Debatable Marriages: Marriage and Child Marriage in Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT

This article examines marriage and the constitution of familial relationships in Saudi Arabia, with a specific focus on one form of marriage that has recently become an issue of public, political, and religious discussion, that of “child marriage.” The situation within Saudi Arabia is compared with gendered relationships in other countries, most notably those in Western Europe, with specific attention given to the United Kingdom. It is argued that policy developments in Saudi Arabia need to be seen in the context of wider Saudi culture, Sharia law, and religious interpretations of the Koran.     

沙特的瓦哈比主义

瓦哈比主义是300年前由穆罕默德·本·阿卜杜·瓦哈卜谢赫创立的一种伊斯兰法学主张和理论。德尔伊亚埃米尔穆罕默德·本·沙特和阿卜杜·瓦哈卜谢赫建立政教联盟后,积极开展了旨在伊斯兰教改良的瓦哈比运动,最终导致了沙特阿拉伯王国的建立和发展。在现代沙特的社会发展中,瓦哈比主义为保持沙特政教合一的伊斯兰君主制,维护沙特王室的政治地位发挥了重要作用。沙特的瓦哈比主义决不是任何意义上的恐怖主义。     

Learning from tradition: the planning of residential neighborhoods in a changing world

This paper analyses the community values of residential neighborhoods in the southwestern region of Saudi Arabia as an approach to a new theory in urbanism. The indigenous masterbuilders and tribemen incorporated planning decisions pertinent to climatic, cultural, social, economic and religious factors when designing physical elements in their built environment. This is what makes every traditional settlement in the southwest region of Saudi Arabia unique in terms of urban form and social structure. As a step to examining and evaluating the process of residential neighborhood development, three stages of practiced urbanism are discussed. These stages are labelled “vernacular”, “transitional” and “new vernacularism”. These are planning concepts used worldwide in the development of residential neighborhoods throughout history until the present. “New Vernacularism” is envisioned in this investigation as a design/planning objective implemented in most recently planned neighborhoods in Al-Horaidhah, Southwest Saudi Arabia. The achievement of successful urbanism underlies the political goals of urban planning practice. The Al-Horaidhah planning concept is conceived in the light of preservation of community values in neighborhood design/planning as a critical issue.The paper aims to investigate and reconcile the conflicts in the planning of residential neighborhoods in a changing world. The conflicts are restricted between retaining traditions of architecture, urban design and planning with the necessary social, economic, and technological changes in urban formation, mainly, the vernacular and modern. The paper illustrates the concept “New Vernacularism” by presenting Al-Horaidhah scheme as a model for community development in three administrative regions along the Red Sea coastline. “New Vernacularism” as a planning concept looks at the community development in Al-Horaidhah in the light of Sharicah, the Islamic Law and Customary norms by emphasizing the importance of the involvement of local residents in the planning process and gives suggestions of how this might best be achieved and later implemented into new communities.     

A Challenge for Social Studies Educators: Teaching about Islam,Jihād,and Shari’ah Law

In this article, the author investigates the controversial curricular and instructional aspects of teaching about Islam in social studies courses. Specifically, the author discusses pedagogically sound approaches to teaching about jihād and Shari’ah law, two of the most important and controversial concepts in Islam that often generate intense debates among scholars, policy-makers, social studies teachers, and the general public. It is crucial that social studies teachers present all of the competing and complex definitions regarding jihād and Shari’ah law; this task is exacerbated by passionate disagreements among Islamic scholars, lawyers, and historians over the true nature of these concepts. Many K–12 textbooks omit or distort the multiple interpretations of jihād and Shari’ah law because of political pressures, space limitations, and efforts to avoid controversies inherent in discussing religion. Thus, many students are confused by competing views and ideological perspectives by experts regarding Islam; this situation is untenable, given the importance of Islam in contemporary American politics and international affairs.     

