Like other Arab countries, Jordan must find ways of responding to the rapid processes of change affecting many aspects of social life. This is particularly urgent in healthcare, where social and technical change is often manifested in tensions about ethical decision-making in the clinic. To explore the attitudes, beliefs and concerns relating to ethical decision-making among health professionals in Jordanian hospitals, a qualitative study was conducted involving face-to-face interviews with medical personnel in four hospitals in Amman, the capital of Jordan. (...) Data were analysed thematically in relation to a pre-existing set of ethical categories. Interviews were conducted with thirty-eight doctors covering most medical specialities. Five major themes emerged from the interviews: ethical awareness, ethical issues, the impact of religion on ethical decision-making, practical and theoretical resources for ethical decision-making, and challenges. While uncertainty was expressed about some aspects of Western approaches to ethics, participants strongly supported adoption of a range of Western bioethical principles, including cultural and ethical diversity, along with adherence to Islamic religious norms. A range of serious ethical challenges facing the Jordanian health system were identified, covering social, legal, managerial, and technical issues. Ethical decision-making in Jordan is complex, having to accommodate the needs of patients, the opinions of doctors and their families, the views of religious authorities, managerial considerations, and both local norms and international standards. Health professionals struggle with three sets of tensions that emerge out of the struggle between traditional, community-embedded forms of social organization and the demands generated by globalization and the influence of Western culture: the tensions between tradition and modernity, conservatism and pragmatism, and religion and secularism. Doctors in Jordan prefer approaches to ethical decision-making that realize a balance between the extremes, although the exact nature of where that balance should lie remains uncertain. (shrink)

The Arab and Islamic world is in cultural, political and ethical flux. Pressures of globalisation contend with ancient ideas and concepts that permeate cultural frameworks. Health professionals are among the many groups battling to accommodate the rapidly changing conditions. In many predominantly Muslim countries intense debates are underway among clinicians about the impact of the forces of change on their practices. To help understand these forces we conducted a study of the experiences of clinicians in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, (...) a Middle Eastern nation state where the overwhelming majority of the population is Muslim. The sample contained 508 doctors and doctors-in-training, of whom 63% were male and 80% were younger than 40 years of age. It included both a quantitative survey, covering a wide range of issues, and qualitative, free-text written responses. Our results demonstrated high levels of disquiet related to the overall organisation and administration of the health care system, the specific content of ethical decisionmaking, and the impact of changing social, cultural and religious factors. Concerns included overcrowding, widespread corruption and hierarchical, non- democratic, management practices, and tensions relating to traditional and modern approaches to ethics, especially in relation to consent, organ donation, confidentiality, privacy, abortion, and the role of women. The roles of religion and religious authorities, the relative importance of the family, and community and tribal obligations were also areas of contention. The study exposes profound divisions and widely differing perspectives among Jordanian doctors and an abiding sense of uncertainty and instability within the profession. Many doctors express ambivalence in relation to both modern trends and traditional precepts. Three main axes of ethical contention were demonstrated, relating to the tensions between: "conservative" and "pragmatic" styles of decision-making; "traditional" approaches and internationalised standards of ethics; and the role of Islam and pressures to disengage ethical decision- making from religious authority. We speculate that these issues and divisions, and the deep sense of disquiet revealed by our data reflect large-scale forces to which Jordanian society is exposed and to a substantial degree may provide a way to understand the ethical predicament of many other countries in the contemporary Arab world. (shrink)

Research on human subjects is ethically justified when its anticipated results would ultimately benefit the society or public and not only the individuals participating in this research. Besides contributing to scientific knowledge, social benefits of scientific research may extend to all aspects of the public’s life including health, education, and security. In this paper, we aimed to discuss the social benefits principle as an ethical requirement for the conduct of scientific research in general and nursing research in particular. We critically (...) examined the current situation of nursing research in developing countries including its adherence to the social benefits principle and provided exemplars of both hindered and successful utilization of nursing research evidence in developing countries. We concluded that the utilization of nursing research evidence in clinical practice, education, and policy making is almost nonexistent and faces many challenges in most developing countries. Thus, most nursing research in developing countries are not currently meeting the social benefit principle of the ethical conduct of scientific research. We provided recommendations to promote the utilization of nursing research in evidence-based practice, nursing education, and health policy. (shrink)

