Judgment Day Research Articles

SYAFA'AT (INTERCESSION) IN AL-QUR'AN PERSPECTIVE (A Study on the Interpretation of Maudhu'i)

This study aims to find out the Al-Qur'an's view on the theme of intercession, understand intercession in relation to other than Allah, such as Angels, Rasulallah, Al-Qur'an and know who has the right to obtain intercession and its criteria. The study was designed through descriptive research conducted with a thematic qualitative approach with the maudhu'i method. The subjects in this study are library research, that is, all data sources come from written materials related to the topics discussed. Data analysis in this study uses text analysis. The results of this study indicate that syafa'at is still being discussed by the scholars, but most of the scholars say that the syafa'at exists later on the Day of Judgment. As for the group that believes that there is Shafi'i is the Shiite and Ahlussunah groups, while the Mu'tazilah group believes that there is no Syafa'at in the afterlife, of course with their respective arguments. As for those who can give syafa'at are angels, prophets, pious people and good deeds, of course after getting permission and blessings from God.

شبهة انتحار النبي صلي الله عليه وسلم والرد عليها في ضوء السنة النبوية

شبهة انتحار النبي صلي الله عليه وسلم والرد عليها في ضوء السنة النبوية

ماهیة القضاء والقدر فى عقیدة المصرى القدیم The Essence of fate in the old Egyptian doctrine

تعتبر قضية القضاء والقدر من أکثر القضايا التي أثارت جدلا بين الناس، ذلک أن کل إنسان يريد أن يجادل فيها بعلم أو بغير علم، ويتساءل معها: هل خلق الإنسان مصيرا أو مخيرا؟ وهل الإنسان له الحق فى اختيار مصيره وقدره؟ أم لا؟ والقضاء هو کلمة مشتقة من فعل قضى متعدد المعانى، أما القدر فهو من القدرة والتقدير، والقدر هو القضاء والحکم من الله عز وجل. وإذا کان الإيمان بالقضاء والقدر هو شرط من شروط الإيمان التى يصح بها الإسلام کالإيمان بالله وملائکته وکتبه ورسله واليوم الآخر والقدر خيره وشره، فإن الإيمان بالقدر کان معروفا عند المصرى القديم، بل إن النصوص المصرية القديمة عکست بعض المفردات اللغوية التى عبرت عن معنى (القدر) و(القدر الطيب) من الدولة القديمة واستمرت حتى عصور الحکم اليونانى الرومانى لمصر. وما زال الغموض يکتنف بعض جوانب هذا الموضوع ويثير مجموعة من التساؤلات للتعرف على ماهية القضاء والقدر عند المصرى القديم، لذلک اخترت هذا الموضوع للدراسة. What is the fate and destiny in the doctrine of the ancient Egyptian: The issue of God is one of the most controversial issues among people, since every person wants to argue with them scientifically or unknowingly. He asks: Did man create fate or choice? Does man have the right to choose his fate and destiny? or not? The judiciary is a word derived from the verb spent multi-meanings, but fate is of ability and appreciation, and fate is the judiciary and governance of God Almighty. If the belief in destiny and destiny is one of the conditions of faith in which Islam is valid, such as faith in God, his angels, his books and messengers, and the Day of Judgment and the fate of his good and evil, faith in the Qur'an was known to the ancient Egyptians. The ancient Egyptian texts reflected some of the linguistic terms that expressed the meaning of And (good pot) from the ancient state and continued until the Greek-Roman era of Egypt. Some aspects of this subject remain unclear, and raise a number of questions to identify what is the fate of the ancient Egyptian, so I chose this subject for study

