The author tried to feature the contrast of the notion of coexistence in view of the historical development of Jewish nation; there is the sharp delineation between the Medieval to the pre-modern type and the modern notion. In the medieval Age Jews were always a religious national minority anywhere, in which they were looked upon as an alien nation. Contrary to that, as the result of the development of secularized society and the establishment of sovereign state, modern Jews have defined themselves as of two different identities: whereas Jew means religious belonging to Judaism, the same person is a citizen of a nation-state on the one hand and Israeli Jew as a nationality with some kind of Jewish identity on the other. The former has necessarily assimilated to some extent to the culture to which they belong. In this case their principal allegiance is attached to the country. Compared with this, Jewish identity of Israeli Jew is apt to be complicated and confounded, because Jewish coexistence tends to be varied according to the multi-layered cultural pluralism in Israeli society. Therefore, the issue of coexistence in Israel has come to the fore in the present and in future as well.

Some Syrian and Somali refugees, who flee via the Mediterranean route, reach Malta, one of the European countries. This paper focuses on the present anxieties and hopes of those asylum seekers living in a continuous timeline of suffering, based on research conducted in and around refugee detention facilities and refugee residential centres of Maltese Catholic monasteries. It will discuss the current situation of people whose daily life has become normalised as it is, their ongoing anxieties, their non-sharing of suffering and anxieties with the people of the host country, and the social-entrepreneurial movements working to find their way amid this situation. The study concludes that neither a change through the repetitive intrusion of the past into the present, as in a flashback, nor a narrative memory created in the present by recounting past events, but the creation of memories about past hardships based on present sufferings and anxieties and the mutual conceptualisation of a future based on the shared memories will lead to consider the compassionate co-design of a society of coexistence.

This paper analyzes how GCC (Gulf Corporation Council) countries undertake to realize their policy, “tolerance” and “coexistence,” focusing on the Jewish community there. Especially after 2020, the “Abraham Accords” was signed, that officially set the diplomatic ties between Israel and Bahrain, also Israel and UAE, GCC countries started to introduce the Jewish presence in each country, that led to establish an umbrella organization, named AGJC (Association of Gulf Jewish Communities) in February 15, 2021 in UAE. Although it has received a massive boost from the political background, each country, Bahrain and UAE in particular, utilizes Jews as a proof to show the realization of tolerance and coexistence in their society. On the other hand, the Jewish side seems to be cautious to show their political character, while introducing their religious customs which they started to practice. They, both the governments and Jews, are undertaking to build the win-win relationship in search of the society of tolerance and coexistence to root “Jews” in Muslim majority land as an exposing tradition, not by giving/showing the political presence to Jewish communities.

This article examines the argument on the women of ʿAlī Sharīʿatī who was the most prominent modern ideological thinker of the Islamic Revolution of Iran. He exhorted not only Iranian women but also all Muslim women to return and follow the method of the Prophet Muḥammad. Specifically, he recommended that they model themselves on the example of Muḥammad’s beloved daughter Fāteme. According to Sharīʿatī, we should understand the meaning of her role through symbolic interpretations and learn her feelings of “responsibility” and “autonomy.” As an example of Fāteme, Muslim women should choose and determine things by herself with a firm feeling of “responsibility” for the society. He stressed the importance of these two abilities, because he believed the very root of the modern world’s problems was disparity between various social classes. To efface the disparity between people, Sharīʿatī showed an innovative interpretation of tawḥīd. According to his tawḥīd’s view of the world, there are no original distinctions between all existences, and the triad of God-Human-Nature exists as a horizontal system that harmonizes across the universe. In other words, all existence is the same and is one, including God. His notion about tawḥīd seems to be elaborated by the traditional interpretation of tawḥīd and the waḥda al-wūjūd theory of Ibn al-ʿArabī although Sharīʿatī’s oneness is more radical as he tried to remove all disparity in existence. Yet, as I mentioned above, this view of the world had already been indicated to us through the Prophet Muḥammad and the Qurʾān. All we have to do is to return to the way of Muḥammad and see the world with this tawḥīd’s view of the world that has already been revealed to us. To realize the tawḥīd’s view of the world, women have to conduct themselves with feelings of “responsibility” and “autonomy.”