Arab and English cultures are incongruent, where the former is greatly influenced by religion when compared to the latter. This study focuses on court interpreting from Arabic into English and questions the interpreters’ objectivity when rendering religious and cultural expressions, bearing in mind that certain cultures, like the Arab and Muslim ones, have significant religious ties. To this end, fifteen transcripts were randomly collected from Canadian court hearings. The analysis showed that interpreting religious and cultural expressions can be complex, especially (...) when the original speaker attempts to transmit a notion that may have negative implications in the target language. The results also showed that court interpreters either added explanations to religious and cultural expressions or omitted them. Such additions and omissions may be used to avoid negative stereotypes other cultures have about Muslims and Arabs. The study recommends that future researchers interested in legal interpreting consider the non-verbal factors that can be observed during court hearings. The study suggests allocating extensive training sessions to interpreters on how to impartially render culture-bound expressions, mainly in the legal context. (shrink)

A comparative study of business related values among business students was conducted over the last 10 years in two neighbouring countries. Although Estonia and Finland are culturally related, according to an empirical study of managerial values, including the ethical values of business students, the two countries display significant differences. During the last decade, Estonia has changed from being a country characterised by an authoritarian, centralized, totalitarian state socialism, to a democratic country with a free market economy and different attitudes and (...) values. At the same time Finland has experienced almost a century of capitalism and democracy. It is argued that the differences in values exhibited by these two countries could be explained by using the institutional and historical context. The authors propose a model of value hierarchies in relation to institutionalism. (shrink)

This paper presents the results of a study which examined children's ideas about speciation. Two groups of elementary school students, 9‐year‐olds and 12‐year‐olds, were interviewed using a semi‐structured questionnaire. The results indicate that several children explain the phenomena of speciation in terms of consistent explanatory frameworks that strongly resemble either early Greek or renaissance variants of Essentialist theories in biology. The core beliefs of such frameworks constrain the types of solutions that are generated for a variety of biological problems.

In studies of early Qurʾānic manuscripts, determining the provenance of these manuscripts is a thorny issue because in most cases they lack endowment notes or colophons. The reports in early Islamic sources regarding textual variants of regional codices may contribute to find a solution to this problem. A list of regional variants, mostly based on al-Dānī’s al-Muqniʿ, can be found in Nöldeke et al.’s The History of the Quran. However, as the authors have stated, a comparison of some of the (...) early Qurʾānic manuscripts in the Topkapı Sarayı Museum with this table of maṣāḥif al-amṣār variants indicates that the traditional reports are unreliable for identifying the provenance of Qurʾānic manuscripts because none of these codices can be attributed to any particular region. The present article is an attempt to demonstrate that this problem results from relying solely on the data provided by al-Dānī and ignoring earlier and more significant sources, such as al-Sijistānī’s Kitāb al-Maṣāḥif. It attempts to provide a new and more precise classification of regional variants by reading afresh the reports on the features of maṣāḥif al-amṣār, taking into account the sources which were not used by Nöldeke et al., especially al-Sijistānī’s Kitāb al-Maṣāḥif, thus making the list of maṣāḥif al-amṣār variants more accurate, thereby the variants of each of these early Qurʾānic Codices tally more with the reports preserved for the characteristics of one of the maṣāḥif al-amṣār in literary sources. As the texts of the surviving manuscripts are not of a diverse nature we are able, with some certainty, to draw conclusions that substantiate the reports as to the peculiarities of the muṣḥafs of different cities. (shrink)