دور السُّنَّة النبوية في استشراف المستقبل

یتعرض الباحث فی هذا المقال (دور السنة النبویة فی استشراف المستقبل) إلى إبراز دورالسنة النبویة فی استشراف المستقبل، عن طریق استقراء أحادیث الرسول صلى الله علیه وسلم، ودراسة هذه الأحادیث، واستخراج أهم الفوائد والنتائج، وقد توصل الباحث إلى أن السنة النبویة لها دور کبیر فی استشراف المستقبل، بشکل مباشر أو غیر مباشر، کإیجاد تدابیر وقائیة؛ لتجنب المشاکل الصحیة والبیئیة، والتحذیر من التقلبات الاقتصادیة، کذلک الأحادیث التی توضح السیاسة الحکیمة التی کان یتمیز بها الرسول صلى الله علیه وسلم فی التخطیط السلیم للحروب، والأحادیث التی تبین روعة المنهج النبوی فی إدارة الموارد البشریة؛ لاستشراف مستقبل هذا الدین، وختاما الأحادیث النبویة التی فیها إخبار عن الأمور الغیبیة التی تحدث فی آخر الزمان وهی تنبأ عن المستقبل؛ کأحادیث الفتن والملاحم وأشراط الساعة؛ لتوجیه الناس إلى اتخاذ التدابیر، والبحث عن المسلک السلیم. Abstract The researcher discussed in this article about (The role of Al Sunnah Al Nabawiah in prophesying the future) in order to highlight the role of Al Sunnah Al Nabawiah in prophesying the future through the reading of the Hadiths of RasuluAllah peace be upon him, studying these Hadiths and extract the most important benefits and results from it. The researcher concluded that Al Sunnah Al Nabawiah had a significant role in prophesying the future in both direct and indirect ways in order to find the preventative actions to avoid any health or environmental crises and warning from the economic changes, as well as there are some Hadiths which explain the wise policy which was known in RasuluAllah’s character in his sound and accurate planning for battles, in addition there are also some Hadiths which show the fantastic Nabawi method in managing the human resources to prophesy the future for this religion. Finally, there are the Nabawi Hadiths which tell us about the unseen matters which will happen in the end of the world such as Hadiths of fitan, battles and the signs of the day of judgment and its purpose to guide people, to be careful and alert, to save themselves and to find the sound path to follow it. Key words, Al Sunnah - Prophesying – The future – The Nabawi Hadiths.

From Atheism to Anti- Colonialism: Fitrat’s Writings from the 1910s to the 1930ies

In the beginning of the twentieth century Russian Empire in Turkistan strengthened propaganda against religion to separate people from their roots of religious faith, encouraging the imitation of European culture. In 1925 through the 1940s a number of organizations, newspapers and journals that focused on atheism such as Khudosizlar(“khudasizlar”- atheists) were founded and propaganda of atheism was spread among writers, and authors of “the best atheistic works” were appointed to high governmental positions and received state awards. Abdurauf Fitrat (1886-1938) is also wrote works touching on faith such as “Unfair Ishan”, “Faith of Zakhro”, “Judgement Day”, “Revolt of Satan Against God”. From the title and presumable content of these works, critics of soviet literature assessed his works as pieces written under the spirit of the struggle against religious prejudice and accepted him as a person “loyal to the Soviet position”, who had “changed his faith.” Such early interpretations paved the way for Fitrat to be canonized (before his repression) as a genuine atheist. Yet during the 1920s and 1930s in order to avoid repression and Soviet censorship Abdurauf Fitrat successfully used his religious knowledge forstruggle against Soviet colonialism. This study analyzes the process that Fitrat was canonized as masters of atheistic aesthetics by strategically using ambiguity and antimony as weapons and trying to prove how he succeeded in spreading his truth through his so-called “atheistic works.”

“Whoever Harms a Dhimmī I Shall Be His Foe on the Day of Judgment”: An Investigation into an Authentic Prophetic Tradition and Its Origins from the Covenants

The ḥadīth, “whoever harms a dhimmī I shall be his foe on the Day of Judgment’, can be found as an end clause to covenants which the Prophet Muḥammad issued to Christian, Jewish, and Magian communities. As it is highly unlikely for different non-Muslim communities to have forged this Prophetic statement at the end of their respective documents, this paper argues that this utterance is authentic and can be confidently traced back to the Prophet. This paper examines the occurrence of this statement as a ḥadīth in the Islamic literature and notes how it was dismissed by scholars of tradition who only accepted one of its variants. The paper then compares the rights granted to non-Muslims in the covenants to those conveyed in a number of ḥadīths and notes the discrepancies between early Islam’s official documents and the legal injunctions found in Muslim tradition. It argues that the ḥadīths on the rights of non-Muslims oftentimes reflect legal maxims of scholars living in the ‘Abbasīd era and that these were back-projected to the Prophet and his Companions using fictitious isnāds. Finally, this paper concludes by recommending the incorporation of the Prophet’s official decrees, which includes the covenants, within the fabric of Islamic law.

