ARKAN
See Pillars of Islam
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ARCHITECTURE. [To survey the architectural forms characteristic of Islamic societies, this entry comprises two articles. The first presents an overview of the development of traditional forms of building with attention to regional styles; the second assesses contemporary architecture in various parts of the modern Islamic world. For related discussions, see Gardens and Landscaping; Urban Planning.]
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ARAB SOCIALISM. The notion of Arab socialism was never articulated precisely, but it can be taken as representing the economic and social aspirations of Nasserism and Ba`thism, the state ideologies of Egypt in the late 1950s and 1960s and of Iraq and Syria from the 1960s until the early or mid-1980s (although officially until the
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ARAB NATIONALISM. Like other strands of third-world nationalism, qawmiyah `arabiyah or Arab nationalism cannot be understood apart from its anticolonial ethos and its glorification of the collectivity’s origins and history in the face of Western dominance. These general components of nationalist doctrine raise, however, important issues in the case of Arab nationalism. For instance, can
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ARAB LEAGUE. Until the mid-twentieth century, the Arabs of modern times were under foreign domination, mainly Ottoman, British, and French. Their first opportunity to regain their independence and unity came when the Hashemite sharif, Husayn ibn `All, ruler of the Hejaz (d. 1931) launched the famous Arab revolt in 1916 against the Ottoman Empire, which
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The origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict can be traced back more than a century, when Jews, disillusioned with prospects for integration into European societies, began to immigrate to Palestine in 1882, not as individuals seeking to pray and die in Jerusalem but as a part of a political movement. In 1897, this political trend was
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ARABIC LITERATURE. [This entry comprises two articles on Islamic themes and values in modern Arabic literature. The first presents a general overview; the second focuses specifically on issues of gender in fiction and poetry.] An Overview From the beloved pre-Islamic odes, the mu’allaqat, to the contemporary novel, literature written in Arabic spans centuries, continents, and
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Although the Arabic language existed long before the inception of Islam, it has been closely associated with this religion ever since the Qur’an, its holy scripture, was revealed in Arabic to the prophet Muhammad ibn `Abd Allah in seventh-century Arabia. As a cosmopolitan religion, Islam carried Arabic to all peoples who became Muslims. Those in
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`AQIDAH. The Islamic creed (`aqidah) as found in the Qur’an is quite simple: the so-called five articles of faith-belief in God, angels, prophets, scriptures, and the Last Day-sum up that creed, and it was only later that more detailed formulations began to appear. Three of the five articles-the first, third, and fifth-are the principal articles;
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