Research Papers


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The article by Dr Wan Lei, “The First Chinese Travel Record on the Arab World——Commercial and Diplomatic Communications during the Islamic Golden Age” published by King Fasial Center for Research and Islamic Studies in its bulletin, Qiraat (No. 7 Rabi I - II, 1438; December 2016 - January 2017), is composed of three articles, which are all translations and interpretations from official Chinese historical books recording events during the Tang dynasty (618-917 CE). The first is about Du Huan’s Jingxingji [The Travel Record], who was the first Chinese man who travelled the Arab world; the second article is about Jian Dan’s “Guangzhou
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The main purpose of this report is to offer readers an overview of new developments that have taken place in China with respect to the party-state's management of Islam, as well as the consequences of these new developments for Sino-Saudi relations. The report is organized into four sections. The first section discusses the authoritarian turn under way in China, which serves to contextualize the new religious controls as the backdrop of a system-wide transformation. The second section looks at the party-state's traditional approach towards the religious sphere and the mechanisms of control it employs towards it. The third
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This research paper explores the topical implications of the new realities and calculations surrounding Iran’s rapidly-evolving cyber ecosystem. The study traces a variety of cases where attribution is overwhelmingly linked to cyber interference emerging from the Islamic Republic, in which perpetrators act at arm’s length in an effort to insulate definitive accountability. Fi
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In this study, Dr. Bouhania Goui addresses the elements that formed the “Algerian Experience in Combating Terrorism” through the accumulative experiences of the National Liberation Army (NLA) in the War of Independence (1954-1962m) and the Peoples National Army experience (PNA) in the Sands War in 1963. In addition to clandestine movements of jihadists returning from Afghanistan, and the emergence of a group called Mustafa Boaali in the mid eighties, followed by a painful experience in fighting militant Islamists during the nineties termed: Décennie Noire (The Black Decade).
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Wan Lei This article explores the earliest Muslim immigration into China during the Tang and Song dynasties. The background of such immigration, along with various Chinese titles to designate Muslims, their communities, and their leaders demonstrate the earliest forms of recognition of the Muslims by the Chinese people. The article focuses on the studies of the Muslim leaders’ duties and their confrontations with the Chinese legal system; to adapt to a new society, a community must undergo acculturation. Finally, the system of Muslim leaders was improved by the succeeding Mongol Yuan dynasty,
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The Iranian political scene has been deeply affected by the sudden passing away of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the stalwart political figure at the centre of the Islamic Republic's politics since early 1979. His death deprives the political elite of a figure who, while not universally revered, was instrumental in the stabilization and strengthening of the post-revolutionary state order and in solving frequent intra-elite crises. This article will provide an in-depth analysis of Rafsanjani's career, his core beliefs and strategies. In addition, it provides a description of the potential trajec
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(This paper is based on a speech given by HES Dr. Mohammad Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, the former deputy prime minister and the former minister of foreign affairs of Kuwait, at the German-Arab Friendship Association in Berlin, Germany on Thursday, 11/1/2017) Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the Middle East while millions of refugees now roam the world. Terrorism has reached its pinnacle, and metastasised into the so called Da’esh. Key states in the region are now fighting
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Ahmad al-Qushashi was the most dominant Sufi scholar in seventeenth-century Ottoman Hijaz. He is depicted as merciful to other people in many biographical sources and writings, and his support for coffee culture was predicated on his concern for the economic welfare of the inhabitants of the Hijaz, who benefited from the production of coffee. His role in spreading knowledge as far as Indonesia cannot be ignored. Most later renowned Sufis and hadith scholars, to whom some modern historians refer as the proponents of “Islamic revival and reform,” transmitted certificates from Ibrahim al-Kurani (d. 1690) that originated in al-Qushashi’s
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Author: Makio Yamada
The visit of Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to Tokyo in August and September 2016 resulted in the beginning of the reconfiguration of Saudi–Japanese economic cooperation into one that responds to the goals of Vision 2030 and the National Transformation Program 2020. In recent years, the two states have been keen on transforming their energybased bilateral relationship into what they have referred to as a ‘strategic’ and ‘multi-layered’ relationship. Today, as Saudi Arabia accelerates its efforts to achieve a transition to a post-oil economy, they have begun to cooperate on the creation of more diverse economic ties between
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