The aim of this paper is to reveal how misconceptions—or using the concept of Arkoun, “the crisis of meanings”—about the role and position of Islam in Europe is impacting on the discourse on sport, Islam, and immigration. France is selected as a case study for this paper as it is in this country where the debate on religion in general and Islam in particular seem to be more contentious in relat...

Islam remains misunderstood by many in the West essentially because it has not been part of the Western cultural tradition. Negative perceptions in the West are enhanced by popular reactions to abhorrent practices committed by some Muslims, even when those practices clearly contradict the teachings of Islam.1 These negative perceptions are also enhanced by Islamophobia.2 Conversely, the West’s ...

I n Central Asia, as in other regions of the world with large Muslim populations, opposition groups are increasingly turning to the ideas of militant Islam in their efforts to challenge authoritarian rule. Activists fromKokand to Kabul have learned that political Islam provides an unusually potent language of opposition. In Central Asia, a wide array of opposition movements—the Islamic Movement...

Islam is now commonly considered to be the second largest religion in France behind Christianity. Accepting this demographic reality has never been easy for many French citizens. Too often discussions about Islam in France begin and end with a treatment of Muslims as a social problem. Too often the question is asked: Can Muslims fit into French society?. That question presupposes that Islamic v...

School of Mathematics and Statistics, Wuhan University, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China Email: [email protected] Abstract: The security of a password authentication and update scheme based on elliptic curve cryptography proposed by Islam et al. [S.K. Hafizul Islam, G.P. Biswas, Design of improved password authentication and update scheme based on elliptic curve cryptography, Mathematical and C...

Commercial links and a common orientation towards maritime trade continued to bind Southeast Asian Austronesian communities together in historical times, and the spread of Islam is regarded as a consequence of these cultural ties. Islam required many changes in traditional Austronesian social and religious practices, as did Christianity, but the strength of Austronesian tradition, reinforced gr...

One of the distinctive challenges of the period we live in is the significant presence of violence in our societies. These acts of violence stem from a doctrine of hatred and intolerance that fracture societies into constant turbulence and upheaval. For violent Islamist organizations like Al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah in Southeast Asia, this ideology of hatred is based on an extreme interpretat...

Xenophobia is on the rise in Europe; and the ten million Muslims living there are often its targets. This paper contends that the fear and anxiety Westerners exhibit toward Muslims stem ultimately from a fear and anxiety regarding ourselves and our beliefs. I argue that the perceived standoff with Muslims causes us to doubt the sincerity and superiority of our own convictions. The latter are pr...

The majority of the world’s Muslim population follows the Sunni branch of Islam, and approximately 10-15% of all Muslims follow the Shiite (Shi‘ite, Shi‘a, Shia) branch. Shiite populations constitute a majority in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, and Azerbaijan. There are also significant Shiite populations in Afghanistan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen. Sunnis and Shiites share ...