Search

This paper answers the call for the importance of integrating the Islamic worldview into science classes. This research provides insights into science teachers' experiences of integrating science and Islam, as well as additional surveys to reveal gains in student understanding. This research consists of two stages. Study 1 used phenomenology and focused on the voice of science teachers through focus groups. This research involved five focus groups in five Islamic high schools providing information describing their experiences. Through thematic analysis techniques, several findings were obtained as follows: (1) the concept of integration emphasises more on the balance of compliance between vertical and horizontal; (2) the integration pattern places more emphasis on learning materials; and (3) in terms of benefits, this effort is focused on increasing understanding and followed by study 2 which aims to add to the evidence base by investigating the effect of integration patterns on student understanding. The results showed that there is evidence that the support of an overarching integration pattern contributes to students' understanding of the material. As a recommendation, it is necessary to strengthen integration at all stages of science learning, allowing students to take advantage of discussions in class to develop more relevant abilities.

Muslims face racism based on their racialized religious identities, yet few address their experiences through critical race theory or campus racial climate. This paper addresses how religious students rate institutional commitments to campus diversity when considering racial and religious respect. This study examines undergraduate experience surveys across nine campuses and a Muslim student photovoice project through a mixed-methods design. I argue that racial and religious respect derived from interpersonal, discursive, and material sources influence Muslim students' perceptions of institutional commitment to diversity. I introduce racial-religious decoupling to refer to how the separation of race and religion as distinct social experiences hinders campus commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion for addressing anti-Muslim racism and intersections of race and religion. This study uses critical race theory to demonstrate how hegemonic Whiteness embedded in higher education includes Christian normativity, which racializes non-Christians as outsiders who have to justify their needs and resources for their communities.

Translating religious expressions from Arabic into English seems problematic where the cultural backgrounds must be known for the translator to choose the appropriate equivalence and to help bridging the cultural gap between two cultures. As a result, this paper investigates to what extent have Venuti's strategies (domestication and foreignization) been successfully implemented in rendering the religious expressions in "Taha Hussein's The Days" ("al' ayam") by "E. H. Paxton" in the translating process. It also asserts the challenges involved in translating the Islamic religious expressions in this novel. Consequently, this paper has randomly chosen, discussed, and compared 10 Islamic expressions of Hussein's novel with their English equivalents. In addition, two Arabic raters were consulted. Venuti's (2004) domestication and foreignization method was used to analyse these examples. The study concludes that the translator uses the two methods in rendering the religious expressions. The foreignization strategy was used more than domestication. Six examples have been foreignized; whereas, four of them were domesticated. The study also reveals that the use of both strategies supplements and supports the translation accuracy. Finally, the different cultural backgrounds, religions, expressions, costumes, traditions have to be the ultimate concerns of the translators in translating the Arabic religious expressions into English language.

Since Indonesia's independence in 1945, policies related to Islamic education have undergone a shift from a domestication approach to an accommodation approach. This paper aims to examine the forms of government policies that have regulated Islamic education during this time period, and to analyze the underlying factors and consequences of these policies on Islamic education. This research employs a qualitative, historical approach, relying on a literature review for data. The findings indicate that the origins of the domestication policy can be traced to differences in views between the government and Muslims concerning the role of religion in state affairs, as well as the slow modernization of madrasas (Islamic schools) and "pesantren" (Islamic boarding schools), which led to a weak position for Islamic education within the national education system. On the other hand, the accommodative policy was influenced by a variety of factors, including the New Order regime's efforts to strictly and consistently implement Pancasila as the state ideology; the need to maintain power by appealing to the majority Muslim population; the intellectual transformation of a new generation of Muslim political thinkers and activists towards a more harmonious relationship between Islam and the state, allowing for Islamic ideas to be more easily accepted; and the increased social, educational, economic, and political mobilization of Muslims, which allowed for more educated Muslims to be involved in policymaking.

