Islamic Cultural Values Research Articles

Puritanism vs. Syncretism: An Islamic Cultural Collision in the Rural Farmer Community in Trucuk, Indonesia

This writing presents a view on the change in the rural farmer community in Trucuk from being abangan-syncretic to being santri-puritan. After becoming puritan, it is radical in style. The radical style becomes a social phenomenon causing the occurrence of cultural collision of puritan Islamic cultural values versus syncretic ones in the region of the rural farmer community in Trucuk. This research is done in a rural area in Trucuk district, Klaten regency, Central Java provence, Indones. The major of collecting data methods are participant observer, deep interview, and study documentation. This research uses ethnography approach. The results show that the change in farmer’s society in a rural are from syncretism to Puritanism influenced by education rationalization and religion up gradation. After being Puritanism, the characteristics changes to plural those are racialism and moderate. Particularly for radicalism that is to be a social phenomenon caused by kept of syncretism. In addition the other factor of Muhammadiyah movement to do the radicalism is the background of Klaten as an imbalance and seethed place since period Hinduism. The radicalism is done as s effort to return to Al-Qur’an emerge the perception and religious behavior that is believed as the truest thing. This perception and behavior emerge the feeling that Puritanism Islamic is the truest and perfect religion, and it can save them, and considered other religion is the polluted or mixed with other unsure, especially syncretism. So, they think that syncretism is misleading, through radicalism, Puritanism try to reduce the practice of syncretism.

Providing culturally congruent care for Saudi patients and their families

This article aims to increase an awareness of caring for Saudi families by non-Saudi nurses to improve their understanding of culturally competent care from a Saudi perspective. Healthcare providers have a duty of a care to deliver holistic and culturally specific health care to their patients. As a consequence of ‘duty of care’ obligations, healthcare providers must facilitate culturally congruent care for patients of diverse cultural backgrounds. For the Saudi family considerable cultural clashes may arise when Saudi patients are hospitalized and receive care from healthcare professionals who do not understand Islamic principles and Saudi cultural beliefs and values. The healthcare workforce in Saudi Arabia is a unique multicultural workforce that is mix of Saudi and significant other nationalities. Saudi nurses for example represent only 36.3% of the workforce in the different health sectors. Whilst the different ethnic and cultural background expatriate nurses represent 63.7% (Ministry of Health, 2010). This article also could increase the awareness of healthcare professionals caring for Arab and Muslims patients in another context in the world.

Occupational Therapy in Oman: The Impact of Cultural Dissonance

Occupational therapy theory and philosophy are broadly considered to be based on Western cultural values. In contrast, the application of theory and practice in the Sultanate of Oman, historically based on traditional Middle Eastern and Islamic cultural values, provides a case exemplar, which highlights both paradigmatic differences and cultural dissonance. Drawing on the experiences of occupational therapists working in Oman, this study found that the application of therapeutic goals aimed at patient independence and autonomy were difficult to achieve in an environment where family duty and responsibility for care were highly prized. Dressing and cooking assessments were challenging, and issues related to gender proved problematic. Therapists found the need to adapt practice to acknowledge these differences, and to adopt pragmatic problem-solving strategies, without resolving the underpinning philosophical contradictions. Occupational therapy in Oman is under-researched; further work is needed to confirm the cross-cultural validity of specific assessments and practice models.

The Halitosis Parameter Change After Using Siwak (Salvadora Persica) At 11-13 Year Old Students in Tapak Sunan Boarding School

Introduction: Siwak (Salvadora persica), an oral cleansing tool which came from ancient Arab has Islamic cultural values. Many researches concluded that siwak contains antibacterial agent which has function to kill bacteria causing oral malodor (halitosis). Objective: The purpose of this study was to analyze halitosis parameters change which consisted of Volatile Sulfur Compounds (VSC), Bleeding on Probing (BOP) and tongue coating after using siwak at 11-13 year old students in Tapak Sunan Boarding School. Materials and methods: This study used experimental research method and 25 students in the age group of 11-13 year old became subjects of this study. Halitosis parameters measurements were taken before and after using 10 days siwak usage and through dental health education. OralChroma and organoleptic score were used to measure the VSC. Probing on six sites of gingival sulculs of each tooth was used to measured BOP. Classification of tounge coating was performed by observing the presence of white coating on the tongue surface. Statistical analysis was performed using Paired-t Test with p<0.05 as the level of significance. Results: Approximately 75% reduction of total VSC concentration was observed after siwak usage. Number of subjects with score 1 in organoleptic assessment for halitosis was also increased by 36%. Followed by reduction of BOP and tongue coating score by 57.7% and 26% respectively. Statistical analysis of those parameters showed significant differences before and after siwak usage. Conclusion: Siwak usage sucessfully decreased all halitosis parameters of the 11-13 years old students in Tapak Sunan Boarding School. DOI: 10.14693/jdi.v17i2.45

Applying Islamic market‐oriented cultural model to sensitize strategies towards global customers, competitors, and environment