Taikongs and Calos: the role of middlemen and brokers in Javanese international migration

"This article discusses international migration from Java in the past and present and the role brokers have played in stimulating this movement. It describes legal and clandestine labor migration to Singapore, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia, the influence of employment brokers on the process, and the organization of the recruitment networks. The involvement of brokers is crucial but not always beneficial for the migrants. Migrants are dependent on the brokers and risk exploitation. In the case of movement to Saudi Arabia, there is a linkage with religious institutions and the Islamic pilgrimage."     

The architectural form and landscape as a harmonic entity in the vernacular settlements of Southwestern Saudi Arabia

The paper aims to describe the architectural form and landscape as a harmonic entity in vernacular settlements of southwestern Saudi Arabia. The qualities of vernacular settlements and their integration and responsiveness to the physical, social, economic and cultural environment are demonstrated in this study. The socio-economic activities and customs in southwestern Saudi Arabia are presented as part of the historical process. The paper looks at the major elements of the vernacular villages and landscape as cultural-specific images. While appreciating this, the author laments the way this harmony has been disrupted not least aesthetically as a consequence of modernism which had an impetus on changing life style and social expectation. The cultural-specific images involve direct relationships between the architectural and urban forms as systems and events that are taking place in or around that form. One thesis is that each element of the vernacular village and landscape is linked to an image that shapes and influences human behavior and appreciation, thereby helping to shape larger environmental patterns. Beyond the meaning that specific elements inherit, they have functional and economic values. As a result, their visual qualities are believed to be effective in enhancing behavior through their visual attributes. One of the most important conclusions is that, there are many features of modern village extensions and landscape elements that enhance the interaction with the physical environment that ordinary citizens value, and there are elements of the vernacular villages and landscape that people regret to lose, such as ‘qasabahs', weekly markets, cultivation of terraces, etc. This is inspite of today's, modern planning and design techniques that are being sought to produce new architectural forms and landscape elements. Any attempt to substitute vernacular forms without taking into account the values that the older forms held is considered a failure of adopted modernist attitudes.     

A Cultural Psychological Theory of Mental Illness,Supported by Research in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

This article proposes a theory of psychological disturbance (mental illness) as a cultural phenomenon. The theory is based on – and extends – the general cultural psychological theory of Vygotsky, Luria, and Leontiev, as well as the specific social approach to psychopathy of Fromm, Foucault, Laing, and Rieber. We demonstrate that the psychodynamics of individual disturbances are shaped by normative, macro cultural factors, such as gender norms, religious doctrine, family structure, architecture, and clothing. We illustrate this cultural psychological analysis of individual psychology with a case study of a 25 year old Saudi obsessive compulsive patient in Riyadh backed by 50 interviews with students about family relations in Saudi Arabia. We discuss the therapeutic and political implications of our cultural theory of psychological disturbance.     

穆斯林兄弟会与沙特关系的演变及影响

自1932年沙特建国以来,穆斯林兄弟会在沙特经历了初步发展、扩张和衰退三个阶段。二者从合作与相互利用的盟友关系逐渐演变为疏远与对抗的敌对关系。一方面,逃亡到沙特避难的穆兄会成员曾在帮助沙特政权反制埃及纳赛尔政权、推行泛伊斯兰主义战略等方面发挥了重要作用;另一方面,穆兄会成员在一定程度上促成了沙特宗教政治反对派的兴起,影响和培育了一批接受库特布思想的极端分子,对沙特政权的稳固及其国家安全造成了冲击。中东剧变以来,穆兄会势力的壮大削弱了沙特的地区影响力,制约了沙特外交政策的实施,导致沙特面临的地区安全环境进一步恶化。穆兄会与沙特关系的破裂直接反映出前者对沙特内政外交构成的威胁,是穆兄会思想与瓦哈比教义内在矛盾的逻辑结果。     

加入世贸组织后沙特阿拉伯的政府管理

加入世贸组织是沙特的战略选择。在带来发展机遇的同时,世贸组织的规则也对沙特的政府管理提出了根本性挑战。特殊的国情和发展经历使沙特的政府管理正处于转型时期,其行政体制、法律体系、管理理念以及公务员队伍都与世贸规则的要求存在一定差距,经过近些年的改革和调整,沙特已在一些方面取得了进展,但存在的问题仍不容忽视。     