This paper explores the notion that religious texts and the tradition of religious story telling are the content, form or "the movable feast" by which we form and preserve our culture and group identity, and by which we pass them down to the next generations. All these texts are composed of language that is open for analysis and multiple interpretations. Hence, religious beliefs are anchored in language which shapes and reshapes our worldview.

The present paper deals with theology from the point of view of the school of Eckankar and its critique based on the Islamic teachings. Three major topics are probed into in the school of Eckankar, i.e. the definition of religion, the origin of religion, and exclusiveness. On the topic of the definition of religion, Eckankar essentially regards as a religious experience in its common sense in the western culture. Therefore religion is an experience that the individual passes in him, and observing rituals such as going to the church are not regarded as faithfulness. From the point of view of Islamic teachings such an attitude causes the reduction of the values of the epistemic role of religion, while in Islam the epistemic aspects are very strong. On the topic of the origin of religion, once again the Eckankar School regards religion as the individual's personal experiences. Therefore, based on the multiplicity of the individual's religious experiences; religions will be multiple as well. Islamic teachings regard personal experiences as based on divine nature, but does not agree with the religious multiplicity as multiplicity in the legitimacy as regarded by the Eckankar School. The concluding part of this of this paper is the topic of religious exclusiveness of which the Eckankar School is a fervent advocate, but yet there are many contradictory points in the contents of the speeches of the supporters of this school. The paper attempts at showing its ambiguous and contradictory points from the point of view of Islamic teachings, and put to the test of critique.

Islam is the world's second largest religion and the third largest religion in the U.S., yet college campuses are lacking adequate support to welcome Muslim students and make them feel safe. At the same time, international students who identify as Muslims continue to enroll in U.S. higher education in increasingly numbers. If colleges truly value diversity and inclusion, they need to proactively address issues of marginalization and discriminations, and make efforts to transform institutional culture to be more inclusive. Through this paper, the authors seek to examine Muslim student experience on U.S. higher education campuses, identify the main challenges that this population faces, and provide specific policy and practice recommendations. Building on current research suggesting that a supportive campus culture impacts student confidence and resilience, and that student experiences on campus affect academic achievement and persistence, the authors propose the Culturally Engaging Campus Environments (CECE) Model as framework for campuses to build toward.

The present study is an attempt to investigate the problems resulting from the lexical choice in the translation of the Holy Qur'an to emphasize the importance of the theory of "Frame Semantics" in the translation process. It has been conducted with the aim of measuring the difference in concept between the two languages Arabic and English. In order to find out this difference two words have been chosen from the Qur'an to see how the different English frames can affect the translation of the Holy Qur'an. In addition to that the paper aims to reveal the strategies used by translators to avoid such effect. We also intended to see which factors that can mostly affect the translation of the Qur'an: the linguistic background or the cultural knowledge. Four hypotheses were coined to deal with the difference in frame knowledge (conception) between Arabic and English. The analysis of the data showed that the linguistic background contributed more to the translators' ability than the cultural knowledge. Arank ordering for the five translations performed in the present study resulted in that the first rank (completely appropriate) was assigned to Yusuf Ali's translation and the second position was booked by Pickthall's translation.

Many communities across the United States have been undergoing recent demographic changes. Since the 1980s, low-skilled labor (e.g. meatpacking) has attracted Latino families to settle in communities that historically have been home to few, if any, Latinos (i.e. the New Latino Diaspora). In more recent years, these same job opportunities have also characterized these communities as prime locations for refugees from countries like Somalia and Sudan. As a result, schools in these settings are serving an even more diverse student population than they were twenty, ten, or even five years ago. Given that the contexts of the New Latino Diaspora (NLD) and refugee resettlement may differ substantially, schools that have made steps to traverse one demographic change (i.e., working with Latino students) cannot necessarily use the same methods to tackle the other (i.e., working with Muslim refugee populations). Beyond formal school planning, Muslim refugee youth in NLD communities are often targets of post-9/11 Islamophobia, while peers and teachers alike often lack the religious literacies needed to ensure these youths' school success. This paper draws on the case of one particular Nebraska community to shed light on how seemingly unrelated instantiations of demographic change (i.e., the NLD and refugee resettlement) produce a unique context to consider the need to develop religious literacy as a component of multicultural education in both teacher preparation and K-12 schooling environments. After considering emerging ethnographic data from a larger study, I provide action-oriented recommendations based on the scholarship concerning religious inclusivity.