Kalimatu “Qarîb” Fî Al-Qurân ‘Inda Fakhruddin Al-Razi Fî Al-Tafsir Al-Kabir

The word “Qarib” is an adjective in Arabic Language, Al-Quran used and declared that Allah is close to His servants, but Al-Quran also declared that Allah turned above the “arsy” which is located above the seventh heaven. In other contexts, Al-Quran declared that the Day of Judgment is close, while the revelation has passed 14 centuries but Judgment Day has not yet occurred. Therefore what is the concept of Allah closeness to His servants? And Judgment Day closeness? This research examined these concept in Al-Tafsir Al-Kabir written by Fakhruddin Al-Razi. By adopting the objective interpretation as theoretical framework. it used two approaches, Descriptive Method and Analytical Method to collect the data in analyzing them. The conclusion is Allah's closeness according to Al-Razi is not related to the place, but he interpreted it with the Knowledge of Allah, also in the context of philosophy, the Creator is the intermediary between the Essence of beings and his Being, then the Creator is closer to the essence than his own being. The closeness of Judgment Day is interpreted in three points. First, it implied the threat of Allah that the Judgment Day will come suddenly. Second, the time remaining in the world was less than what has already happened, third, the Judgment Day was easy for Allah.

رى الظمآن فی حدیث القرآن عن المسجد الحرام

رى الظمآن فی حدیث القرآن عن المسجد الحرام

جامع أحکام الجمعة من منظور القرآن الکریم دراسة تفسیریة موضوعیة

جامع أحکام الجمعة من منظور القرآن الکریم دراسة تفسیریة موضوعیة

Al-Afghani dan Akar Pembaharuan Sosial-Teologi (Studi Kitab al-Radd ‘ala al-Dahriyyin)

This study provide an investigation about Jamaluddin al Afghani and his critique of materialism, an idea that push aside the spiritual values (religion). His thought attract more attention since he refuse the idea by the concept of faith to Allah and the judgement day. This concept normally used to strengthen Moslem’s theology. In the era of al Afghani, Moslems experienced a problem of Aqidah caused by the idea of Dahriyyun. Al-Afghani then write a book Risalah ar raddu ‘ala dahriyyin as a response to the problem, he provides the history, the form, the purpose, the negative effect of materialism also formulate the value of faith that can be applied. He deliver the concept of Arkan –Sittah, which has 2 main point, first tsalisah aqaid to lead a logic and second, salasah khisol to purify a soul, socialtheology concept aimed to awake Moslems from the risk of materialism.

EPIGRAPHIC DISKS AND HORSEMEN RELIEFS ON THE STELAS FROM THE FAMILY CEMETERY OF KAITAG RULERS

The paper presents some of the study results of the family cemetery of hereditary rulers of Kaitag, located in Qala-Quraysh. During several expeditions in 2017–2018, more than 40 stelas, dating XIV c. – 1803/04, were studied. Names of the deceased, dates of their death, and other historical information, as well as poems, religious sayings, prayers and Quran Ayat in Arabic are inscribed on them. The stelas are made with high craftsmanship, distinguished by the refinement of the ornament and the elegance of epigraphic ribbons. Each stela of the necropolis can be described as a work of art. Among other interesting finds there are ten epigraphic disks on the stelas of the XVI–XVIII c. They are carved on the backsides of the monuments, have common composition, ornament, and similar contents: prayers to Allah for mercy on Judgment day. The article also describes horsemen relief images on two stelas of the early XVIII c., as well as a false horseman, carved on the tombstone of the late XVI c. Compositional decision of the relief is such that the weapons and armor are located above the horse, creating an effect of the rider’s presence, although the rider himself is not there. If the image weren’t stained, it would be impossible to reveal that it is not a horseman. The effect of presence is achieved by different artistic techniques. Among them is the image of a moving horse.The introduction of stated elements of tombstone decoration into scientific circulation contributes to dating of monuments with identical decor, and revealing interregional connections in stone carving craft.

Derivative Instruments and the Financial Crisis 2007-2008: Role and Responsibility

Following what might be considered as the closest call ever with financial armageddon, the surviving audience reels in Judgement Day array in search of the degenerated players and products responsible for this predicament. After more than three years from the ominous September 2008, the financial world has still to close its account with the events that brought the world within clasp of catastrophe. This Paper delves into the mechanics that led to the clogging of the financial system with specific focus on the role of derivatives, namely CDOs (Collateralised Debt Obligations) and CDSs (Credit Default Swaps), and their degree of responsibility in this financial cause celebre’. The trajectory taken is univocal in that the hypothesis being pursued is that the business in CDOs would not have been so gargantuan had their purchasers not have been able to hedge their positions through CDSs. Logically this leads this Paper into shaping the crux argument that CDSs might have propagated the crisis but not necessarily originated it. Following the customary excursions into the historical and factual facets of the debacle, the Paper progresses towards a technical analysis encompassing the epicentre of the crisis leading to a critical understanding of the role played and the responsibility inferred by the said derivatives in the financial quandary. The Paper is not intended to pass judgements or to ascribe onuses of accountability. There exist other fora where this can be attained with the necessary constitutional safeguards in place. Its pursuit, nonetheless, is to probe and present knowledge which is valuable enough to deter or, as a minimum, discourage a repeat replay of the crisis. Within the backdrop of memory being short and greed always omnipresent, the task permeates into the daunting.

