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This article critically examines three authoritative Islamic discourses on political loyalty produced by prominent figures of Sunni reformist Islam: The Egyptian-Qatari Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī (1926-2022), the Mauritanian ʿAbdallāh b. Bayyah (b. 1935), and the Iraqi-Qatari ʿAlī al-Qaradāghī (b. 1949). First, I analyze the key arguments presented in each discourse: al-Qaradāghī advocates that allegiance is determined by fairness, whereas al-Qaraḍāwī retains a realist perspective on loyalty in context, while ʿAbdallāh b. Bayyah argues for a complementary relationship between loyalty to religion and to the homeland. Second, I discuss the three discourses in terms of the foundations, manifestations, and implications for political loyalty. Finally, I point out some of the limitations of the reformist notion of political loyalty toward non-Muslims, particularly in pluralist societies.

This article critically examines three authoritative Islamic discourses on political loyalty produced by prominent figures of Sunni reformist Islam: The Egyptian-Qatari Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī (1926-2022), the Mauritanian ʿAbdallāh b. Bayyah (b. 1935), and the Iraqi-Qatari ʿAlī al-Qaradāghī (b. 1949). First, I analyze the key arguments presented in each discourse: al-Qaradāghī advocates that allegiance is determined by fairness, whereas al-Qaraḍāwī retains a realist perspective on loyalty in context, while ʿAbdallāh b. Bayyah argues for a complementary relationship between loyalty to religion and to the homeland. Second, I discuss the three discourses in terms of the foundations, manifestations, and implications for political loyalty. Finally, I point out some of the limitations of the reformist notion of political loyalty toward non-Muslims, particularly in pluralist societies.

Why did violence decline in Iraq in 2007? Many policymakers and scholars credit the \"surge,\" or the program of U.S. reinforcements and doctrinal changes that began in January 2007. Others cite the voluntary insurgent standdowns of the Sunni Awakening or say that the violence had simply run its course with the end of a wave of sectarian cleansing; still others credit an interaction between the surge and the Awakening. The difference matters for policy and scholarship, yet this debate has not moved from hypothesis to test. An assessment of the competing claims based on recently declassified data on violence at local levels and information gathered from seventy structured interviews with coalition participants finds little support for the cleansing or Awakening theses. Instead, a synergistic interaction between the surge and the Awakening was required for violence to drop as quickly and widely as it did: both were necessary; neither was sufficient. U.S. policy thus played an important role in reducing the violence in Iraq in 2007, but Iraq provides no evidence that similar methods will produce similar results elsewhere without local equivalents of the Sunni Awakening.

This book succeeds in the feat of bringing together primary sources on a sensitive subject (the Sunni question in Iran), while offering an original look at an Islamic Republic too often considered in the media as an exclusively Shiite religious political actor. The author, Stephane A. Dudoignon, director of research at the CNRS, is not only familiar with Iranian terrain but he is also a fine connoisseur of Central Asia, more particularly Tajikistan and Pakistan. This knowledge of Iran and its peripheries allows him to consider its margins and to take into account the transnational dimension of the Iranian Sunni question.