This paper investigates the Islam and Muslim life in German textbooks. The study is based on the analysis of current Geography textbooks in Bavarian secondary schools. As a first step, the authors developed a system for objective analysis of the textbooks that structures the content in categories. In a second step, the authors used the qualitative method. One category system was developed to analyze the didactical quality of the illustration to the theme Islam and Muslim life another category system was developed to analyze the different aspects of Islam and Muslim life in textbooks. Quantitative analysis shows that the book authors use a variety of illustrations, but especially photos followed by maps. The quality is generally good. Three aspects were selected for qualitative analysis: Spatial representations of Islam, Islam as a religion and Muslim people in Germany. The spatial representation of Islam across the different textbooks is very diverse. Islam is usually not presented as a European phenomenon. The presentation of Islam as an oriental phenomenon risks propagating the idea that there is no other religious group in this area. The information on Islam as a religion is often superficial and may cause students to falsely assume that Islam is a homogeneous religion. Overall, the reader is led to wrongly falsely assume that Muslim migrants, many of whom are living in the 3rd generation in Germany, are still not really part of German society. This is certainly not true for the majority.

This article aims to analyze the views and teachings of Islam and the Islamic religion in order to determine the requirements of interaction and media use. This article is of qualitative kind and content analysis approach and has done based on the study of Islamic texts and sources associated with the media. Because of the multiplicity and diversity of sources for better organization, it was used all available printed and digital written. Data collection method was library and accordingly, used the resources available in libraries, databases and electronic Journals and slip and form data collection tool were developed by researchers. In order to analyze the data, first the theoretical foundations were examined through the study of literature and taking notes and then using content analysis concepts and major themes were categorized and extracted according to the individual relationship with God, self, others, the world, life, and life about Media. To increase the credibility of the analysis of people out-of-range use and after review, reformation was carried out. The results and findings of this paper shows that by deeply looking at the Islamic religious teachings can introduce a human and society which would help him/her in the recognition and interaction with tools such as Media and before this powerful communication tool fades and captures human with its own graces and creates a dependency in his/her behavior, it uses media in line with human and Islamic goals better. Among this, the special attention to interactive approach and competition, due to the growing trend and unpredictable emerging technologies is reflected against Attraction approaches, avoiding or apathy. Also extracting Islamic requirements in interaction with media causes to prevent, security and reliability of the Muslim movement and vaccinating him/her in the stormy sea of media waves and hide and reveal goals/targets. What was taken for granted, rich Islamic teachings in interaction with the media provides individual requirement dimensions in order to facilitate the person's relationship with God, self, others, the world, life and the Hereafter, strengthen and the more better background of his/her self-management in interaction with any man-made instrument including the mass media.

The last few decades have witnessed an interesting new dimension in creative writing as a number of novelists have addressed literary theory in their literary texts, thus acting as creative metacritics. One intriguing writer who addresses theory in her fiction is the British novelist Jeanette Winterson. In this paper I intend to present Winterson as a creative metacritic of Deconstruction in her controversial novel "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" (1985). My argument is in two parts. First I present Winterson's treatment of religious texts, both Biblical and Quranic, in a manner that simulates Deconstructive critics when they interpret literary texts. I will show how Winterson uses her narrative to deconstruct religious beliefs and stories in order to open new possibilities of interpretations to replace these religious references. Next, I focus on Winterson's narrative and her intriguing use of embedded texts that function as interpretative riffs of the deconstructed religious texts. After rejecting the authority of religion and history as reliable sources of truth, she proposes other possibilities of interpretation that seem more realistic and more personal.