In this paper we provide a psychological account of the nature and development of explanation. We propose that an explanation is an account that provides a conceptual framework for a phenomenon that leads to a feeling of understanding in the reader/hearer. The explanatory conceptual framework goes beyond the original phenomenon, integrates diverse aspects of the world, and shows how the original phenomenon follows from the framework. We propose that explanations in everyday life are judged on the criteria of empirical accuracy, (...) scope, consistency, simplicity, and plausibility. We conclude that explanations in science are evaluated by the same criteria, plus those of precision, formalisms, and fruitfulness. We discuss several types of explanation that are used in everyday life – causal/mechanical, functional, and intentional. We present evidence to show that young children produce explanations that have the same essential form as those used by adults. We also provide evidence that children use the same evaluation criteria as adults, but may not apply those additional criteria for the evaluation of explanations that are used by scientists. (shrink)

This article provides current Schwartz Values Survey (SVS) data from samples of business managers and professionals across 50 societies that are culturally and socioeconomically diverse. We report the society scores for SVS values dimensions for both individual- and societal-level analyses. At the individual-level, we report on the ten circumplex values sub-dimensions and two sets of values dimensions (collectivism and individualism; openness to change, conservation, self-enhancement, and self-transcendence). At the societal-level, we report on the values dimensions of embeddedness, hierarchy, mastery, affective (...) autonomy, intellectual autonomy, egalitarianism, and harmony. For each society, we report the Cronbach’s α statistics for each values dimension scale to assess their internal consistency (reliability) as well as report interrater agreement (IRA) analyses to assess the acceptability of using aggregated individual level values scores to represent country values. We also examined whether societal development level is related to systematic variation in the measurement and importance of values. Thus, the contributions of our evaluation of the SVS values dimensions are two-fold. First, we identify the SVS dimensions that have cross-culturally internally reliable structures and within-society agreement for business professionals. Second, we report the society cultural values scores developed from the twenty-first century data that can be used as macro-level predictors in multilevel and single-level international business research. (shrink)

Collection of Hadith (Islamic tradition) with commentry on the teachings and responsibilities of a Muslim in a Islamic society.

Flap EndoNuclease‐1 (FEN‐1) is a multifunctional and structure‐specific nuclease involved in nucleic acid processing pathways. It plays a critical role in maintaining human genome stability through RNA primer removal, long‐patch base excision repair and resolution of dinucleotide and trinucleotide repeat secondary structures. In addition to its flap endonuclease (FEN) and nick exonuclease (EXO) activities, a new gap endonuclease (GEN) activity has been characterized. This activity may be important in apoptotic DNA fragmentation and in resolving stalled DNA replication forks. The multiple (...) functions of FEN‐1 are regulated via several means, including formation of complexes with different protein partners, nuclear localization in response to cell cycle or DNA damage and post‐translational modifications. Its functional deficiency is predicted to cause genetic diseases, including Huntington's disease, myotonic dystrophy and cancers. This review summarizes the knowledge gained through efforts in the past decade to define its structural elements for specific activities and possible pathological consequences of altered functions of this multirole player. BioEssays 27:717–729, 2005. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

This book includes a critical edition, Turkish translation and study of Tasköprüzade's gloss on Jurjani's commentary on Zamakhsharī's al-Kashshaf by Jurjani.