The Creativity of the Reporting in the Rhetorical Text

Every Qur'anic surah has a different specificity than others, Surat Al-Takwer deals with two facts of the doctrine in two parts: the first starts with the early begging of the verse and ends of verses (1-14), which talks about the Doomsday and the accompanying of a massive universe reduction and the fall of all the surroundings things and entities. What observe is that the long-open syllable (C V V) only accounted for (8.06%) of the syllables, while the ratio of short-open syllable (C V) was above (56.45%), and the percentage of the short –closed syllable (C VC) touched (35.48%). All these portrayed with what looks like accompanied music, the agility of the drastic scene and the enormous revolution that turns everything upside down and spread it,so it aggravates the stable and torments helpless people with its rapid rhythm. The second part starts of verses (15-29), and it confirms the sincerity of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) in the reporting of his Lord, and shows that the Qur'an was sent to be a guide and an admonition to the whole world until the Judgment Day. We found that the ending intervals in the first four verses that address the truth of the afflatus and the role of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), and the characteristics of the addressed people end up in the closed syllable (CVC) with the explosive voice of (S) which is voiceless alveolar fricative with a whistling lighter and less intensive than the extreme explosive (t) sound which is used in the intervals of the verses of the first part to fit the situation. In the other hand, the last verses ended with the long closed Syllable (CVVC) with the sound (M) and , preceded by two voiced and mild (Ya) and (Waw) and they have a harmony with the third situation: the persuasion of following the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), the Qur'an and revelation, which have a harmony with the decline of strong sounds from (24%) In the first part to (20%) In the second part. The effect of the rhythm was evident in terms of the lexical level, or morphological level or in terms of grammatical compositions as well as the qualities and the outlets of its sounds were obvious. Then it became apparent that the rhythm of the used voiced and the voiceless sounds in the syllables (opened or closed; short or long) was significant. In addition it is doubtless that the morphemic forms (bases or derived, passive or active) have a semantic and vocal effect, especially in the various Qur'anic readings.