This monograph examines the religious other and the experience of religious coexistence in Anatolia (now Türkiye). It explores the perspective of the philosophy of coexistence encapsulated within “seventy-two millets” (seventy-two religious communities) — a term first utilised by Yunus Emre (born c.1240–44; death c.1320–21), a famous Turkishspeaking Sufi poet in Central Anatolia —, which refers to Muslims and non-Muslims peacefully living together with dignity and equality.

The monograph first identifies the inefficiency of previous arguments on the peaceful coexistence in Turkish societies as experienced under the Ottoman Empire’s “the system of religious communities,” in which the Sultan was paid tax to grant every religious community autonomy via self-governance with respect to education; this system has only been examined through the lens of political history. It, then, continues to explore a noninstitutionalised aspect of the peaceful coexistence experienced by the Empire’s subjects from the perspective of intellectual history.

After examining Yunus Emre’s philosophy of religious coexistence by dividing it into four features — ontology, “seventy-two religious communities,” “unity of religions,” and “love” — the monograph concludes that his idea of coexistence has three characteristics: the notion of coexistence firmly backed by “the theory of the unity of being,” “human love” as the possible reason for coexisting in peace, and a kind of “tolerant theology” that perceives all believers of all religions and faiths equally as creatures of the Creator, for the sake of His love.

This paper analyzes four types of English-medium non-academic texts and tries to demonstrate the popular image of Sufism and peaceful coexistence in the contemporary Republic of India. The first two texts are an explanation by a Sufi organisation on their website and a politician’s speech at an international conference held by the same organisation. These texts project the image of Sufism that the presenters want to promote in the contemporary political and social context. In a major online newspaper, The Hindu, Sufism is frequently presented in relation to culture, especially music. These images are mostly presented as personal opinions with various social standings. School textbooks mention cultural interactions between Sufism and other religious traditions in India but do not proactively describe Sufism as contributing to peaceful coexistence. Although all these texts show the image of Sufism embracing humanitarian values, there are differences in the person/ social group ultimately responsible or accountable for the peaceful coexistence.

This paper examines the coexistence of various religions in Punjab in the 18th century, particularly the Bhakti movement, the poetry of Sufism and the doctrine of Sikhism. First, it reviews the history of the development of Sufism in North India and points out its correlation with the Bhakti movement there. This coincides with the period of stable development of the Mughal dynasty through the coexistence of Hindus and Muslims, both politically and socially, and examines how religious coexistence was preserved in songs and other forms. The poetic works of Kabir, a leading Bhakti poet, and Bulleh Shāh, a Sufi from Punjab who enjoys great popularity today, are then exemplified and examined. The common thread in both poems is their criticism of the skeletonised religious authority in Hinduism and Islam of the time, and beyond such formalist currents, they point out the characteristic emphasis on devotion to the Absolute God. in Bulleh Shāh’s poetry, God is depicted as a lover or husband, which is strongly influenced by the Vishnu school of Hinduism. Punjabi folklore is also depicted as a protagonist in his poetic work, in that Islam was once spread by Sufis who came from West and Central Asia, whereas Muslims born in the Punjab wrote Islamic poetry under the influence of migratory folklore and Hinduism. This indicates the situation where Islam was becoming entrenched in the Punjab. It was in this vein that Sikhism was established, and its doctrines show that it was not only influenced by Bhakti, but also formed the environment in which Sufis such as Bulleh Shāh were born.

This paper focuses on a religious ritual called jahr practised by the mountain Tajik community in southern Uzbekistan in former Soviet Union. Jahr is a type of folk medicine, or folk belief, that performs zikr (especially vocal zikr, dhikr in Arabic), which plays a very important role in Sufism (Islamic mysticism), and uses the effects of the ritual to treat illness. On the one hand, as a rule, the healers of the jahr ritual in this region are all Tajik men known as soʿfis (ṣūfī in Arabic, Islamic mystics). On the other hand, the patients are not only local Tajiks but also former nomadic Uzbeks such as the Qoʿngʿirot, Turk, and other nomadic tribes who live in the surrounding village. By focusing on this religious ritual with the abovementioned characteristics, this paper clarifies one aspect of Sufism in the region and, simultaneously, examines the coexistence of the Tajiks and the former nomadic Uzbeks. The existing literature on the jahr rituals in this region or Central Asia after the dissolution of Soviet Union is lacking. Therefore, in this paper, we have tried to document the entire jahr ritual by describing in detail its process and the conditions and to contribute to the accumulation of empirical studies. In addition, this paper will also discuss how the ritual was established as a disease treatment, its condition under the Soviet regime, and the situation of the ṣūfīs of the region.