Human actions have been one of the most discussed topics in the science of kalām since the first centuries of Hijra. Many scholars from different schools of kalām have tried to solve this problem. Efforts to solve the problem have brought different views. In this framework, three main views emerged Jabrī, Qadarī/Muʿtazilī and Salafī/Sunnī. The views of Islamic philosophers were added to these and this number was increased to four. Nevertheless, Sunnī scholars, who agree on the basic propositions, disagreed on (...) the nature of kasb. While there are differences of opinion between Ashʿarī and Māturīdī schools, there are also those who put forward different views among scholars belonging to the same school. Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī (d. 403/1013), Abū Isḥāq al-Isfarāyīnī (d. 418/1027) and Juwaynī (d. 478/1085), Sadr al- Shrīʿa (d. 747/1346) and Ibn al-Humām (d. 861/1457) are the most obvious examples of this. These views on human actions have been mentioned in their works by scholars of kalām. One of these scholars is Gelenbevî Ismāʿil (d. 1205/1791). In this article, the views on human actions will be examined in the context of Gelenbevî’s work named Ḥāshiya ʿalā Sharḥ al ʿAqāʾid al ʿAḍudiyya. Gelenbevî makes concise or detailed explanations about the views mentioned in his work with the exception of Ibn al-Humām. In addition, he also mentions the views of al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111). While Gelenbevî mentions these views and the discussions that took place around them, He makes use of his works Ījī’s (d. 756/1355) named Mawāqif, Taftāzānī’s (d. 792/1390) Sharḥ al Maqāṣ̣ıd and Jurjānī’s (d. 816/1413) Sharḥ al - Mawāqif. Gelenbevî states that Ashʿari’s view is middle jabr (jabr al muṭavaṣṣıṭ) and even he is accused of being pure jabr (jabr al- maḫẓ). Based on the concept of partial will (al-irādah al-juzʾiyyah), he says that the views of Bāqillānī and Māturīdī school are the same and states that this view is more successful than Ashʿari’s in explaining human responsibility. This thought indicates that he is closer to the Māturīdī view of human actions than to Ashʿarī. He points out that Isfarāyīnī’s views are open to criticism in some respects. He implicitly states that he does not agree with the idea that Juwayni agrees with the Islamic philosophers. Rather than Muʿtazila’s views, it focuses on whether their views and the views of Islamic philosophers are the same. (shrink)

Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838-97) was a pan-Islamic thinker, political activist, and journalist, who sought to revive Islamic thought and liberate the Muslim world from Western influence. Many aspects of his life and his background remain unknown or controversial, including his birthplace, his religious affiliation, and the cause of his death. He was likely born in Asadabad, near present-day Hamadan, Iran. His better known history begins when he was 18, with a one-year stay in India that coincided with the Sepoy Mutiny (...) of 1857-59. In what would become a life of constant travel, he soon went to Mecca to perform Hajj, before returning to Afghanistan to join the service of the country's ruler, Dost Mohammad Khan (1793-1863). He later sided with Dost's son Mohammad Aʻzam, who ultimately lost in a power struggle with his British-supported brother Sher Ali. Al-Afghani's political activism eventually took him to Paris, London, Tehran, Saint Petersburg, and Constantinople. It was during his second stay in Egypt (1871-79) that he cemented his role as a reformer. He found in Cairo a class of young intellectuals who gathered around him, established newspapers, and used these papers to disseminate his ideas. Chief among al-Afghani's Egyptian disciples were scholar Muhammad ʻAbduh, journalist ʻAbd Allah al-Nadim, and nationalist politicians Mustafa Kamil and Saʻd Zaghlul. Al-Afghani's influence on both modernist and traditionalist Islamic thought continues to the present. An activist who sought to effect change through political journalism and public speaking, he did not write many books. This treatise, entitled al-Radd ʻalā al-dahrīyīn (Refutation of the materialists), was a rebuttal of the views of the pro-British Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, who had argued that science is more important than religion in the rise of civilizations. First written in Persian following al-Afghani's exile from Egypt to India, it was translated into Arabic by his student Muhammad ʻAbduh, with the help of al-Afghani's assistant Arif Efendi. (shrink)