Muslim women between secular state and religion

The main thesis of this paper assumes that, while we are not arguing for a full-fledged personal law system in Italy (which provides Muslims with different legal systems), we assume that diversity-conscious respect for difference and its legal recognition is a better strategy for achieving justice than a blindfolded Eurocentric vision, based on uniformising secular methods. This paper suggests the adoption of a model of legal intervention for integrating Muslims into Italian liberal democracy. I will call this model a ‘pluralistic institutional approach to integration’, based on a ‘a joint governance approach’. It requires a conceptual break with absolute, unlimited and undivided sovereignty and jurisdiction. Such a pluralistic institutional approach to integration encourages the accommodation of some of the most pressing minority demands in some limited areas. In family law – as we will see – there can be different possible solutions available to conduct their private relationship compatible with their understanding of Islam. However, any policy of accommodation needs to pay special attention to the fact that traditional religious Muslim norms contain practices that may cause harm to vulnerable subjects. Therefore the advocacy and introduction of a plural legal order must be based on respect for key liberal values. In this paper I will not use the generic term sharia (Islamic law) but the term Muslim norms, because I would like to underline the fact that some Muslims are calling for accommodation of norms that derive from their understanding of their religion, including not only standards based on or derived from sharia or fiqh (jurisprudence) but also general ethical principles derived from Islamic religious culture (see Nasir 2002). The focus on religious norms or values makes it clear that the main motivation for the accommodation of Muslim norms would be to maximise individual autonomy and minority protection. In this sense, the accommodation of Muslim norms is subject to the ultimate regulation of the Italian constitutional and legal system. The paper is structured in the following way. Section I of the paper deals with the ‘myth of legal centralism’ and presents a general overview of the empirical situation created by the troublesome Muslim integration in Italy. We will provide some quantitative data on Muslim immigration in Italy. Since ‘Muslim’ is a broad category, it needs to be given as much specificity as possible in order to avoid producing images of a monolithic and undifferentiated religious community. Section II sets out the model of what I have labelled ‘a pluralistic institutional approach to integration’. The substantive claim is that this pluralistic institutional approach to integration provides promising options for the incorporation of cultural and religious minorities, challenging the assumption that it is impossible to grant consideration to religious diversity and gender equality at the same time. Of special interest here are those situations in which claims for so-called ‘Muslim Sharia Arbitration Councils’, religious-based arbitration tribunals, interact with public concerns about power disparities between men and women in the resolution of family law disputes. We will demonstrate the possibility of implementing such a vision by reference to a recent decision by the Supreme Court of Canada, Bruker v. Marcovitz (2007), which breaks new ground.     

‘Not Fanatical’: The Evolution of Sociable Piety and the Dialogic Subject in Multi-religious Indonesia

In Indonesia, the politics of ‘sociable piety’ has been reinvigorated by local Islamic sermon groups opposed to a range of public behaviours labelled as ‘fanatik’. United by an intra-Muslim alliance self-identified as being ‘not fanatical’, members of urban middle-class sermon groups shrewdly redraw moral boundaries across the long-term ‘traditionalist’ and ‘modernist’ divides. As revealed by my fieldwork between 2009 and 2012, the improvisation of ‘sociable piety’ is so prominent that not only optional rituals such as tarawih but obligatory prayers such as salat can be negotiated contextually. Using the multi-religious city of Salatiga as a window to see the broader religious trends in many religiously pluralistic Indonesian cities, this paper contends that the general appeal of Islamic self-cultivation in Indonesia has been simultaneously an individual ethical cultivation and social, even national, improvement. Theoretically, this study of the everyday Indonesian strategies to deal with the tension between piety and sociality is a modest attempt to rethink subjectivity that moves beyond either the docile or the deliberative self and towards the dialogic subject in a world of conflicting heterogeneity.     

