative energy options of the post-oil ear, and need to be re-assessed in light of changing values. Understanding the traditional use and management of tree resources within the social ecosystems of the pre-oil and oil eras will help us plan appropriately for tree exploitation and conservation in the post-oil era.

Session 7A

Theme

Socio-economic Dimensions of Palestine Question

Convenor

NAGASAWA Eiji (University of Tokyo, Japan)

Chairs

NAGASAWA Eiji

USUKI Akira (Japan Women's University, Japan)

Speakers

1. TAKAIWA Nobutada (Hitotsubashi University, Japan)
   Waqf in Modern History of Palestine
2. Raja Khalidi (UNCTAD, Switzerland)
   The economic dimensions of prolonged occupation: Continuity and change in Israeli policy towards the Palestinian economy
3. Ahmad H. Sa'di (Senior Lecturer, Ben-Gurion University, Israel)
   The economic dimensions of prolonged occupation: Continuity and change in Israeli policy towards the Palestinian economy

The Islamic Area Studies (IAS) project has organized a series of workshops and conferences on the Palestine Question for the past three years. This session in Kyoto IAS international conference focuses on socio-economic dimensions of the issue with special references to the prospect of the Palestinian economic development. The Palestinian economy is argued on the grounds of a nascent national economy, supposed to develop in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as the territories of an independent Palestinian state in the near future. But politically speaking this area is seriously divided and economically disintegrated and fragmented. And yet, Israeli security measures and discriminative economic policies toward the Palestinian residents continue to be the main obstacles for an integrative development of this tormented Palestinian economy. Being divided by walls and fences, humiliated at a large number of checkpoints, deprived of job opportunities and freedom to move due to the siege imposed on Gaza, the Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem have been forced to confront severe economic difficulties such as unemployment and poverty in the daily life. This depressing economic prospect of the area urges us to reconsider the definition of the Palestinian economy itself, or to reflect on a desirable economic development for all the Palestinians, including populations outside this area. Above all the economy concerned with refugees in Diaspora and Israeli Palestinians should be discussed with importance.

The session explores socio-economic situations of the Palestinians in the different situations and examines possibilities of their economic interactions and cooperation among communities, and the economic affect of repatriation of the Palestinian refugees in Diaspora. Such alternative developmental prospect for Palestinians is in need of a recovery of deprived basic economic rights of Palestinians. Since Israeli arbitrary confiscation of land and properties has been hindering the progress of economic development for Palestinians, the session also focuses on the prospects of the way out by traditional and indigenous means such as Waqf, Islamic charitable funds. Waqf functions occasionally as a political tool for resistance against the Israeli arbitrary confiscation. It will be argued whether Waqf funds can make a contribution to a possible survival for the Palestinians.

Session 7B

Theme

Structure and Transformation of Scientific Knowledge in Islam

Convenor and Chair

KOBAYASHI Haruo (Tokyo Gakugei University, Japan)

Speakers

1. MATSUMOTO Akiro (St. Thomas University, Japan)
   Nature of Knowledge in the Pre-Modern Muslim World
2. Mohammad Javad Esmaeili(Iranian Institute of Philosophy, Iran)
   Avicenna On Dynamics Historical Context And Conceptual Development In Greek, Arabic, And Latin Sources
3. MIMURA Taro (McGill University, Canada)
   From Astrology Emerged Cosmology: A Close Analysis of Astronomical Activities in the Medieval Islamic World

Discussants

NIGO Toshiharu (NIHU/Kyoto University, Japan)

KUSUBA Takanori (Osaka University of Economics, Japan)

With the result of numerous studies accumulated through many years, a revision of the nature and role of science in the Islamic world is in progress. As for this revision, two issues seem to us to be of special importance. One concerns the conventional view that the science and scientific investigation are "foreign," i.e., heterogeneous, to the Muslim societies. The other concerns the viewpoint of researchers accustomed to assess the scientific achievements in the Islamic world as precursors of the Modern (Western) science, not in the context of Muslim societies themselves. This critical approach has advanced the historical research of science in Islam especially in the subjects of astronomy, mathematics, medicine. But it is regrettable that such research has been conducted within the field of history of science, isolated from the other fields of intellectual history in Islam, and thus the results have not been fully recognized.

