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tions in the covenant go back to byzantine and sasanian precedents and one of her contributions is linking many of its stipulations to sasanian social codes which used dress to distinguish within its strict class hierarchy as muslim society gradually took on some of the sasanian ethos religion replaced social class as the primary marker of social standing in the islamic jurisprudential tradition a key moment in the imposition of the covenant of umar s stipulations was the reign of the abbasid caliph al mutawakkil from 847 861 others have highlighted how his reign marked a turn in which the caliphs moved away from trying to impose their own religious authority in favor of ruling as the agent of an independent class of ulama a key development was ending the mihna an inquisition by which the caliphs sought to impose the doctrine that the qur an was created and not eternal it is perhaps relevant to this environment that al mutawakkil issued a decree implementing stipulations of the covenant of umar which would subsequently become the standard reference as described above i began this post by linking it to my work on gulf christianity the connection or rather lack of connection is that gulf christianity seems to have disappeared at about the same time the covenant of umar was being imposed these two developments also do not appear to be related since the abbasid caliphs did not have control of the relevant areas of the gulf at the time and as i will eventually explain there are other factors to explain christianity s decline there labels christianity history islam judaism posted by brian ulrich at 2 40 pm 1 comments wednesday june 22 2016 iranian revolution video game the article on this involves the regime s censorship but the video game 1979 revolution black friday sounds like it has potential as a teaching tool the game s title comes from a massacre that took place in tehran s jaleh square later renamed martyrs square on sept 8 1978 shah mohammad reza pahlavi s military fired on protesters for violating martial law killing scores of people this moment in iranian history is seen as the point of no return for the shah in black friday the protagonist is an aspiring photojournalist named reza who has to make life altering decisions to survive the streets as insurrection breaks out against the iranian monarch the game progresses in a choose your own ad venture style that allows players to navigate the 1979 iranian revolution as it unfolds think the walking dead game series with a historical twist this documentary style also known as verite comes from iranian canadian game developer navid khonsari of the new york based ink stories khonsari is behind such blockbusters as the grand theft auto and max payne series to develop the game s storyline khonsari conducted over 40 interviews with a variety of iranians both inside and outside of iran who experienced the revolution firsthand some interviewees went so far as to provide personal photos of the events in 1978 and 1979 they remain anonymous because of the concerns they might have for their own safety and the safety of their families khonsari explained the game s iranian opponents are concerned by western influence on its development and ways in which it diverges from regime approved narratives of the revolution labels christianity iran pedagogy posted by brian ulrich at 9 10 pm 4 comments saturday may 21 2016 afrin university it has been clear for some time that one outcome of syria s civil war will be an autonomous kurdish region much the way the persian gulf war led to an autonomous kurdish region in northern iraq this is not only about the establishment of governing institutions but cultural institutions which are unlikely to go away such as this new university afrin university the first university based in rojava syrian kurdistan began registering students in august though it is not yet accredited the school s officials already plan to expand its offerings and facilities one of the objectives of the university is to bridge the large gap in the educational field as a result of the syrian war abdul majeed sheikho dean of the arts faculty told al monitor the university gives the students an opportunity to complete their studies and to achieve their educational goals this is a better solution than the decision to migrate the school s teachers hail from the afrin area and are required to have doctorates or master s degrees in their specialties youssuf said 222 students are enrolled 121 in the literature program which includes a kurdish language section 50 in engineering and 51 in economics the school includes institutes for studying medicine topographic engineering music and theater business administration and the kurdish language work is in progress for the opening of the faculty of agriculture and the faculty of human medicine in 2016 and probably the media faculty youssuf said according to him the university also has plans for a significant science program as the school expands significantly the university will also offer courses in kurdish cultural studies labels christianity kurds syria posted by brian ulrich at 3 51 pm 1 comments saturday april 09 2016 kafala reform impact the economist has a useful summary of how reforms to the system of employer sponsorship of migrant laborers has improved wages and job mobility in the united arab emirates in late 2010 however saqr ghobash the uae s reform minded minister of labour issued a decree allowing workers with contracts expiring after january 2011 to look for work elsewhere after they had served out their contracts some employers grumbled aware that this would raise the cost of labour they found that the impact of the new rule was big and fast workers real wages jumped by more than 10 in the three months after their contract expired whereas before the change they barely moved at all even though the reform made it easier for workers to change jobs the fraction of workers renewing their contracts increased more than twice as many workers did go to a new employer but this was because far fewer of them left the country altogether after their contract expired over the first three months of the reform the rate at which people returned home dropped by about four percentage points from a baseline of around 12 workers original employers mr naidu explains were offering higher wages to persuade them to stay on while higher overall earning power was keeping more workers in the country unfortunately these changes still do not affect domestic workers labels christianity united arab emirates posted by brian ulrich at 2 41 pm 0 comments tuesday march 01 2016 iran s new assembly of experts among the best analyses of iran s recent elections are those by farideh farhi and shervin malekzadeh the conduct of the elections themselves is as potentially significant as the results both farhi and malekzadeh highlight the role of alliances and political pragmatism as malekzadeh reports everywhere i went in tehran last week i heard the same theme moderation and standing firm before the forces of radicalism my interlocutors expressed a sense of resignation if not outright cynicism toward the elections and what they might bring in terms of needed change to iran participants in iranian elections realize that this is not liberal democracy at the same time just as they had in 2013 many iranians expressed to me their overwhelming conviction that voting was the only way forward