PurposeThe purpose of this conceptual paper is to attempt to introduce an Islamic market‐oriented cultural model to illustrate the role of market orientation within an Islamic culture.Design/methodology/approachThe paper proposes an Islamic‐based view of a market‐oriented cultural model that aims to help understand how cultural principles, practices, and values are discussed within an Islamic culture, and subsequently understand the effects of this view on the market performance of the exporting firms. Reviews of literature in market orientation and cultural values served as a foundation for the development of the conceptual arguments. The model is adapted from several market orientation and cultural frameworks including Homburg and Pflesser, Hofstede, and Schein.FindingsNational culture, which underlines employee's cultural values, attitudes, and beliefs, has a profound impact on organizations and thus its impact on market performance should not be underestimated.Research limitations/implicationsSince the paper presents only the conceptual framework, it does not include empirical validation of the argument. Further empirical research could be carried out in order to validate the arguments presented in this paper.Practical implicationsIn response to increased global competition, firms need to employ effective international marketing strategies in order to enhance performance. When exporting halal products, managers need to comply with Islamic guidelines, practices, and standards that serve as the main criteria by which Muslim's customers' needs and preferences are met.Originality/valueThe conceptual framework integrates market orientation with Islamic cultural values. The discussion strengthens the need for firms to apply an Islamic market‐oriented cultural model when they deal with customers in Muslim countries.

Islam in Europe

Islam in Europe, by Jack Goody (Oxford: Polity P., 2004; pp. 178. £45; pb. £14.99). Although this book contains a wealth of information about the past, it is not really a work of history. Nor, despite the fact that the author is Emeritus William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology in Cambridge, is its principal focus ethnographic. Convinced that religious differences play a much greater role in conflicts than most social scientists recognise, Goody sets out ‘to show something of the nature of the interactions between Islam and Europe, taking seriously the actors’ view of the situation'. More than half the book is devoted to ‘Past Encounters’. In this initial chapter, which grew out of a lecture to the Socialist History Group in London, Goody chronicles the Arab-Berber invasions of the Iberian Peninsula, southern France and southern Italy; the Ottoman invasions of Greece, the Balkans and eastern Europe; and the Mongol invasions from the north. He then deals in turn with Islamic cultural influences, trade, values, and contemporary immigration. Chapter 2, ‘Bitter Icons and Ethnic Cleansing’, was published in 2002 as an article in History and Anthropology. An earlier draft appeared in The New Left Review the previous year. Here Goody first offers his reflections on the deep-seated human ambivalence towards the very process of representation as evinced by the abrupt changes in style of ancient Greek pottery and the iconoclasm inherent in the Ottoman transformation of Nicosia's cathedral into a mosque. He suggests that this ambivalence is one of the factors that divide Cyprus's Muslims and Christians. He then turns to the subject of ethnic cleansing, arguing that it is more often religious than ethnic and that Hobsbawm, Gellner and Giddens have underestimated the role of religious ideologies in nationalism. In Chapter 3, ‘Islam and Terrorism’, which is a revised version of another article published in History and Anthropology, also in 2002, the ‘actors’ whose views he takes seriously are those whom most Europeans currently consider terrorists. For example, he offers what amounts to a militant Arab perspective on Israel (pp. 133ff.) and tells us that for some in the East the massacre in Bali was ‘comparable to God's punishment of the Sodomites’ (p. 137). With the final chapter, ‘The Taliban, the Bamiyan and Us—the Islamic Other’, Goody returns to the subject of iconoclasm. He gives Christian and Buddhist examples of the alternation between representation and its absence, and reminds us that the founders of the French Revolution were opposed to representation. Most of the information that Goody relays is accurate, although he is slightly confused about the Reconquista: he seems unaware that Spain was largely under Christian control long before the fall of Granada in 1492 (p. 34) and elsewhere he even gets the date of that wrong (p. 125). More importantly, however, he sometimes oversimplifies the issues. The Palestinians have undoubtedly had a very raw deal, but to attribute the founding of Israel to ‘Jewish terrorists’ supported by the USA (p. 134) is to disregard both the history of anti-Semitism and the motives of the Zionists. Similarly, to assert that after 1948 the Muslims became ‘the new terrorists’ simply because they ‘had lost control of the country’ (ibid.), is to oversimplify. I share Goody's conviction that, over the centuries, Muslims have made many positive contributions to Europe, and, like him, I am concerned that since September 2001 Muslims have been demonised. Nevertheless, we should not be blind to the fact that some of the Islamic organisations that are rapidly gaining influence in Europe are skilled at exploiting liberal values in order to further a far from liberal agenda, and that these organisations have little in common with the high culture of the Spanish Umayyads or the Ottomans.

Alcohol y emigración: los problemas de medición en la investigación sobre el consumo de alcohol entre inmigrantes marroquíes y turcos

Since most Turks and Moroccans living in The Netherlands are Muslim, and the Islamic religion prescribes abstinence of alcohol, the main determinant of alcohol use seems to be the degree to which live up to Islamic rules. This is linked to questions such as the migration history, the sub-cultural background and the degree of integration into the Dutch society. The present article also presents a review of 24 Dutch studies on alcohol use among Turkish and Moroccan migrants and discusses the methodological and conceptual problems that accompany these studies. According to these literature the data are affected by a low reachability of Turks and Moroccans (often resulting in the participation of a selective, non-representative group), unreliable answering tendencies (the Islamic orientation and cultural values of honor and respect may result in underreporting of alcohol use) and language problems. The authors argue that, although several conceptual and methodological difficulties accompany alcohol research among Turkish and Moroccan inhabitants of The Netherlands, the following tendencies seem evident: Turks and Moroccans drink less alcohol than Dutch inhabitants do; alcohol use is higher among Turks than among Moroccans; in the Turkish as well as the Moroccan population, men tend to drink more alcohol than women do, and younger people tend to drink more than older people do.