In view of this situation, we try to undertake a new task of putting those rich results in a wider context and shedding light on them from another aspect in the session titled "Structure and Transmission of Scientific Knowledge in Islam." In other words, our purpose of this session is to bridge between the study of history of science and the study of history of thought in the Islamic world. For this purpose, firstly, we will discuss the position of science in Islam from the general view of intellectual history. Secondly, we will take up two specific topics, one from physics and the other from astronomy, in order to situate scientific activities in their own contexts and clarify the mechanism of development in the Muslim societies. The following three presentations are scheduled in our session:

1. The nature and role of science in Islam through the concepts of "knowledge" in Islamic intellectual traditions;
2. The structure and transformation of scientific knowledge with special reference to Ibn Sīnā's theory of 'mayl'—known as 'impetus' in Latin medieval philosophy;
3. The relation between scientific activities and society through the development of astronomy from "astrology" to "cosmology."

Session 8A

Theme

Political Reform and its Aftermath in the Arab States

Convenors

MATSUMOTO Hiroshi (Daito Bunka University, Japan)

SUECHIKA Kota (Ritsumeikan University, Japan)

Chair

MATSUMOTO Hiroshi

Speakers

1. Raymond Hinnebusch (University of St. Andrews, UK)
   Toward a Sociology of State Formation in the Middle East
2. YOSHIOKA Akiko (JIME Center, The Institute of Energy Economics, Japan)
   Progress and Challenges in the Democratization of Iraq
3. SUECHIKA Kota
   If Not Authoritarianism nor Democracy, then What?: Lebanese Power-sharing Arrangements after the 2005 Independence intifada
4. TSUJIGAMI Namie (Kochi Women's University, Japan)
   An Alternative to Democracy: Saudi Arabia's Strategic Policies in the Post 9.11 Era

Is the Arab world an exception in the post-cold war world? While Eastern Europe has shifted toward political change in the last twenty years - toward democratization in particular, authoritarian regimes, whether republics or monarchies, are still prevalent in the Arab world. These regimes have also survived the recent attempts of the United States and other European powers to foster reform and spread democracy in the Arab world through the US-led War on Terror.

Yet, this doesn't mean that Arab states have gone without any political changes in recent years. Although Iraq’s Ba‘thist regime was unwillingly toppled by the 2003 American military intervention, other Arab regimes are seeming to concede that change is necessary, and some have even begun introducing political reforms, leading to genuine, if limited, institutional changes. There are also now more popular movements and calls for democratization from within Arab societies than there were in the 1990s. These have the potential to bring about further political changes in Arab states in the future.

What has and hasn't changed in today's Arab states? This session aims to explore the prospects and problems facing contemporary Arab politics, with particular focus on the regional impact of the 2003 Iraq War, international pressure for political reform, and domestic popular appetites for democratization. The papers of the session will deal with the Arab world as a whole and its three major sub-regions – the Gulf, Mashriq, and Maghrib.

Session 8B

Theme

Emerging Approaches to the Phenomena around Sufism and Saint Veneration

Convenor

AKAHORI Masayuki (Sophia University, Japan)

Chair

TAKAHASHI Kei (NIHU/Sophia University, Japan)

Speakers

1. NINOMIYA Ayako (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)/Kyoto University, Japan)
   Towards theoretical analysis of Tariqa: Structural Models of Tariqa in Medieval India
2. Alexandre PAPAS (CNRS, France)
   Islam and Sufism in Eastern Tibet: a Minority Approach
3. FUJII Chiaki (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)/Kyoto University, Japan)
   Successive Knowledge of the Prophet in Medical Treatment: The Case of East Africa
4. WAKAMATSU Hiroki (Sophia University, Japan)
   The Ocak of Kurdish Alevis in Turkey: the Relationship between the Ritual Practice and the Veneration for the Ehl-i Beyt

Discussants

Thierry ZARCONE (CNRS, France)

AKAHORI Masayuki

Although Sufism, saint veneration, tariqa, and veneration of the prophet's family have constituted topics of study in the past, yet they have not yet been adequately examined in a sufficiently theoretical and systematic way. Our joint research on Sufism and saint veneration has expanded the critical points of analyses that have been dealt with by scholars in the past, and reexamined the above four phenomena, in order to establish new methods of research and arrive at a more comprehensive understanding of the whole, what we may perhaps call an ‘all-encompassing complex of Sufism and saint veneration.’ With the collaboration of anthropologists, historians, and others scholars, including some French experts of the CNRS who we believe share our enthusiasm for this pioneering work, our joint research has made steady progress through the accumulation of results arrived at by our members.

The aim of this panel is to present some of the fruits of our research, particularly those of younger scholars, in order to show how new approaches to the phenomena surrounding Sufism and saint veneration are emerging. Each of the papers in this panel deals with specific issues, though they discuss them in a broader context. They will be shown to constitute fine examples of comparative analysis and comprehensive understanding of the subject, viewed as a religious and cultural complex.