Annals of Japan Association for Middle East Studies
Online ISSN : 2433-1872
Print ISSN : 0913-7858
Volume 5
Displaying 1-13 of 13 articles from this issue
  • Kumiko KONDO
    Article type: Article
    1990 Volume 5 Pages 45-65
    Published: March 31, 1990
    Released on J-STAGE: March 30, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    "Two crucial questions", says Leonardo P. Alishan, "that the reader of Sadeq Hedayat's enigmatic The Blind Owl must answer are these; why has the novel been divided into two main sections (pp. 4-43 and 46-128), and how are the two related to each other and to the subsequent, brief denouement (pp. 129-130)? The questions are crucial because without answers to them the reader can neither fathom what the novel is all about nor begin to appreciate it as fiction." He is right on the whole. Yet he misses one crucial point. Namely, the novel is divided into four sections (pp. 9-43; 45-46; 47-114; 115-116), among which Alishan leaves the third unexplained. Without considering a part of the novella, how can one grasp it as a whole? This essay attempts, therefore, to analyze the structure of The Blind Owl in full and then to show that the novel is no longer enigmatic, even if it is indeed highly compricated. The stress will be mainly put on the two brief sections (pp. 45-6 and 115-6). Every sentence of them is scrutinized, consequently, we shall see that its construction is constantly exposed to the deconstruction.
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  • Y. Tomoko FUJIKAWA
    Article type: Article
    1990 Volume 5 Pages 67-111
    Published: March 31, 1990
    Released on J-STAGE: March 30, 2018
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  • Kaori KOMATSU
    Article type: Article
    1990 Volume 5 Pages 113-172
    Published: March 31, 1990
    Released on J-STAGE: March 30, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
  • Keiko TAKAKI
    Article type: Article
    1990 Volume 5 Pages 201-252
    Published: March 31, 1990
    Released on J-STAGE: March 30, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    Sidi Bou Said is located on the outskirts of Tunis, Tunisia's capital. The town's name comes from its patron saint, the 13th century great mystic, Abu Said al-Beji. In the center of the city is a mausoleum/mosque which enshrines this holy personage. In addition to this main mosque, there are many smaller mausoleums for the lesser religious sages Today, activities of the sufi botherhood, the tariqa of the Isawiyya are also vigorous in this town. The aim of this paper is to explore and analyze the various facets of the religious life, namely the saint cults, the activities of the Isawiyya, as well as the daily prayers in the mosque, using the conceptual framework of "religious complex". In past studies on the maraboutism and the sufi brotherhoods, such as that of Isawiyya which is well known for its eccentric practices, there has been a tendency to contrast these religious practices with "orthodox Islam", represented mainly by the ulama(Islamic scholars). This inclination can also be clearly observed in anthropological literature. For instance, employing R. Redfield's terms, "great tradition" and "little tradition", orthodox Islam is assigned to the former, whereas maraboutism is relegated to the latter; the contrasting feature is also seen in the description of the former as "the characteristics of urban religion" whereas the latter incorporates "the characteristics of religion in a tribal society". In the large number of research done by French administrators and scholars on "lc culte des saints" and "les confreries religieuses", one also notices that these various religious elements are treated independently or in isolation, and there have been few comprehensive studies that investigate and analyze the interaction of these religious factors. In this paper, the case study of Sidi Bou Said is presented and analyzed with a particular focus on the religious complex and its interrelated elements. However the term "religious complex" is not intended to be used merely as a conclusion, since such an approach does not shed enough light on the actual state of the phenomenon. My intention here is rather to use this concept as a starting point to explore and clarify this formation process and its actual situation; namely how this religious complex has been historically formed, and how these religious elements combine and interact in the present circumstances. In Section I, the subject of my study and the analytical framework will be introduced. In Section II, to provide background information, the general history of Sidi Bou Said is overviewed. The history of this locality can be divided and characterized by some specific roles which it has played through the vicissitudes of time. First of all, it was a military base in Phoenician and Roman times; later in the beginning of the Arab-Islamic period, it became a locale for a ribat; and in the 12th century, it became an ascetic religious hermitage for the sufis and saints; with the development of the graveyards for these holy personages, it became a sacred area. After the 18th century, during the Husainid era, it was transformed into a summer resort for the bourgeoisie from Tunis, including the Beyrical family. Since the 1960's, it has been a popular tourist area with those traditional resort residences. In Section III, the formation process of the religious complex of Sidi Bou Said is described and analyzed. The existing religious facilities, namely the mosque, saints' mausoleums, zawiya (religious lodge), and the religious organization (the Isawiyya brotherhood) are examined as the analytical indices. The location of the mausolem/mosque of Sidi Bou Said today was originally the grave of the sufi who died in 1231. A little latter, under Hafsid, a small praying spot was built over it. In the beginning of the 18th century,

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  • Koh NAKATA
    Article type: Article
    1990 Volume 5 Pages 281-308
    Published: March 31, 1990
    Released on J-STAGE: March 30, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The Sunnite jurisprudence defines the rbellion as "revolt against the ruler by force according to their ta'wil." Jurists come to this notion through their understanding of the wars following the death of the Prophet. Ibn Taimiya says that they confound wars of three different categories, i.e., Abu Bakr's wars against the Apostates, the Civil wars, and 'Ali's wars against the Kharijite, and consequently they consider all of them revolts against the ruler, and that subjugating them is obligatory, if they persist. Ibn Taimiya criticizes this conception, and says that the apostates and Kharijite must be subjugated, but as to civil wars, withdrawal from them is better. According to Ibn Taimiya, jurists' idea of "rebellion" stems from this confusion, and it is supposed to be treated as a civil war from which muslims had better abstain. Ibn Taimiya does not only criticize jurists, but also presents his alternative, which is "deviation from the shari'a," namely, muslims must fight not "rebels against a certain ruler," but "factions deviating from the shari'a."
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  • Iraj PARSINEJAD
    Article type: Article
    1990 Volume 5 Pages 341-367
    Published: March 31, 1990
    Released on J-STAGE: March 30, 2018
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  • Massoud DAHER
    Article type: Article
    1990 Volume 5 Pages 369-391
    Published: March 31, 1990
    Released on J-STAGE: March 30, 2018
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  • Modjtaba SADRIA
    Article type: Article
    1990 Volume 5 Pages 403-411
    Published: March 31, 1990
    Released on J-STAGE: March 30, 2018
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  • Yusuke SAITO
    Article type: Book Review
    1990 Volume 5 Pages 413-417
    Published: March 31, 1990
    Released on J-STAGE: March 30, 2018
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  • Kazuo TAKAHASHI
    Article type: Book Review
    1990 Volume 5 Pages 419-424
    Published: March 31, 1990
    Released on J-STAGE: March 30, 2018
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  • Ikuko KATSUMATA
    Article type: Article
    1990 Volume 5 Pages 425-445
    Published: March 31, 1990
    Released on J-STAGE: March 30, 2018
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  • Kunio KATAKURA
    Article type: Article
    1990 Volume 5 Pages 447-453
    Published: March 31, 1990
    Released on J-STAGE: March 30, 2018
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  • John Edward PHILIPS
    Article type: Article
    1990 Volume 5 Pages 499-520
    Published: March 31, 1990
    Released on J-STAGE: March 30, 2018
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