The text of “The Four Premises” (Muqaddimāt al-Arba‘a), which began with Sadr al-Sharī‘ah (d. 747/1346), centralizes on the actions of human beings by connecting it with the problem of good and evil in the field of kalām, Islamic philosophy and logic, and fıqh. It was also commented in with incisive and critical footness by Sa‘d al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī (d. 791/1390). In Ĥāshiya ‘alā Muqaddimāt al-Arba‘a, al-Kastalī (d. 901/1496) discusses the two main issues. One of them is good/husn-evil/qubh, the other is human (...) actions. Good-evil dichotomy here is axiological, whereas the human actions are examined within an ontological structure. The quest for the origin of moral values is a husn-qubh debate. Identifying the hierarchy of human actions in ontology is another problem. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the theological discussions in the Ĥāshiya ‘alā Muqaddimāt al-Arba‘a which were written following the order of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror/Fatih. This text addresses the origin of moral judgment and the question of freedom and destiny in human actions linked to the problem of good and evil. Discussing these two fundamental issues, has made it necessary to thoroughly investigate perhaps all the subheadings which concern the entire paradigm that falls under the framework of understanding the God, nature, and humanity. By looking at the treatise, the main sources of the issues being discussed are mostly generated from an Islamic jurisprudence works, entitled Tawḍīḥ and Talwīḥ. It can easily be discerned that the direct quotations that were made or taken indirectly were from these two sources. References to other sources were quite seldom. However, the excerpts that were taken from primary sources were interpreted and expounded by the author and amended anew. In this article al-Kastalī’s comments will be analyzed. He’s work Ĥāshiya ‘alā Muqaddimāt al-Arba‘a will be analyzed in depth and will be published for the first time with a critical edition. Text of Muqaddimāt al-Arba‘a is a product of a culture of criticism and critical thinking has two foundations: Disproval and verification. Critical thinking is then bidirectional. It is wrong to carry out the criticism activity in only one direction. It is insufficient to simply refute the opposing idea. It is not enough to show the wrong. The so-called right idea also needs to be justified. In the Tawdīh, Sadr al-Sharī‘ah criticizes al-Ashʿarī in the issues of husn-qubh and human actions. According to this criticism, good and evil should be based on the reason. On the other hand, human is free in his actions. As it is known, goodness and badness was based on religion according to al-Ashʿarī. Acquisition (kasb) given to man was unclear. It is al-Taftāzānī who wrote an annotation on Tawḍīḥ with the name of Talwīḥ. He’s comments are successful in terms of theology. However, these interpretations do not mean that he accepted the Muqaddimāt al-Arba‘a. In terms of al-Taftāzānī, proofs of Sadr al-Sharī‘ah is weak. The theological disputes in Tawḍīḥ and Talwīḥ have reached the level of tension in the following works. The origins of the divergence are based on the differentiation between the schools of al-Māturīdi and al-Ashʿarī. In fact, these schools are not different from each other in terms of the method they use. Although the roads walked were the same, the results achieved were different. The main reason for this is that the issue is ambiguous and the problem of good and evil is multidimensional. It is directly related to God and human. It is also connected with ontology and epistemology together. The position on the husn-qubh issue is also decisive for other theological problems. The root of the evil problem or theodicy is mostly based on this problem in Islamic thought. The actions of God and human are questioned here. The value judgments that actions will take are examined. Which action is more moral and better? Another major problem discussed in this article is human actions. It is a matter of freedom of human volition. The volition of man before the absolute God is a problem. Because God has absolute power, will and knowledge. On the other hand, God imposes responsibility on man. But what are the limits of this responsibility? Al-Kastalī discusses all these problems in the context of Sadr al-Sharī‘ah and al-Taftāzānī. In the big picture there are representatives of the schools of al-Māturīdi and al-Ashʿarī. Al-Kastalī doesn’t paint a new picture, rather makes the lines in the picture clear. In this article, the texts will be analyzed mutually. The content and uses of the concepts will be given importance. Ideas will be discussed from their main sources and the roots and different reach of the issues will be touched. The interactions of different schools of thought will also be included. (shrink)

Study of Mamalapāhuḍa by Tāraṇa Taraṇa, Swami, 1448-1515, on Jaina doctrines and philosophy.