Dirasat (KFCRIS Papers)
2024-10-06
| Histories of Sinophone Islam in Macau: A Tapestry of a Multi-ethnic Muslim Community
72
2024-10-06
| Histories of Sinophone Islam in Macau: A Tapestry of a Multi-ethnic Muslim Community
72
Number: 72
Author: Hung Tak Wai
Since the fifteenth century, Macau has enjoyed the status of being one of the major entrepots of international commerce in Asia. Despite the historic and deeply rooted involvement of Muslims in inter-Asian maritime trade, however, historians have rarely acknowledged the longstanding history of the Muslim community there. The absence of a detailed study of Macau’s Islamic community probably stems from the prevalence of the Portuguese and, therefore, Catholic colonial presence and its associated legacy of religious intolerance. The surprising thing is that it was the Europeans themselves who brought Islam to this enclave: Macau’s only mosque and Muslim cemetery, together known a
Number: 70
Author: Daniel Gołębiowski, Karolina Radłowska, and Magdalena Zawrotna
This article aims to portray Polish Tatars through an in-depth analysis of Polish literature and the historical, cultural, social, and legal aspects of the Tatar community in Poland. This paper is one of the few written in English that examines Polish publications delving into several features of the Polish Tatars. It allows for broader engagement of scholars in a discussion on ethnic minorities and the hybridity of their identities taking the Polish Tatars as a case study .With its multidisciplinary approach, this article offers a new diversified perspective on the phenomenon of the oldest indigenous Muslim group living in Poland. The authors zoomed into their history, rel
Number: 68
Author: Alexander Rhea
This study, which draws on extensive fieldwork and local sources, examines the supernatural beliefs (i.e. related to demonic and magical forces) among Chinese Muslims in the modern-day province of Qinghai, China. The core argument presented in this article is that the supernatural realm is a space where Muslims draw lines and form their perceptions of orthodox Islamic beliefs and practices, oftentimes in contrast to Muslims of other sects, as well as other religions and the Communist state itself. In addition, it is a space where these boundaries concerning orthodoxy and propriety are transgressed, usually out of some spiritual necessity or because of interactions with other div
Number: 66
Author: Mark C. Thompson and Hanaa Almoaibed
With an increased interest in professional qualifications among young nationals in Saudi Arabia, this Dirasat asks how perceptions of a ‘good’ job are evolving through the prism of attitudes towards traditional qualifications and alternative credentials. The paper highlights the importance of contextualizing the qualifications landscape to better understand their role. It also investigates the shifting role of certification globally and in Saudi Arabia specifically, examining the supply and demand of traditional and alternative credentials within the Saudi context. It seeks to answer the question: Is the uptake of new qualifications a resul
Number: 64
Author: Mohammed Alrmizan
The study explores the evolution of Turkish foreign policy toward Central Asia over the past three decades. It shows how Avrasyacılık (Eurasianism) and pan-Turkism initially informed Turkish state approaches to the region following the independence of the Central Asian Republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan in the early 1990s. In the era of Erdoğan, Turkey first adopted pragmatism in the 2000s, but later underwent a course-correction in the 2010s that emphasized the development of political and military relations. As Turkey is not alone in Central Asia, the study also considers how its evolving footprint in the region was impacted by ext
Number: 63
Author: Noura AlZaid
Saudi Arabia’s economic future is at a turning-point. As the country increases investment in innovation to stimulate growth in non-oil sectors, cultivating an effective innovation ecosystem is key. Intellectual property (IP) is a powerful tool for spurring innovation. The dominant narrative in mainstream IP discourse is that higher IP standards lead to greater innovation outputs. However, this study argues that weaker IP standards are appropriate at this stage of the country’s economic development because they allow for smoother technology transfer that is needed to build innovation capacity and bridge existing gaps. To demonstrate the non-exceptional character of an