IMPLEMENTASI AKHLAK NABI MUHAMMAD SAW DALAM BERBISNIS

Islam merupakan risalah terakhir yang sangat komplit.Ia menjadi sebuah sistem yang mengatur seluruh aspek kehidupan (the way of life). Ia tidak hanya mengatur tentang bagaimana beribadah saja, tapi juga mengatur tentang kehidupan bermuamalah, termasuk didalamnya berbagai jenis kegiatan ekonomi. Pendidikan moral/akhlak dalam segala bidang, termasuk bidang ekonomi mutlak dibutuhkan dan dalam kegiatan ekonomi Islam, moral merupakan pilar yang fundamental. Kekayaan dan produk yang melimpah tidak akan ada artinya manakala pemilik atau penguasanya tidak memiliki moral. Ia cenderung akan bersikap sombong dan abai terhadap hak orang lain, hingga menyeretnya pada perbuatan khianat dan zalim. Dewasa ini dalam dunia bisnis, praktek kebohongan, kecurangan, penipuan, dan sejenisnya dengan berbagai macam cara dan bentuknya sudah sangat menjamur dan melekat di tengah-tengah masyarakat. Oleh karena itu, prinsip yang harus dipegang adalah bahwa transaksi bisnis apa pun jika di dalamnya mengandung ketidakjelasan (unclearness), ketidakpastian (uncertainty), dan ketidakadilan (injustice) berarti itu berlawanan dengan apa yang telah digariskan oleh Nabi Agung Muhammad SAW. Seorang pebisnis muslim yang cerdas harus memiliki integritas tinggi dan komitmen kuat untuk mengimplementasikan akhlak atau norma mulia. Seperti sikap takut kepada Allah, terbuka, jujur, amanah, saling menolong, hidup sederhana, mementingkan kepentingan orang lain di atas kepentingan pribadi. Akhlak-akhlak mulia itulah yang akan menghantarkan pelakunya meraih dua keuntungan; keuntungan duniawi dan juga keuntungan ukhrawi. Nabi SAW bersabda, “Sesungguhnya para pedagang besok di hari kiamat akan dibangkitkan sebagai orang-orang yang durhaka, kecuali mereka yang bertakwa kepada Allah, berbuat baik, dan jujur. (HR. Hakim) Dalam berbisnis perkuatlah iman dan takwa kepada Allah SWT, karena di luar sana banyak sekali godaan yang menawarkan keuntungan menggiurkan tanpa lelah. Yakinlah, banyak dan sedikitnya rezeki manusia merupakan domain kekuasaan Tuhan, kewajiban kita hanyalah berikhtiar untuk menjemputnya sesuai norma dan aturan syariah. Maka mintalah rezeki itu di sisi Allah, dan sembahlah Dia dan bersyukurlah kepada-Nya. Hanya kepada-Nyalah kamu akan dikembalikan. (Al Ankabut: 17) Islam is a complete and ultimate treatise. It becomes a system of ways of life that regulates all aspects of life. It is not just regulating matters of worship, but also mu'amalah which regulates all aspects of life including economic activities. Moral education in any field including economics is absolutely necessary and in Islam it is becoming a basic pillar of economic entities. Abundant wealth and products will be meaningless if humans as perpetrators do not have morals, and it will undoubtedly be in vain due to the occurrence of abuse and tyranny. The practice of lies, cheating, fraud, and the like in today's business world is very widespread and mushrooming with a variety and forms. In principle, all business transactions that contain elements of unclearness, or uncertainty, or injustice, are contrary to those outlined by the Prophet Muhammad PHBU. A Muslim businessman must have high integrity and a strong commitment to implement morality or noble norms. Such as fear of God, open mind, honesty, trustworthiness, mutual help, unpretentious life, prioritizing the interests of others above personal interests. Those noble characters will deliver the culprit to gain two advantages; now days and hereafter benefits. The Prophet Muhammad said, "Actually, the merchants on the judgment day will be raised as disobedient people, except those who fear Allah, do good and honest. (HR. Hakim) In doing business, strengthen faith and piety to Allah SWT, because there are many temptations out there offering tantalizing benefits tirelessly. Rest assured, much and the least amount of human sustenance is the domain of God's power, our obligation is only to seek it according to the norms and rules. So ask for sustenance with Allah, and worship Him and give thanks to Him. Only to Him will you be returned. (Al Ankabut: 17)

