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Marriage; annulment (Islamic law); divorce (Islamic law)

For the past 14 years, the JDC-supported Kanfei Yonah school in Djerba, Tunisia, has given young girls and women access to education.

Purchase online the PDF of Novità nello scriptorium dei Romani, Pappalardo, Umberto, 1949- -

This article explores how women of means in nineteenth-century Zanzibar used their built legacies to convey their piety and authority even though they were not active in public religious life. The focus of the study is an old Ibāḍī mosque named after its founder, ‘Aisha bint Jumʻa al-Mughayri, and the tombstone of her younger female relative Muhayra bint Jumʻa al-Mughayri. While the details of the two women’s lives, works and property do not appear prominently in the written record of Zanzibar, this article asks what we can glean about their religious and economic commitments from the built legacies and religious endowments they left behind, as well as from the writings of their male contemporaries, British colonial officials and their descendants. The article also demonstrates how the conservation and upkeep of historic religious institutions in Zanzibar today depends greatly on collaborations between local family members, state institutions and transnational faith-based organizations (fbos).

The Sultanate of Oman has been consistently able to maintain its stability of security and stay away from the claws of terrorism, increasing the efficiency of its national counterterrorism strategy. This article explores local and international reports that measure Oman’s current terrorism’s status, and the reasons behind Oman’s ability to stay terrorism-free, particularly in light of the ever-increasing number of terrorist attacks and incidents in the Arabian Gulf region and the appearance of terrorist groups in nearby states. This research endeavors to analyze the existing knowledge to clearly understand the Omani approach and strategy in counterterrorism. The data collected for this research are extracted from semi-structured interviews and from policy analyses achieved through observing procedures, reviewing related legislation, and a detailed review of all previously associated policies. This research is exploring how the Sultanate of Oman defines terrorism, examining the elements of the Omani national counterterrorism strategy, and understanding the different phases of the Omani counterterrorism strategy. It recommends that the Sultanate of Oman should maintain a defensive approach to its national counterterrorism strategy to face terrorism and ensure its stability of security.

In a world that is increasingly hostile towards religious minorities, this paper tries to set a modern-day, successful example of multi-religious coexistence and interfaith dialogue. The paper examines historical examples derived from Omani history and explores Omani characteristics by surveying Western reports written by missionaries, visitors, and travellers of different religions in Oman. This is meant to demonstrate the hypothesis that the multi-religious coexistence and interfaith dialogue enjoyed today by the nearly fourmillion Omani population is a natural result of a long history of commitment to ‘Omani values’ and principles, practised by Oman’s Ibāḍī population with their fellow nonMuslims. The paper concludes that there is a strong correlation between the ‘Omani values’ recorded by the Western writers and the ongoing deeply rooted Omani experience of peaceful religious coexistence and interfaith dialogue. These ‘Omani values’ include the principles of tolerance, social justice, mutual respect, friendliness, hospitality, and simplicity. Finally, owing to the increasingly rising tensions between adherents of different religions, the paper recommends that such successful Omani experiences should be exported to other countries in the Muslim world and elsewhere.

This article discusses how the Soviet Union perceived and related to Middle Eastern revolutionary movements, using a case study from South Yemen and the War in Dhofar. This specific Soviet encounter will be analysed through selected Soviet material from published and archival sources. The article highlights how Soviet representatives assessed prospects for socialism in Yemen, and how they interacted with their partners on the ground. The article is divided into three parts: the first discusses the theoretical debates in Soviet academia and the press, the second section contrasts these theoretical views with Middle Eastern ‘socialist’ theories during the Cold War and the third shows how a symbiosis developed between Soviet and Yemeni institutions and organisations. The article argues that due to an Orientalist take on South Yemen and Dhofar, the Soviet side could not appreciate the political importance and potential of socialist currents in the region, reducing cooperation to ‘pragmatism’.