伊斯兰经典经济思想特点概论

以（《古兰经》和圣训为基础的伊斯兰教法与东西方传统的经济思想体系所根基的历史文化土壤不同,前者必然体现出许多独特之处。从宗教与世俗的不同视角来看,伊斯兰经典经济思想也具有与世俗经济思想的不同之处。伊斯兰经典经济思想具有浓厚的宗教神学色彩、深刻的道德烙印与浓厚的福利精神、义利统一和相对均平的观念特点、非逻辑理性色彩和法律化、制度化、生活方式化的特点。伊斯兰教经典经济思想的内涵深邃,外延十分丰富。     

Insurrectional Politics in Colonial Southeast Asia: Colonial Modernity,Islamic ‘Counterplots’, and Translocal (Anti-colonial) Connectivity

Abstract

This article focuses on the idea of ‘colonial modernity’ to pursue a dual theoretical purpose: to interrogate the givenness of ‘modernity’ as an overarching and over-determining epistemological framework; and, secondly, to indicate how movements against colonial modernity were part of a ‘deep, global infrastructure of anti-colonial connectivity’. By examining a number of Islamic movements in the Dutch Indies and in British Malaya, this article seeks to map out some of the translocal spaces created and occupied by these movements, which linked North Africa to Saudi Arabia and to South East Asia. The focus on translocality speaks also to the existence and enactment of exteriorities to modernity. My deployment of ‘exteriority’ signals here certain historical, political, and cultural lateral relations among colonial spaces, through which the colonized generate and activate what June Nash calls ‘counterplots’ to colonial modernity.     

Reinventing religious land as urban open space: The case of kuang in Chiang Mai (Thailand)

Urban open spaces are highly valued for their contribution to the quality of life in the cities [Tenkel (1963). Cities and space: The future use of urban land. Baltimore:Johns Hopkins Press; Burgess, Harrison and Limb (1998). Urban Studies, 25, 455–473; Madanipour (1999). Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 26, 879–891]. Third world cities, for example, Chiang Mai (Thailand), are no exception with regard to the role of urban open space in achieving such a goal [Tantayanusorn (2003). Unpublished doctoral thesis. Melbourne:Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology]. However, the provision of urban open space as a social public facility is coming low in priority in comparison to other market-demanded facilities in the form of roads, car parks, clean water, electricity and the like. Such a fact was corroborated by a study conceived by Thailand's Social Research Institute (1996) which reveals that 73% of Chiang Mai population wanted more public open space.This paper aims at exploring the revitalization of existing traditional open spaces (kuang)—which is usually categorized as ‘religious land’, hence it is a religious property—in Chiang Mai as an intermediate strategy in providing the much needed public open space. In doing so, the physical and cultural characteristics of kuang have to be elaborated, while at the same time the local aspirations on urban open space were canvassed. The combined analysis of those two inquiries resulted in a proposal of kuang wat—a variance of kuang—utilization as an agent of urban open space provision in the project of achieving quality of urban life in Thai city of Chiang Mai.     

Validation of an Arabic ADAM questionnaire for androgen deficiency screening in the Arab community

Background.?It is well documented that testosterone levels decline with age, this decline is associated with symptoms which could be assessed denoting androgen deficiency. We investigated the validity of an Arabic version of the Saint Louis University androgen deficiency in ageing men (ADAM) questionnaire to screen for androgen deficiency in Saudi and non Saudi Arabic speaking men.

Methods.?It was a cross sectional study of ambulatory community-based Arabic Saudi men recruited from Volunteers in Riyadh city, Capital of Saudi Arabia, aged 18–80 years. Seven hundred thirty men agreed to fill the Arabic ADAM questionnaire, they were invited to a morning blood sample for total testosterone and sex hormone binding globulin and those who agreed to complete the whole study were only 407 men. Low serum bioavailable testosterone (BT) levels (androgen deficiency) were defined as <10th percentile of serum BT levels in young healthy Saudi men (18–30 years).

Results.?Cronbach's Alpha of 0.71 (n?=?730) showed a good internal consistency of the Arabic ADAM questionnaire. Among participants, 18.2% and 77.6% had low serum BT levels and a positive ADAM questionnaire, respectively. The prevalence of positive ADAM and low serum BT is increasing with age. The Arabic ADAM questionnaire had a high sensitivity of 86.5%, a low specificity of 24.3%, and positive predictive values (+PVs) and negative (?PVs) of 20.3% and 89%, respectively.

