The aim of this article is to describe the social networks of the Maghrebis in Alicante, some of the problems they face in their daily life, and the role played by the “mosque” as a place not only of prayer but also of mutual help and support. At the same time, the analysis shows that Islamophobia has increased in the city, as it has done in other places in Spain and Europe following the Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks, with the resulting (...) rejection of the Maghrebis clearly seen in their relationship with local inhabitants and in some of the local authorities’ political decisions. (shrink)

Migration and Islamic Ethics, Issues of Residence, Naturalization and Citizenship addresses how Islamic ethical and legal traditions can contribute to current global debates on migration and displacement; how Islamic ethics of muʼakha, ḍiyāfa, ijāra, amān, jiwār, sutra, kafāla, among others, may provide common ethical grounds for a new paradigm of social and political virtues applicable to all humanity, not only Muslims. The present volume more broadly defines the Islamic tradition to cover not only theology but also to encompass ethics, (...) customs and social norms, as well as modern political, humanitarian and rights discourses. The first section addresses theorizations and conceptualizations using contemporary Islamic examples, mainly in the treatment of asylum-seekers and refugees; the second, contains empirical analyses of contemporary case studies; the third provides historical accounts of Muslim migratory experiences. (shrink)

Focusing upon a region in Southern Bulgaria, a region that has been the crossroads between Europe and Asia for many centuries, this book describes how former Ottoman Empire Muslims were transformed into citizens of Balkan nation-states. This is a region marked by shifting borders, competing Turkish and Bulgarian sovereignties, rival nationalisms, and migration. Problems such as these were ultimately responsible for the disintegration of the dynastic empires into nation-states. Land that had traditionally belonged to Muslims—individually or communally—became a (...) symbolic and material resource for Bulgarian state building and was the terrain upon which rival Bulgarian and Turkish nationalisms developed in the wake of the dissolution of the late Ottoman Empire and the birth of early republican Turkey and the introduction of capitalism. By the outbreak of World War II, Turkish Muslims had become a polarized national minority. Their conflicting efforts to adapt to post-Ottoman Bulgaria brought attention to the increasingly limited availability of citizenship rights, not only to Turkish Muslims, but to Bulgarian Christians as well. (shrink)

In Justice for People on the Move, Gillian Brock develops a promising, original account of migration justice. In her view, states have a robust (though conditional) right to self-determination, which includes a reasonably strong right to regulate migration. However, in order for these rights to be justified, three legitimacy requirements must be met. Most obviously, states must respect the human rights of their own citizens and the international state system itself must be legitimate. This latter condition also requires states to (...) do their part in sustaining a justified state system, which includes helping to alleviate “legitimacy gaps,” including significant human rights violations in other states. Brock uses this framework to address several pressing migration-related policy issues, including Muslim bans, the deportation of unauthorized migrants, temporary labor migration, and refugee protection. However, one topic is notably absent from her analysis: climate-related displacement. Some theorists insist that climate change migrants should not be considered refugees because they do not fit the standard definition of a refugee. In particular, climate migrants were displaced by droughts, floods, storms, or sea level rise rather than by war or persecution, and many are able to remain in their homes at present but will be forced to relocate at some point in the future. This paper explores the implications of Brock’s theory of migration justice for climate migration. I suggest that although her approach to refugee protection may initially appear to exclude climate migrants, her understanding of right to self-determination yields strong obligations to assist them. I take this to be a strength of her framework, which makes an important, albeit indirect, contribution to current debates on climate change migration. (shrink)

More than ever, ‘the headscarf’ is a dominant trope in contemporary ‘Western’ discourses on migration. Within controversies on Muslim ‘others’, ethnicity and gender frequently interweave. In discussions about the Muslim woman, a problematic dichotomy frequently emerges: namely the representation of a Muslim woman who wears the headscarf and is seen as ‘oppressed’ or ‘traditional’. This is opposed to the position of a Muslim woman who does not wear the headscarf and is simultaneously considered a ‘self-determined’ or ‘modern’ Muslim woman. Against (...) this backdrop, this contribution adopts a critical perspective on dichotomising discourses on Muslim women’s practices in relation to wearing the headscarf. In this article the authors examine narrative interviews with four Muslim women, focusing on their subjective experiences and psychological coping strategies with dichotomous and dichotomising stereotypes. An in-depth qualitative analysis shows that these women display a need to constantly justify and negotiate their own positions in relation to wearing the headscarf, regardless of whether the interviewed women actually wear a headscarf or not. Based on this, the authors identify different psychological coping strategies and discuss them critically in a wider framework that draws attention to existing social hierarchies. (shrink)