Passion for Nothing: Kierkegaard’s Apophatic Theology by Peter Kline

Reviewed by: Passion for Nothing: Kierkegaard’s Apophatic Theology by Peter Kline Ronald F. Marshall Passion for Nothing: Kierkegaard’s Apophatic Theology. By Peter Kline. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017. xvii + 204 pp. Kline’s book compares Kierkegaard and Meister Eckhart (1260– 1328) on nothingness. It argues that Eckhart’s “influence on Kierkegaard (directly or indirectly) is as important as it is silent” (5 n21). Kline believes that this nothingness is at the core of Kierkegaard’s negative theology (3, 34). Even so Kline does not believe that it leads to nihilism. Rather it undergirds a life “lived with abandon, with sorrowful longing and bewildered joy” (2). It drives toward “the most profound form of self-denial” (132). Because Kierkegaard believed that self-denial makes “the essentially Christian . . . so strange” and “difficult” when it “must be believed” (Christian Discourses, trans. Hongs, 146), any use of Eckhart’s nothingness would seem to be on track. But because Kline extends that nothingness into rank indeterminacy, it veers sideways. Kline uses the word “erasure” to knock down limits and boundaries so that to be “different by way of one’s indifference to the objective differences that separate one sufferer from another is to be absolutely, infinitely qualitatively different; different with a difference that cannot announce its difference or form itself into an identity around which a border could be drawn” (130–32). This indifference and indeterminacy strip Jesus of “any identity” (131), even of “any messianism” (129). But that goes too far (more than just keeping “its edges wild,” 40), leaving in the dust Kierkegaard who argued (contra 34) that Jesus “is the Redeemer, . . . a substitute who puts himself completely in your place” so that on Judgment Day “when punitive justice . . . seeks the place where I, a sinner, stand with all my guilt, with my many sins—it does not find me” (Without Authority, trans. Hongs, 123). Thinking of this sentence as “a perpetual beginning . . . that has no objective telos,” misses its point (38). You will lose Kierkegaard’s witness to Christ if you think that his “aim is to incite thinking and spiritual searching but never to give anybody direct answers” (39). Calling Jesus our substitute who guards believers on Judgment Day is clearly direct. [End Page 458] Missing the salvation Christ brings also enables Kline to call God a “lived whylessness” (22) who “demands or requires no placation, no appeasement” (xvi). Accordingly there is no judgment; Jesus being “an infinite roominess held open to the frailty and suffering of the world,” he sets “absolutely no conditions on his love” (131). At the end, Kline himself does not even follow this principle, saying that “God can shine in with his light” only after we first leave ourselves and utterly extinguish our own light (178). Kline’s roominess leaves out Christ whipping the money changers and castigating the scribes and Pharisees (Jn 2:15; Mt 23:27–33). It also misses Christ’s anger and judgment (Mk 3:5; Jn 9:39). Kierkegaard warned against this laundering of the scriptural account, saying “woe to you if you win them in such a way that you leave out the terror” (CD, 175). Kline thinks his Christological indeterminacy “repeats Luther’s opposition between a theology of the cross and a theology of glory” by “indicating that Jesus is only ever encountered through the work of his abandonment, his kenotic self-emptying, rather than his elevation into an accomplished object of belief ” (130–31). But Kierkegaard does not drive a wedge between these two. He knows, instead, that the Christian is the one who “clings to Christ” in faith (CD, 284). An added bonus to this book is the seven beautiful color plates at the end, painted by Kline himself. The last one is especially telling, a version of Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim altarpiece of the Crucifixion (1516) with everything missing but the hands and feet suspended against a black background in their proper place. Without this absence, Kline argues, Christ’s “full and fixed presence” would “petrify” us leaving us in “despair” (153). But Kierkegaard knew differently. He thought true Christianity was “to suffer for the doctrine, to do good and suffer for it, and that...

Phraseological Unit <i>Judgment Day</i> (rus. <i>Sudnyy den’</i>): Its History and Semantic Shifts in the Modern Political Discourse

The modern political discourse has actualized the word combination “sudnyy den’” (judgment day) known to many languages and cultures practicing monotheistic Abrahamic religions. The article analyzes the meanings of the phraseological unit in different discourses and its functions. It has been found that the unit “sudnyy den’” can perform the nominative function when it names one of the main Judaic holidays - Yom Kippur. The word combination becomes a phraseological unit with a characterizing meaning when it denotes a religious concept - judgment of the people in the end times. The article reveals and describes the differences in the understanding of the unit in the Christian (Orthodox) and Islamic Russian language discourses and shows the process of metaphorization of the unit in secular texts in which the actualization of the component “sud” (judgment) brings about the emergence of a new meaning of the unit not recorded in dictionaries (the phraseological unit begins to denote a vitally important event: the judgment day or the judgment hour is looked forward to as a moment of truth). Special attention is given to the semantic shift of the phraseological unit under the influence of films and computer games (elimination of the moral-didactic component, its substitution by salient visual images), and to the phraseological derivatives which have become urgent in the political discourse and are associated with the threat of a new world war.

False Hope and Flawed Sainthood in Don Ouixote: Khiḍr, al-Mahdī, and the Knight of the Green Coat

This article draws connections between the Muslim saint Khiḍr "The Green," and a minor character in Don Quixote Part II, an hidalgo named don Diego de Miranda, or the Knight of the Green Coat. The article traces literary representations of Khiḍr in medieval Iberia, as well as his significance for Moriscos, Iberian crypto-Muslims forced to convert to Christianity after Granada's surrender to the Catholic Kings. Marya Green-Mercado has already shown how Moriscos identified Khiḍr with the messianic figure al-Mahdī, who in Islamic belief will appear close to the Day of Judgment to end injustice on Earth. Morisco prophecies depicting this redeemer as a green knight on a white horse were well known among Spanish intellectuals contemporaneous with Cervantes. Don Diego, when read in the light of Moriscos' hopes of salvation, renders a literary representation of the prophecies' failure to save Moriscos, as the character is gradually revealed to be a hollow saint who manages to fool Sancho Panza with his magnificent appearance, but not don Quixote.