if iran wanted to avoid the fate of its neighbors in the region above all that of syria participating in a system no matter how flawed was better than having no system at all and as farhi says more than anything else the two recent elections suggested that the time is over when one side thought it could get rid of the other side for good or even temporarily through force or a highly manipulated electoral process not that some sort of force majeure was not tried the guardian council dominated by clerics who themselves were candidates unabashedly disqualified most opponents who could have won through their name recognition but their opponents instead of withdrawing or sulking made the strategic decision to participate in an alliance that had proven successful in receiving 51 percent of the vote in the 2013 presidential election and then they made the tactical decision to connect together particularly in the city of tehran by repeatedly asking voters to support everyone on the so called 30 16 lists the first for the parliament and the second for the assembly of experts this was tactically necessary because in the case of rsg s tehran parliament list only a few top names were known the rest were unknown in terms of their names or points of view and had to be voted in blind based on who was on top of the list or who supported the list the assembly s list also had unknown names but problematically a few names were connected with dark parts of the islamic republic s history i e early post revolutionary executions and the murder of intellectuals and dissidents so voters had to be convinced that voting for the whole list while unsavory was worth the elimination of others deemed even nastier the defeat of hardliners for the assembly of experts was especially striking rohani and centrist ex president ali akbar hashemi rafsanjani easily won seats in the assembly of experts the chamber of clerics that chooses and supervises iran s most powerful official the supreme leader in all reformist backed candidates claimed 52 of the assembly s 88 seats according to the interior ministry including 15 of 16 races in tehran in doing so they managed to unseat several prominent hard liners including the current chief of the assembly ayatollah mohammad yazdi and ayatollah taghi mesbah yazdi my sense is that over the past couple of decades iran s conservatives have been most reluctant to allow reformists a shot at the assembly of experts and the council of guardians the latter being the body which vets candidates and legislation two points about this past election stand out though one is that reformist has in some ways been defined sharply rightward since khatami s presidency hassan rouhani may offer verbal support to parts of khatami s cultural agenda but he has never acted on it and his real roots are close to supreme leader khamene i the second is that ayatollah mesbah yazdi was a rival to khamene i it may be that khamene i has decided that a tactical rouhani style alliance with reformists is the best way to eliminate rivals to his right and maintain his allies in power labels christianity iran posted by brian ulrich at 2 38 pm 1 comments friday february 05 2016 nationalizing the keffiyeh ted swedenburg s memories of revolt is primarily about the ways the 1936 1939 arab revolt in palestine was remembered in later decades but within that framework it has a lot of interesting snippets of information about both palestinian and israeli identity one example of this is his discussion of how the keffiyeh the usually black and white checkered square scarf headdress became a palestinian national symbol in early 20th century palestinian society the keffiyeh was worn by peasants and bedouin and thus went with low class and rural society seen as traditional as opposed to the modern urban middle and upper classes sporting fezzes at the time of the arab revolt the rural fighters not only wore them as what they generally wore but wrapped them around their faces to preserve anonymity the problem however is that when they entered towns and cities that rural dress made them conspicuous swedenburg explains what happened on august 16 1938 when the revolt was reaching its apogee and beginning to take control of urban areas the rebel leadership commanded all palestinian arab townsmen to discard the tarbush fez and don the kufiya rebel headquarters in damascus announced that this was to demonstrate the complete solidarity of the residents of the country with the struggle and as a sign that everyone in the country is a rebel british officials were amazed that the new fashion spread across the country with lightning rapidity while the order was issued in part to help rebel fighters blend into the urban environment it was equally a move in the wider social struggle within the national movement one rebel commander harking back to the arab revolt and damascus battles over headgear asserted that whereas the fez was associated with ottoman turks the kufiya was the headgear of the arab nation the last reference is to the fact that during the arab revolt associated with world war i many supporters of faysal s armies wore keffiyehs in place of the fezzes associated with the ottoman empire in the case of the palestinian national movement though the opposition between keffiyeh and fez was primarily one of social class in which many of the urban notables were forced to declare symbolic loyalty to the rural peasantry labels christianity history palestine posted by brian ulrich at 7 28 am 0 comments thursday february 04 2016 algeria s murky presidency the economist calls attention to the fact that with algeria s president abd al aziz bouteflika not seen in public for two years many say that recent shake ups mask a palace coup mr bouteflika can hardly speak and is said to communicate by letter with his ministers who nevertheless insist that the old man is compos mentis and in charge but several close associates of the president aren t buying it having not seen mr bouteflika for over a year they have demanded a meeting with him so far to no avail missing person is right they say algerian politics is nothing if not murky for decades a cabal of unelected power brokers has run the show known as le pouvoir the power the shadowy clique is composed of members of the economic political and military elite but with mr bouteflika s health in decline there appears to be a struggle within the group over who will succeed him algerians have grown accustomed to mystery few knew that houari boumédiène algeria s second president was even ill until he died in 1978 at the time mr bouteflika was seen as a potential successor only to be passed over by the army two decades later the generals finally tapped him for the job labels algeria christianity posted by brian ulrich at 12 11 pm 0 comments tuesday december 22 2015 conversion and personal status law al monitor reports on jordanian christian men who convert to islam so as get better divorce settlements while a man who converts to islam and divorces his wife is easily able to remarry a christian divorcee seldom has the same freedom the jordanian catholic courts rarely recognize divorces conducted by shariah court judges in essence keeping christian women chained in a marriage that no longer exists only when mary switched from catholicism to greek orthodoxy did a church judge finally grant her a divorce in 2015 two years after her husband divorced her in a shariah court christian women whose husbands convert to islam f...