The war fought in northern Oman from 1954 until the mid-1960s is almost completely forgotten. Even amongst contemporary military historians, it is considered less frequently than the subsequent – and widely published – Dhofar War. Though ‘small’, it was a conflict of crucial importance for the nation on the southeastern side of the Arab Peninsula.While usually thought to have been fought – and won – exclusively by special forces, capacity building, and training of native forces, a closer look reveals an entirely different picture. The victory and lasting peace were actually secured by a conventional military campaign dominated by offensive operations, followed by an entirely separate civilian development program. The role of special forces was overemphasized – not only in regards of their relative number of operations, but also in regards of their impact – while the insurgency was suppressed by punitive means, and the capacity building remained limited during the war. It was only once offensive operations were completed that the development program contributed to the lasting peace. This peace, in turn, would have been impossible without the conventional military campaign. As such, this ‘small’ conflict proved of crucial importance for the nation on the southeastern side of the Arab Peninsula.The War in Northern Oman provides a detailed account of the political dynamics which led to the eruption of violence, but foremost examines the use of force, the wider conventional military campaign, operations by special forces, military capacity building, and the application of soft power factors for civilian capacity building. Moreover, it emphasizes the process of reconciliation and international engagement. Based on extensive research in official documentation, and including numerous personal testimonies, this volume – richly illustrated by photographs provided by veterans – provides exclusive coverage of one of very few wars in which a grassroots insurgency suffered a clear-cut military defeat.

Acts of political violence carried out by Muslim individuals have generated international support for governments that espouse so-called “moderate Islam” as a means of preventing terrorism. Governments also face domestic skepticism about moderate Islam, especially if the alteration of official Islam is seen as resulting from external pressure. By evaluating the views of individuals that disseminate the state’s preferred interpretation of Islam—members of the religious and educational bureaucracy—this research assesses the variation in the resonance of official Islam in three different Arab monarchies: Oman, Jordan, and Morocco. The evidence suggests that if official Islam is consistent with earlier content and directed internally as well as externally, it is likely to resonate. Resonance was highest in Oman, as religious messaging about toleration was both consistent over time and directed internally, and lowest in Jordan, where the content shifted and foreign content differed from domestic. In Morocco, messages about toleration were relatively consistent, although the state’s emphasis on building a reputation for toleration somewhat undermined its domestic credibility. The findings have implications for understanding states’ ability to shift their populations’ views on religion, as well as providing greater nuance for interpreting the capacity of state-sponsored rhetoric to prevent violence.

Once abandoned for more than three decades, vernacular settlements in Oman are now being progressively reinvested in to foster the country’s heritage tourism sector. The present research focuses on the emerging phenomenon of community-led initiatives for vernacular heritage rehabilitation and adaptive reuse in Oman. Through an examination of three case studies, its aim is to describe this process and its modes of action and discuss its effects on vernacular settlement transformations. A mixed research methodology was designed to include (A) analyses of relevant primary and secondary data, (B) documented onsite observations, (C) interviews with local community representatives and key players in the operations of rehabilitation, and (D) extractions and analyses of quantitative data from a hotel booking website. The research sheds light on unsuspected interrelations within and between the projects being implemented in these settlements and their operating modes. It reveals the focal role of a local community in a kind of ‘bottom-up’ management of its built heritage, coupled with a ‘horizontal cooperation’ between the three initiatives studied in this research. Moreover, it shows that a heavily centralised and top-down policy for the field of heritage conservation and management is among the main obstacles that hinder such initiatives. Furthermore, community-led operations of vernacular heritage rehabilitation are being undertaken under insufficient regulations in terms of land use, building restoration and adaptive reuse. In this context, the paper discusses some of the serious threats and concerns faced by such initiatives and proposes actionable solutions to mitigate these hindrances.

Few regions in the world are as torn by conflicts as the Near East, in which Iran plays a central role. Opportunities to engage with Iran are abundant, ...

During his five-decade reign, Sultan Qaboos bin Said relied on heritage as a key tool for nation-building. Old forts and objects central to Omani traditional culture like the coffee urn and the ceremonial dagger became symbols of a unifying national ethos. At the same time, their former political significance was downplayed. But some Omanis have held onto memories of a different conception of the past. And now, after the sultan’s death in 2020, heritage is becoming more of a privatized business sector.

In contrast to other states in the Gulf Cooperation Council, Oman has declined to participate in the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen and has opted to facilitate dialogue between the conflict's warring parties. Oman has embraced a strategy of diplomatic deterrence in Yemen, facilitating dialogue to counter the perceived threats that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates pose to its foreign policy independence. The article explores how the Sultanate's diplomatic deterrence strategy manifests at the local, regional, and international levels, building on English- and Arabic-language source material and interviews.