“Les Années noires avaient été grises:” A Meta-Ethical Examination of Pierre Assouline’s Appropriation of Primo Levi’s Concept of the “Grey Zone”

“Les Années noires avaient été grises:” A Meta-Ethical Examination of Pierre Assouline’s Appropriation of Primo Levi’s Concept of the “Grey Zone”1 Helena Duffy The Grey Zone: Readings, Re-readings and Overreadings Primo Levi’s landmark essay “The Grey Zone” opens with criticism of those who, when trying to understand the dynamics of l’univers concentrationnaire, reduce the complex network of human relationships to the mutually opposing categories of evil tormentors and saintly victims. Reflected in Christ’s gesture on Judgment day—“here the righteous, over there the reprobates”—, such dualistic thinking fails, according to Levi, in relation to Auschwitz whose horror consisted also in its indecipherability. Namely, some of the victims were dragged into defiling complicity with their oppressors, thus entering what Levi describes as an area so “incredibly complicated [in] its internal structure” that it “confuse[s] our need to judge” (The Drowned and the Saved 27). Within this “grey zone” the Italian writer-survivor situates all kinds of “privileged prisoners,” beginning with kettles washers, bed smoothers, checkers for lice or interpreters (29), and ending with Sonderkommandos. Recruited predominantly amongst Jewish inmates, these “special squads” were responsible for maintaining order among those to be gassed, disposing of the victims’ bodies, and sorting out their belongings. Seeking examples of the “grey zone” beyond the Lager, Levi invokes controversial leader of the Łódź ghetto, Chaim Rumkowski, or even SS Erich Mühsfeldt, who briefly showed pity to a young survivor of gassing and whom Levi gives the benefit of the doubt by believing that, under different circumstances, he could have been a decent man (40). However, whereas Levi recommends that our moral judgment be suspended in relation to the “privileged” prisoners, in line with his more general and emphatic declaration of his unwillingness to ever forgive his oppressors, he fully endorses the 1948 verdict of the Supreme National Tribunal to sentence Mühsfeldt to death (37). [End Page 29] Since the publication of Levi’s essay, critics have been arguing about who indeed should be included in the “grey zone.”2 While some mobilize the morally murky area as a universal figure of enforced complicity with one’s oppressor, others believe it to be restricted to the physical space of Nazi concentration camps. Giorgio Agamben, for instance, has famously and controversially deployed the “grey zone” as a paradigm for post-Auschwitz ethics, positioning all human beings within this space of moral ambiguity (101).3 Others have reapplied Levi’s term to bystanders, collaborators or resisters, or have even assimilated it with Holocaust-unrelated situations.4 As for Levi himself, he expands the meaning of the “grey zone” by reaching with his intertextual references beyond l’univers concentrationnaire, as exemplified by the analogy he draws between the Sonderkommandos and the collectors of corpses in Alessandro Manzoni’s novel The Betrothed (1827) (39). In the same vein, Levi likens Mühsfeldt’s brief hesitation to an old woman’s single good deed in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (1880) (40). More directly, the Italian writer-survivor inscribes into this area of moral ambiguity, where dichotomies of evil and goodness are no longer operational, various collaborating governments, including Vichy (27). He also identifies it within the Soviet gulag or compares the Nazis’ strategy of burdening their victims with guilt to the practices of the Italian Mafia (27–28). Yet, despite Levi’s broader references, Adam Brown, who has written extensively on the “grey zone,” firmly believes in the term’s historical and topographical specificity (52). His view is shared by Debarati Sanyal who points to Levi’s repeated insistence on the singularity of the prisoner’s physical and emotional experience of the camp (34): “The mental mechanisms of Häftlinge were different from ours; curiously and in parallel, different were also their physiology and pathology” (The Drowned and the Saved 60). Another contentious point raised by Levi’s essay and relevant to the present inquiry is the confusion of victims with victimizers that some have inferred from the Italian writer’s definition of the “grey zone” as a space “with ill-defined outlines which both separate and join the two camps of masters and servants” (27) or, from what...