This study discusses the values Tauhidullah as a base in the training process of life skills can be developed in the community to build the character of the nation, by describing and simultaneously evaluate the education and training system that we've experienced. The paper argues that builds the character of the nation through education Tauhidullah values need to be placed in the background of conflicts over access to economic resources and political.

Fatwa institutions play an important role to disseminate information about the fatwa decision that has been discussed. Fatwa is decided will be a guide and reference to the Muslims for dismantling all the problems related to religious law in everyday life. The purpose of this paper to discuss the integration method fatwa information using a mobile device technology. The challenges of Fatwa integration using mobile technology is also reviewed in detail to create a new prospect in explaining the current issues or problems in religion. Some recommendation to achieve this combination of two elements was also made to implement using M-Fatwa through mobile technology in Malaysia.

In its effort to provide solid religious foundation for Muslim students, the Ministry of Education Malaysia has launched a national religious literacy initiative known as the j-QAF Programme in 2004. This programme has since been implemented in public primary schools throughout the country and incorporated as a part of the curriculum of studies. The programme includes a wide range of basic religious skills including recitation of the Quran, the learning of the "Jawi" script and Arabic language as well as the basics of worship. After several years of its implementation, much concern is raised on the effectiveness of this programme in achieving its objectives. Thus, this preliminary paper aims to shed some light on this matter. Specifically, it focuses on analyzing the aspect of Quranic recitation skill, which constitutes one of the core subjects of the programme. A Quran reading test was administered to selected respondents in one of the schools, and the results were analyzed through descriptive statistical methods. The findings indicate the level of proficiency of the students in mastering the skill of Quranic recitation and its possible implication and reflection on the overall effectiveness of the programme.

In meeting its economic, social, and political goals, Malaysia and many other countries are challenged with the rise of social problems among their citizens. Being an Islamic country, the question of the role of religion in shaping good behavior has been an issue of concern. In spite of religion, education is seen as a significant instrument to tackle this social issue. The aim of this article is to highlight an Islamic perspective on the role of education in responding to social issues among students. This paper begins with philosophical discussion on the purpose and the meaning of education. Further discussion is on the three aspects inherent to the concept of education, i.e., the man, the content, and the method, is explained. To conclude, several suggestions are recommended to strengthen the existing educational system in Malaysia. (Contains 7 footnotes.)

The question posed by the "Canadian Journal of Environmental Education" volume 11, "where is the place for religion in environmental education?" is rephrased in this essay to become, "where is the place for a religious view of the order of nature in environmental education?" Relying on the writings of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a proponent of the perennial philosophy and an eminent scholar of Islam and comparative religion, I use this paper to explore the notion of a religious order of nature and, in extension, sacred cosmology as an alternative worldview on the pathway toward sustainability. I maintain that environmental education, in particular, and environmental studies, more generally, bear responsibility to re-introduce, on a cultural level and global scale, lost dimensions of a religious-spiritual knowledge of nature. This includes reclaiming environmental ethics embedded in timeless metaphysical, epistemological, and ontological understandings of the cosmos, and validating non-scientific ways of knowing. To ensure true and lasting progress toward sustainability, it seems vital to address the global crisis of unsustainability more seriously as a crisis of worldview, and to strengthen a consequent transformation of perception. Providing alternative world-views which hold promise for sustainability, with environmental education charting the path toward a paradigm shift, is particularly critical in the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, which so far is mostly silent on the deepest dimensions of unsustainability. (Contains 4 figures and 1 note.)