Tefviz meselesi ictihada başvurmaksızın ilkten hüküm koyma esasına dayanan girift bir meseledir. Şer'i ahkâmın kaynaǧı ya vahiy veya vahyin ışıǧında ictihaddır. Tefvizde ise hüküm herhangi bir vahiy veya ictihada dayanmayıp, Allah tarafından daha önce verilen yetkiye dayanmaktadır. Tefvizde ilkten ve re'sen bir hüküm koyma söz konusudur. Usulcüler arasında böyle bir yetkinin imkanı tartışılmış, mesele etrafında kabul ve red şeklinde temel iki görüş ortaya çıkmıştır. Bu ihtilafın temelinde hüsün ve kubuh etrafındaki kelami tartışmaların önemli rol oynadıǧı anlaşılmaktadır. Tefvizi kabul eden usulcüler kendi içerisinde aklen cevaz verenler; hem aklen hem de fiilen mümkün görenler şeklinde ayrışmışlardır. Kabul eden usulcüler detayda da ihtilaf etmişler kimi usulcüler tefvize peygamber, miictehid/álim ve hatta ámmí bakımından cevaz verirken, kimisi sadece peygamber bakımından, kimisi hem peygamber hem de müctehidler bakımından cevazına hükmetmişlerdir. Çoǧunluǧu Mu'tezile mensubu olan usulcüler ise ne aklen ne de fiilen gerçekleşmesini mümkün görmemişlerdir. Hem aklen hem de fiilen cevaz veren ve tefvizi peygamber ve âlimlere teşmil eden usulcüler arasında Mu'tezil? âlim Müveys b. İmrân'ın adının ön plana çıktıǧı görülmektedir. İmam $afii ve Şâfif usulcüler de aynı grup içerisinde yer almış olmakla birlikte özellikle İmam Şâfit'nin görüşü noktasında net bilgiler sunulamamıştır. Hem aklen hem de fiilen gerçekleştiǧini kabul eden usulcüler görüşlerini akli ve sem? delillerle temellendirmeye çalışmışlardır Tefvize cevaz veren usulcüler ayrıca tefvizi seri hükmün kaynaklarından biri olarak kabul etmişlerdir. Tefvize cevaz vermeyen ve çoǧunluǧunu fukahâ/Hanefi metoduna mensup alimlerin oluşturduǧu usulcüler ise ser? hüküm kaynaklarının vahiy ve ictihad olduǧuna vurgu yaparak peygamber de olsa bunların dışında başka bir tesrí\" kaynaǧı bulunamayacaǧını iddia etmişler, onlar da iddiaların akli ve nakli delillerle gerekcelendirmeye çalışmışlardır. Şit usulcüler arasında tefvizi temelden reddedenler olduǧu gibi kabul ve red şeklinde sünnî usulcülerle benzer yaklaşımlar sergileyen alimler de bulunmaktadır. Bazı aşırı Sía fırkaları arasında tekvini tefviz denen bir anlayış da bulunmaktadır. Bu anlayışa göre âlemin yaratılması, idare edilmesi, öldürme, diriltme, rızık verme, âhirette ceza ve mükâfat verme gibi hususlar Allah tarafından Hz. Peygamber, Hz. Ali ve imamlara havale edilmiştir. Fakat bu anlayış mutedil Sta alimleri tarafından şiddetle reddedilerek bunu savunanların küfrüne hükmedilmiştir. Kimi usulcülerin ictihadla tefvizi birbirine karıştırdıkları veya en azından tefvizi de ictihad kapsamında gördükleri anlaşılmaktadır. Oysaki tefvizin en temel özelliklerinden biri ictihada başvurmadan hüküm vermektir. Dolayısıyla böyle bir yaklaşım isabetli gözükmemektedir.

The traditional gender binary constitutes an integral aspect of Islamic social ethics, which has a pivotal role in shaping religious obligations, legal proceedings, and interpersonal judgments within Muslim communities. Within the familial sphere, this gender binary underscores fundamental responsibilities encompassing parenthood, filial duties, and inheritance rights. Recent years have witnessed a growing challenge to the traditional concept of the gender binary within Islamic societies. This shift is driven by increasing social libertarianism that emphasizes gender fluidity and individual choice. Hence, this article aims to critically scrutinize evolving discussions and controversies about the rights of intersex and transgender individuals, particularly issues relating to sex reassignment or gender-affirming surgery, marriage, and reproduction, from the perspective of the Sunni tradition of Islam. To support the various interpretations and insights presented here, a comprehensive and rigorous analysis is carried out on various religious texts and scholarly sources to elucidate the theological and jurisprudential positions on gender issues. It is thus concluded that Shariah offers greater flexibility in the treatment of intersex individuals compared to those with gender dysphoria because the intersex condition is viewed as a physical impairment that is not the choice of the afflicted individual. By contrast, in the case of individuals with gender dysphoria, they are willfully attempting to change their recognized biological sex, that God had naturally given to them at birth. Therefore, it is recommended that such transgender individuals deserve respectful psychological and social rehabilitation with help and guidance from religious authorities, their families, and communities.

