A disproportionate emphasis on the work of Western European and North American scholars has been a feature investigations into development academic study religion. This article seeks to examine how non-European intellectual, Syrian Muḥammad Kurd ʿAlī (1876–1953), produced transmitted knowledge about religions in his encyclopedic historical topography ‘Greater Syria’—the Khiṭaṭ al-Shām (1925–192...

Contemporary China offers a particularly interesting setting to study religious diversity as a result of its unique socio-political context. Based on the quantitative and qualitative evidence in a representative sample of Chinese dissertations, this essay identifies two characteristics associated with the usage of ‘religious diversity’ in contemporary Chinese scholarship: firstly, the focal poi...

The paper analyzes the relation between religious beliefs, religious participation and social cooperation. In particular, we focus on religions that instill beliefs about the connection between rewards and punishments and social behaviour. We show how religious organizations arise endogenously, analyze their e¤ect on social interactions in society and identify a "spiritual" as well as a "materi...

the academic center of jundishapur has been among significant ones in the old east. an important issue in recognizing such a center is studying the factors relative to its academic growth, among which the following can be enumerated: the emigration of christian scientists, the sassanid king’s attention to the city, etc. the important matter, however, is the consistency of this center in academi...

During 3 months in 2004, 38 recent referrals to a Community Mental Health Clinic in North Jerusalem, a substantially Ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, were evaluated by the Explanatory Model Interview Catalogue. This questionnaire, which includes a 13-item scale measuring stigma towards mental illness, was adapted and translated into Hebrew. Patients with a more religious upbringing expressed...

Abstract Ambitions for India to enact the role of vishwaguru or ‘world teacher’ are a conspicuous feature foreign policy discourse under contemporary Hindu nationalist rule in India. This discourse, and India's foreign-policy practice, engage international realm with puzzling intensity given nationalism's inward-looking exclusionary emphasis on majoritarian cultural unity. In this article, I le...

Considering the acceptance of culture as the principle predictorof understanding housing elements, including religious and behavioral patterns, is becoming increasingly important. This understanding can be clearly visualized in a city such as Kerman. Kerman is located in South-East of Iran andhas a diverse culture witha residential district in which Muslims, Zoroastrians, and Jews liveside b...