In this article, the authors argue for examining more deeply the ways that youth from Muslim transnational communities are defining and engaging (or not engaging) in active citizenship practices, articulating a sense of belonging within and across national borders, and frequently developing and acting on critical perspectives on the politics of nationalism and the "war on terror." Whereas much of the work to date examines how youth from Muslim transnational communities negotiate their religious and ethnic identities, the authors argue for shifting the focus of research from an emphasis on youth identities to an account of how these social identities are intimately bound up with questions of citizenship, which Levinson (2005) has usefully described as "the rules and meanings of political and cultural membership." Moreover, the authors suggest the need for robust accounts of the role that schools play in shaping the parameters of social membership and political participation for these youth. As the key institutions of social incorporation for youth from transnational communities, schools are centrally involved in the processes through which young people develop their sense of belonging and learn (explicitly but also, perhaps more important, implicitly) the meanings and practices of citizenship. The authors argue that the experiences of these youth in the post-9/11 context illustrate that educating young people for active citizenship--for meaningful inclusion and participation in their societies--must account for lives lived figuratively and materially across the borders of nation-states. (Contains 4 notes.)

This paper will address the question of Islamic fatalism. Survey data will be used to assess Samuel P. Huntington's controversial "Clash of Civilizations" thesis and its emphasis on fatalism as an inherent characteristic of Islamic religion. The concept of fatalism is expanded and theorized as a function of both structural and theological dimensions. Findings here suggest that fatalism in the Islamic world remains a largely misunderstood phenomenon. Christians living in predominantly Muslim countries are no more fatalistic than their Muslim neighbors; and in Indonesia, Christians report higher levels of fatalism than Indonesian Muslims. However, Muslims do indicate a higher level of belief that cosmological forces control life's outcomes than do Christians living in those same Islamic societies. Findings also suggest that the effect of Western influence on fatalism is not as straightforward as that predicted by Huntington's theory. Fatalism in the Muslim world is best understood in light of complex historical, cultural, economic and socio-political processes and not as a direct outcome of Western influence and/or religious denomination alone. (Contains 8 tables and 11 notes.)