Conclusion.?The Arabic ADAM questionnaire has a very good sensitivity but very low specificity for screening of androgen deficiency in Saudi men, therefore biological confirmation is needed especially when clinical symptoms of androgen deficiency are present.     

Kenyan Religious Leaders’ Views on Same-Sex Sexuality and Gender Nonconformity: Religious Freedom versus Constitutional Rights

Religion plays an important role in framing the public discourse on sexuality, especially in countries where religion fully permeates social life. We explored the perspectives of Kenyan religious leaders on sexual and gender diversity in their country’s specific context. A total of 212 Catholic, Islamic, and Protestant leaders from urban centers and rural townships completed a self-administered questionnaire specifically developed for this study. The leaders’ perspectives were predominantly negative. Limited acceptance was conditional on sexual minorities not engaging in same-sex practices or seeing such practices as sinful. A substantial minority (37%) endorsed the use of violence for maintaining social values, especially regarding homosexuality and gender nonconformity. The majority of religious leaders agreed on the difference between civil law and religious doctrine. Human rights principles enshrined in Kenya’s Constitution were considered to be applicable to sexual and gender minorities. Decriminalization of same-sex sexuality was seen as against one’s religion. Perspectives were less negative if leaders were familiar with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons. Interventions that promote intergroup contact could be effective in changing religious leaders’ mind-sets and advancing human rights and health for sexual and gender minorities.     

Embodied Faith: Agency and Obedience among Face-veiled University Students in Indonesia

This article analyses the life experiences of face-veiled university students and their involvement in the Salafi Islamic revivalist movement in Indonesia. Studies on Salafi groups in Indonesia have often neglected the face-veiling practices of women, who are the main female constituents of the groups. Focusing on women's adoption of the cadar (face-veil) and their religious transformation, this article demonstrates how veiling shapes women's formation as religious subjects. Drawing on the life experiences of young women in several groups, this article shows that fulfilling religious obligation is the women's main priority. Their life experiences and the process of negotiating wearing the cadar reveal their struggle to reconstruct their religious identity and their capacity for exercising a specific type of religious agency.     

巴基斯坦恐怖组织与中东的联系及其对“动荡弧”地带的影响

中东与巴基斯坦反恐形势的互动是当前巴安全局势恶化重要的外部因素之一。基于巴所处的联系南亚与西亚、中亚的特殊地缘位置及其伊斯兰文化属性,本文重点考察了阿富汗、伊朗、沙特三个有重要相关性的国家对巴反恐局势的影响;基于全球恐怖主义网络的运作机制,本文从资金流、信息流、人员流三条主要联系渠道,分析了巴基斯坦恐怖势力与中东的联系。在此基础上,本文分析了巴局势恶化对“动荡弧”地带安全局势的影响,并就巴局势恶化对中国可能产生的影响以及中国应采取的对策进行了简要分析。     

Diagnosing and treating testosterone deficiency in different parts of the world: changes between 2006 and 2010

Aim: An analysis of variations in diagnosing and treating testosterone (T) deficiency between different regions of the world in 2006 was repeated in 2010. Methods: Physicians were interviewed in Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Saudi Arabia about (1) reasons to use/not to use T. (2) safety (prostate pathology) and other concerns in the decision not to provide T treatment. (3) the actual usage of T preparations for treatment of erectile dysfunction (ED). Results: More men were treated with T in 2010. ED and lack of libido (2006) but also depression and obesity (2010) were regarded as symptoms of T deficiency. For 70% of physicians, severity of complaints was more significant than the laboratory value of T to prescribe T, more so in Germany (96%) than in Spain and Saudi Arabia. Concerns about prostate disease remained strong and, therefore, 11% of eligible patients did not receive T. PDE-5 inhibitors are more often combined with T in 2010 for ED. Conclusion: More appropriate studies and more education of physicians are needed on diagnosing T deficiency, on the role of T in ED and on the evidence-based relative safety of T treatment.