Cosmopolitan Parables: Trauma and Responsibility in Contemporary Germany by David D. Kim

Reviewed by: Cosmopolitan Parables: Trauma and Responsibility in Contemporary Germany by David D. Kim Helen Finch Cosmopolitan Parables: Trauma and Responsibility in Contemporary Germany. By David D. Kim. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2017. Pp. 248. Paper $34.95. ISBN 978-0810135253. Kim's monograph aims to bring contemporary discussions of cosmopolitanism to bear on current debates about postcolonial memory, Holocaust memory, and trauma in German literature. It synthesizes a vast range of contemporary thought on memory, cosmopolitanism, postcolonialism, and capitalism through analyzing three postwall German novels. These "cosmopolitan parables" are Hans Christoph Buch's Speech of the Dead Columbus on Judgment Day (1992), Michael Krüger's Himmelfarb (1993), and W.G. Sebald's The Rings of Saturn (1995). Kim claims that these works deploy melancholy aesthetics to break down national containers of memory and trace links between postcolonial memory and Holocaust memory in disruptive ways. As Kim admits, his aim is extremely ambitious: "an investigation of one of the most elusive philosophical concepts and highest political ideals today, seeking to show its many interpretations in the humanities and social sciences as well as the urgent problems associated with them" (183). For Kim, "trauma lies at the heart of transcultural memory as a common good" (13), and his chosen authors respond to this trauma with a form of melancholy aesthetics informed by a leftist consciousness that moves them to call for "world citizenship," a term that Kim uses interchangeably with "cosmopolitanism." Kim chooses to focus on German literature because it held a unique position in the 1990s as a space where memories of the Nazi past, the colonial past, and the East German past intersected. He concludes by suggesting that the three "cosmopolitan parables" "produce dissonant social relations through which readers are able to reflect on their own implicated relationships with strangers in pain" (185). Melancholy cosmopolitan literature, for Kim, is fundamentally didactic, aiming to have an ethical effect on a reader. The first half of the book, "Entanglements," consists of three chapters that establish the theoretical framework for Kim's study. Chapter 1, "Divided Cosmopolitanisms," discusses the conceptual history of cosmopolitanism from the 1990s to the present, starting from Nussbaum's concept of cosmopolitan education and its critiques by postcolonial theorists such as Gilroy, Cheah, and Noyes. Kim also evaluates the debate surrounding the universality of Holocaust memory as a carrier of cosmopolitan duty, expressing concern at the quarrel between postmodern and postcolonial scholars. [End Page 201] Chapter 2, "The Traumas of Unification," discusses the debates on Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past) in Germany. This chapter relies somewhat on outmoded narratives (e.g., that until the 1960s in Germany "with the exception of Paul Celan's iconoclastic poem 'Death Fugue' … writers and thinkers remained mostly silent about Nazi crimes against humanity" [64], a view that has been challenged by scholars including Ruth Vogel-Klein and Stephan Braese). Nonetheless, it does important work in bringing together the German postcolonial moment with Vergangenheitsbewältigung and also with the German turn to neoliberalism in the 1990s. Chapter 3, "In the Whirlwind of Melancholy," discusses "the problem of too much memory" (79) and argues that melancholy makes literature the ideal platform for cosmopolitan entanglement with memory. Kim engages with the long strand of German thought, particularly Benjamin's work, that links melancholy to resistance. Part 2, "Parables," contains Kim's case studies of authors who, in his words, "have inherited the historical burden of National Socialism … as descendants of Germans who lived through Nazi Germany" (15). He considers that, due to their position as globally oriented, leftist public intellectuals, they are ideally placed to probe a long arc of institutionalized oppression. Chapter 4 on Buch's Speech of the Dead Columbus discusses the title character as an ironic wanderer through five centuries; somehow both Jewish and non-Jewish, the dead Columbus exposes the crossings between German, Jewish, and Caribbean histories. Next, Kim argues that Michael Krüger's Himmelfarb shows the impossibility of a neat German-Jewish partition after World War II, as well as exposing the racist German history of anthropology. Finally, Kim focuses on Sebald's poetics of photography in The Rings of Saturn, showing his "archaeological...

ASMÂ YAUM AL-QIYÂMAH FÎ AL-QUR’ÂN AL-KARÎM MIN KHILÂL AL-MANZHÛR AL-DALÂLÎ AL-MA’RIFÎ WA QIYAMUHU AL-TARBAWIYAH AL-RÛHIYAH

This study aimed to discuss the names of judgment day in the Qur'an through cognitive semantic approach and the values of spiritual education. Through the cognitive semantic approach, the conception of meaning to describe the judgment day in the Qur’an was formulated by mapping the meaning resulted from the source domain (Sd) to target domain (Sd). To show and compare references in (Sd) to (Td), referential technique was used. From organizing (Sd) to (Td) on metaphorical expressions which showed the judgment day in the Qur'an, the conceptions of the meaning of state, time, movement, and change were generated. The studies on the names of judgment day in the Qur'an influence the value of moral education, which is able to increase faith in God, observe nature and its big symptoms, create good character between God and man, and believe in God’s noble character.