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the ideology of Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdūdī, a prominent Islamic scholar and thinker of the 20th century. Focusing on Mawdūdī's religious, social, economic, and political ideas, the paper examines his contributions to Islamic thought and their relevance in contemporary perspectives. With a special focus, the paper explores Mawdūdī's interpretations of Islam, his vision for society and governance, and his critiques of modern ideologies. Additionally, the paper examines the controversies surrounding Mawdūdī's thought and offers insights gained from comparative analysis with other Islamic thinkers. By exploring Mawdūdī's intellectual legacy, this paper seeks to contribute to a deeper understanding of Islamic thought and its implications for contemporary Muslim societies.(1) It seems that over the coming years the comprehension and influence of his thoughts will grow within the field of contemporary Islamic social sciences and he will be recognized as one of the most influential thinkers in contemporary world of Islam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before the emergence of the Boko Haram terrorist group in the early 2000s, religious extremism in Nigeria had sparked large-scale crises in Kaduna and Plateau, among other states in the country. Since the inception of the Nigerian Fourth Republic, such crises have been undermining public safety and, by implication, the country's quest for national integration and sustainable development. In light of mob violence that resulted in the gruesome murder of a college student who allegedly uttered blasphemous comments, this paper examined the rise of religious extremism in Nigeria. Looking beyond human security threats like poverty and illiteracy, the paper utilised desk review of published documents to establish the historical and political factors that sowed in the country, the seeds of religious extremism now germinating. The paper found that the nature of the pre-colonial empires that now make up the Nigerian state, coupled with colonial and post-colonial factors, including the dissipation of knowledge on the Islamic justice system, competition over political powers, and the politics of divide and rule, have converged to make religion a volatile phenomenon in the country. Therefore, the paper concludes that until the multidimensional factors are addressed through mitigating and preventive efforts--such as robust religious education, religious regulation, interreligious dialogue and economic empowerment--the country's quest for peace, justice, and strong institutions among other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will remain a mirage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In modern times many militant atheist thinkers and activists have tried to promote the idea that religions, as well as religious ways of life, are one of the main, if not the main source of evil in the social arena. Some other nonbeliever scholars, while taking a respectful approach towards religions and religious people, maintaining that it is more rational for people and communities to adopt a non-religious outlook on life and become members of the community of non-believers. In this paper, I do not take issue with the militant non-believers. The reason is that their approach to religion is so ideologically driven that it leaves not much room for proper rational discussions; it only invites some polemical replies. My aim here is, instead, to enter into a dialogue with those non-believer scholars who view religion in a measured and rational way. My intention is to critically assess the claims of this latter group of scholars and explain why, contrary to what they suggest, certain interpretations of religion, and in particular, the Islamic faith, can provide them with better alternatives than their atheist outlooks. The arguments of this paper are mostly in reply to the views expressed by Professor Shearmur in his paper on critical rationalism and religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2021 census data in Australia show that a higher proportion of Bangladeshi Muslim women in Australia have postgraduate degrees compared to the broader female population. They are also more likely to have a bachelor's degree when compared to their counterparts in the wider female cohort. However, the unemployment rate for Bangladeshi Muslim women is more than twice as high as that of the general female population. While a comparison between higher educational attainment and lower labour participation raises the question of whether the goal of higher education is indeed labour participation and the dilemma of valuing education solely based on its economic returns, nonetheless, the disparity alarms curiosity to investigate the reasons. The existing research on Muslim women in Australia reveal a complex web of external and internal multilayered intersecting factors that influence migrant women's labour participation and makes them more susceptible to financial vulnerabilities. Utilizing qualitative methods in analysing fieldwork data from ongoing PhD research, this paper underscores the critical need for a nuanced understanding of internal cultural, domestic, and religious factors to address the unique challenges faced by this demographic in their labour market participation in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though Turkey's ruling party's (Justice and Development Party, the AKP) nation-building and desired citizen creation policies have been studied, its use of necropolitical narratives and propaganda in education has not been investigated. This paper addresses this gap by examining how the Turkish state ruled by the AKP has propagated its religious necropolitical narrative through the national curriculum and Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) in school textbooks, and magazines and comic books for children. The paper shows that these texts and comics try to indoctrinate children into a religious cult of martyrdom in different ways by encouraging them to view tragic death and getting killed for the nation as a positive event. This paper argues that these propaganda efforts are part of a religious necropolitical indoctrination campaign that seeks to create a new Islamist and jihadist generation of lifelong supporters of the AKP, which portrays itself in the educational texts as the embodiment of Islam, the Muslim Turkish nation and even the global Muslim community (ummah). This new religious generation is expected to believe that dying for the Islamist populist authoritarian regime is the greatest honour a person can bring upon themselves. This paper contributes to the necropolitics literature by showing that not only adults but also children have been targeted by authoritarian rulers' necropolitical propaganda attempts to create desired citizens who are ready to die for the regime, believing this is a religious obligation. Further research is needed to assess if and to what extent this propaganda has an impact on children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"This paper attempts to discuss the general trends in the incidence of divorce among the Muslim population in Singapore since 1921 and the patterns of divorce in the 1980s when detailed statistics were made available.... The Singapore Muslims experienced an extremely high and steady incidence of divorce during the period up to 1958 when the procedures for processing divorce petitions were not well organised. Following the introduction of new legislation and the creation of the Syariah Court to handle marital disputes in 1958, there occurred an immediate and dramatic downturn in the rate of Muslim divorce. By 1970 the decline appeared to have stalled and a slight upturn has even taken place in the 1980s." The impact of rapid social and economic development is assessed. (SUMMARY IN FRE AND ITA), (excerpt)