We develop and test an economic theory of insurgency motivated by the informal literature and by recent military doctrine. We model a three-way contest between violent rebels, a government seeking to minimize violence by mixing service provision and coercion, and civilians deciding whether to share information about insurgents. We test the model using panel data from Iraq on violence against Coalition and Iraqi forces, reconstruction spending, and community characteristics (sectarian status, socioeconomic grievances, and natural resource endowments). Our results support the theory’s predictions: improved service provision reduces insurgent violence, particularly for smaller projects and since the “surge” began in 2007.

This study examines how young Muslims negotiate centrally accepted Sunni Islamic traditions while assimilating global modern cultural trends, and how Sunni Muslims respond to these hybrid practices. Young participants' justifications for integrating modern elements into Sunni Islamic traditions reveal personalized interpretations of religious teachings that often diverge from macro-level orthodoxy, generating cultural divisions within society. The data was obtained by conducting semi-structured interviews involving purposively selected university members, organizational members, and senior citizens. The data were analyzed using content analysis that provided two distinct themes which are: i) Youngsters' hybridization practices and justifications for it; and ii) Pakistani society at large disapproves the youngsters' hybridizing tendencies and its justifications. Findings suggest that young participants selectively interpret Islamic principles to legitimize modern adaptations in dress, ritual, and worship, reflecting liberal and global influences on everyday religiosity. Senior citizens and community representatives view these reinterpretations as inconsistent with Sunni orthodoxy and attribute them to the spread of Western cultural norms and insufficient religious instruction among youth. The study offers insight into how globalization, digital exposure, and local orthodoxy interact in shaping contemporary Muslim identities within Pakistan's Sunni Islamic traditions.

Over a century ago European explorers in Eastern Turkestan (southern Xinjiang) made a remarkable discovery: the Sunni inhabitants of Khotan were engaged in elaborate veneration of the Shiʿi twelve Imams, whom they believed to be buried at various holy sites in the Khotan region. This paper investigates Khotan’s network of holy sites and the narratives that were attached to them, from the sixteenth century to the present. While the political landscape of the present may sometimes make the Sunni-Shiʿi divide appear natural, the case of Eastern Turkestan, which had its own, idiosyncratic approach to sectarian identity, reminds us that the maintenance of such a Sunni-Shiʿi consensus on sectarian designation was dependent on networks of knowledge reproduction that did not embrace the entirety of the Muslim world. Pre-Islamic sacred geographies, the power of locally networked holy sites, the phenomenon of textual appropriation, and a popular and eclectic manuscript tradition overwhelmed weak sectarian distinctions, bringing Muslim followers of the Hanafi legal tradition to pray at the purported tombs of Twelver Imams.

Using the thematic analysis network approach, we investigated the perception of social justice experienced by Iranian Sunni Kurds. The research participants were sixteen Iranian Sunni Kurds selected using purposeful sampling. The semi-structured interview was used for data collection. The findings revealed that the participants had encountered discrimination at the intersection of four aspects: ideological discrimination, structural discrimination, agency-oriented discrimination, and intra-ethnic discrimination. The experience of multifaceted discrimination among Sunni Kurds points to a monopolistic distribution of resources, opportunities, and political power, favoring a specific ethnic group in Iran. The ethnic stratification pattern related to Sunni Kurds in Iran demonstrates the presence of a dominant core and a peripheral ethnicity. Cultural and political factors significantly shaped the core-periphery relationship between the central state and Sunni Kurds. The existence of sovereign and non-sovereign communities contributes to the persistence of discrimination against Sunni Kurds. Consequently, the perpetuation of inequality and discrimination endured by Sunni Kurds as a result of the central state’s policy of homogenization has led to internal colonialism.