This study analyses the controversy in Indonesia regarding the permissibility of giving Christmas greetings by Muslims. Although there is no conclusive argument for this matter, the same “discussion” surfaces during Christmas season every year. Some Muslims actively participate in Christmas ceremonies to demonstrate inter-religious harmony. In this article, different positions taken by religious figures, intellectuals, and other notables in and outside Indonesia are introduced, together with the famous fatwa of the Indonesian Ulama Council. Finally, the author suggests that Christmas functions as a yearly occasion in which Muslims think about their faiths and peaceful coexistence with the adherents of other religions.

This paper provides a first approach to the emotions people could feel during wars in the Old Babylonian period (ca. 2002–1595 BCE), a subject that has been generally overlooked in research. We pay special attention to soldiers but, as far as possible, we also look at how civilians felt throughout these events to gain a deeper understanding of their perspective. We conclude that texts expressing positive emotions toward war, mostly literature, pretended to naturalize an activity that caused fear. This last emotion appears to be especially documented in letters. Texts of this kind prove that soldiers in the Old Babylonian period felt fear during wars. We also analyze if war caused traumas and we suggest that war traumas were present in the Old Babylonian period.

This paper offers a glance at the way two of the most prestigious royal priestesses in the Hittite kingdom performed their cultic duties in rituals: how their royal status was manifested through their actions, and the way the accompanying personnel treated them. Both royal priestesses held legal and economic power within the cult, and thus their actions were of great importance. In the two specific rituals to be presented, whereas the NIN.DINGIR acted as a medium for the deity, the queen satiated the goddess in a physical way. Their displays of devotion to the gods were a central part of maintaining the well-being of the Hittite kingdom, and thus are part of royal ideology manifestation.

　The history of Sunni–Shiʿi relationship is usually characterized as one of opposition. The fundamental difference between these two confessions is explained that Sunnis support the Rightly Guided Caliphs after the Prophet Muḥammad, whereas Shiʿis support the Imams. However, it is known that not a few medieval and early modern Sunnis respected the Twelve Imams, the symbolic figures for Twelver Shiʿism, and several Sunni scholars compiled faḍāʾil (virtues) works on the Imams, like Shiʿis did. By analyzing faḍāʾil works written by Sunnis and Shiʿis in the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries, this study investigates the interconfessional dialogue concerning the Imams and various understandings of the confessional boundary.

　Although special respect for ʿAlī and several ʿAlid (Shiʿi) Imams can be found in early Sunni texts, reverence for the Twelve Imams as a group (imamophilia) became salient among Sunnis from the twelfth century onward. Ibn Ṭalḥa (d. 652/1254), a Shāfiʿī scholar, compiled the Maṭālib al-Saʾūl, one of the earliest Sunni faḍāʾil works on the Twelve Imams, keeping his Sunni standpoint. ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā al-Irbilī (d. 692 or 693/1293 or 94), an Iraqi Shiʿi scholar, completed the Kashf al-Ghumma depending on both Sunni and Shiʿi traditions and used the Maṭālib al-Saʾūl as the most important Sunni source. Later, imamophilic Sunnis favored the Kashf al-Ghumma as a collection of Sunni and moderate Shiʿi traditions on the Twelve Imams, and they compiled their works citing the Maṭālib al-Saʾūl via the Kashf al-Ghumma. As a result of this interconfessional transmission of traditions, the Maṭālib al-Saʾūl and its traditions were circulated across Hijaz, Iran, Central Asia, and Mughal India. Both Ibn Ṭalḥa and the Sunnis who used the Kashf al-Ghumma showed their Sunni identities in their work, sometimes by “Sunnitizing” the imamophilia. Utilizing Sunni works reflecting such imamophilia, Iraqi Shiʿi scholars could justify their Shiʿi beliefs.