This article examines the use of religion by an authoritarian ruling party to delegitimize political opposition through securitization. The case study presented is the ruling AKP in Turkey, which initially promised to desecuritize the Kurdish issue to co-opt the Kurdish opposition but eventually resorted to the demonization narratives and repressive policies of the secular Turkish state; however, in addition to labeling the Kurdish opposition as terrorists, the AKP deployed religion to legitimize its repressive policies on religious grounds. The Turkish case shows that not in legitimizing (via desecuritization), but in delegitimizing opposition (via securitization) religion has been the main tool deployed by the ruling party. This finding needs to be tested in other contexts and cases. Additionally, since this paper only focuses on the narrative of the AKP's religious delegitimization, further research is needed to measure its efficacy and impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fields of "women and peacebuilding" and "religious peacebuilding" have developed in parallel with the adoption of the UNSC Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security, and the international developments highlighting the important role of religion and religious actors in both conflict and peace. Scholarship in both fields has addressed the critical roles of both women and religion in peace processes, and the importance of their inclusion in the different stages of peacebuilding and conflict transformation. However, their convergence remains largely lacking. The "women and peacebuilding" literature has ignored religious dynamics in studying the impact and the roles of women in peace processes. Similarly, literature on "religious peacebuilding" has been blind to the various contributions women religious actors-- or women inspired by their faith--make towards building sustainable peace in conflict-affected areas. In this light, the paper offers a review of literature on the intersection between the two fields of "women and peacebuilding" and "religious peacebuilding." It makes a case for building on that intersection by further examining the potential role Islamic feminism--as a feminist movement that challenges patriarchal Islamic doctrines underlying discriminatory cultural attitudes, legislations, and policies--can play in fostering women's roles in peacebuilding in the Muslim world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeszyty Teoretyczne Rachunkowości is the property of Stowarzyszenie Ksiegowych w Polsce Rada Naukowa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The founders of the secular Turkish Republic, the Kemalists used secular nationalist education to build a secular Turkish nation and to create their own version of modern pro-Western secular Turkish citizens. This paper argues that Turkey's current ruling party, the AKP (Justice and Development Party) has been using the same system of education to create its own desired citizens with Islamist Populist ideals. This has been done without changing the secular principles of the constitution and laws on national education since there are several constraints that would prevent AKP to have open and declared pro-Sharia changes to the law. Thus, unlike many other Islamists in the other parts of the world, the paper shows that the AKP has chosen to undermine the secularity of the system, constitution, and law in an ad hoc, gradual and undeclared fashion. The paper concludes by noting that no matter the change in political actors and their ideologies, education is monopolized by the state for political purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the literature on religion's relationship with populism is Eurocentric and has so far focused on European populist party discourses and, to a degree, on the United States, in particular, on the Christian identity populism of the Tea Party and the Trump movement within the Republican Party. However, across the Asia-Pacific region, religion has become an important component of populist discourses. It has been instrumentalised by populists in many nations in the region, including some of the most populous countries in the world, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan. Moreover, the relationship between religions other than Christianity and populism has all too rarely been studied, except for Turkey. This paper therefore surveys the Asia-Pacific region to comprehend how populists in the region incorporate religion into their discourses and the impact religious populism has on Asia-Pacific societies. It asks two questions: "What role does religion play in populist discourses?" and "How has religion's incorporation into populist discourse impacted society?" To answer these questions, the paper examines four nations which have recently been ruled by governments espousing, to different degrees and in different ways, religious populism: India, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka. By choosing these nations, we can examine the relationship between populism and Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, and between religion and populism within a variety of religious, ethnic, and political contexts. The paper argues that religion is instrumentalised in populist discourses across the Asia-Pacific region in a variety of ways. First, religion is used to construct ingroups and outgroups, which serve a populist narrative in which the religion of the ingroup is superior yet threatened by the religion(s) of the outgroup(s). Second, religion is used to empower religious authorities, which support populist parties and movements. Third, religion is instrumentalised by populists in order to frame themselves, and in particular their leader, as a sacred or holy figure. The paper also argues that religion's incorporation into populist discourse has impacted society by legitimising authoritarianism, increasing religious divisions, and justifying the oppression of religious minorities. The paper concludes by noting some differences between populists in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]