The contemporary Qur’anic studies have been marked by amazing development. Various methods and approaches to understand the Qur’an are offered by the scholars. One of the prominent figures in this field is Nashr Hamid Abu Zayd. Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1943–2010 M) is a highly controversial contemporary thinker. He is an Egyptian scholar who is accused of being apostate, because of his theory of qur’anic hermeneutic (the textual of Qur’an). This is reflected in his stances towards contemporary religious discourse and (...) the approach to reading religious texts, especially the Quran, which requires reading according to a hermeneutic mechanism. His books ‘Naqd al-Khitab al-Dini (Criticism of Religious Discourse)’ and ‘Al-Takfir fi Zaman al-Takfir (Thinking in the Time of Atonement)’ caused a great uproar in the early nineties of the last century. Abu Zayd was accused of criticising atheists because of their stances on the text. Therefore, this study aimed to discuss Abu Zayd’s position on contemporary religious discourse and his new approach to reading religious texts, and also aims to discuss why Abu Zayd’s theory has been string up Islamic world and ending by his expulsive from his native country. To deal with this problem, this article discusses Abd Zayd’s biography and some cultural framework of his people. The methodology of Qur’anic hermeneutic is the least his. Having examined the topic, the author finds that Abu Zayd believes that modem literary theory and criticism denote the way to understand and interpret the Qur’an ‘objectively’. The contribution of this research is discussing Abu Zayd’s contemporary religious discourse and his new approach to reading religious texts. Contribution: The contribution of this research is discussing Abu Zayd’s contemporary religious discourse and his new approach to reading religious texts. (shrink)

The practice of Islamic veiling has over the last ten years emerged into a popular site of investigation. Different researchers have focused on the various significations of this bodily practice, both in its gendered dimensions, its identity components, its empowering potentials, as a satorial practice or as part of a broader economy of bodily practices which shape pious dispositions in accordance with the Islamic tradition. Lesser, however, has this been the case for the practice of not veiling or unveiling. If (...) and when attention is accorded to the latter, it is often grasped as a product of integration or an effect secular governmentality, but only rarely as a bodily practice. Drawing on narratives of second generation secular and religious Maghrebi Muslims in Belgium, this paper pursues this second perspective by examining to which extent not-veiling can be understood as a technique of the self (Foucault) that is functional to shaping a liberal (Musilm) subject. While a first part of this article will unpack the ethical substance of such discursive interrogations and point to the ways in which they are intertwined with the enactment of a liberal self, the second part will examine the embodied contours of this problematization, which appeared through the labour upon one's affect and bodily dispositions that this refusal of the hijab, or the act of unveiling, implies. (shrink)

An exploratory survey was conducted to determine if there are differences in ethical decisions by business students based upon cultural backgrounds. Students' responses to a vignette concerning advertising of cigar products in a variety of different media provided evidence of significant cultural differences between three groups of students from different geographical locations within the United States. This article suggests that the presumption that an individuals ethical beliefs and behaviors do not change after childhood may be in error.

Guardians of Islam: Religious Authority and Muslim Communities of Late Medieval Spain. By Kathryn A. Miller. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. Pp. xv + 276. $55, £38.

The present study investigated whether implicit and explicit attitudes predict news choice among Muslims with migration backgrounds living in Germany. We used both attitude constructs to predict a selection bias for news about the same event stemming from the host country (Germany) vs. from other countries. Using a survey (N = 1,107), we found that favorable implicit and explicit attitudes toward Germany increased a participant’s tendency to select German news. Each attitudinal construct predicted a unique variance in news choice. (...) Using a subsample of Turkish citizens living in Germany who participated in the Turkish constitutional referendum 2017 (N = 241), we found that the attitude-based selection bias predicted their voting. We discuss implications for selective-exposure research and processes of integration. (shrink)

In this essay, I consider how to conceptualize “diasporic” subjects, namely those whose identities and homes cannot be easily attributed, with regard to the political and racial dynamics of intra-group tensions, alliances, and divergences of interest. These concerns are important relatives to topics that Critical Race Theorists and Critical Race Feminists have readily addressed, such as the war on terror, the not-so-gradual erosion of dignity and rights protections accorded to non-citizens, and the increasing antagonism, surveillance, and brutality toward Latino and (...) Muslim migrants. As such, the former issues should become central concerns for Critical Race Theorists. In what follows, I want to introduce a framework called “interstitiality” as a way to address them. (shrink)

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is a subset of artificial intelligence (AI) that can generate content such as texts, images, videos, sounds, etc. While GenAI tools have been utilized in various contexts, their utilization in the academic context is still a controversial topic. Scholars observed that many universities have banned GenAI due to the potential for unethical usage. In this opinion article, we promote the utilization of GenAI tools as feedback agents to alleviate challenges in conventional feedback provision. Feedback is a (...) valuable learning source, especially in writing instructions. However, conventional feedback provision is challenging due to the increase in teacher’s workload and social irritation issues in peer feedback. Utilized ethically, GenAI tools can alleviate these challenges. A few critical considerations are briefly presented. (shrink)

In homes, schools, and workplaces, women and men are often separated in ways that sustain gender stratification by reducing women's access to socially valued knowledge. The fact that these spatial arrangements may be imperceptible increases their power to reproduce prevailing status differences. I use cross-cultural and historical examples to illustrate that the more pronounced the degree of spatial gender segregation, the lower is women's status relative to men's. The advantages of such a spatial perspective are its interdisciplinary foundations and its (...) creation of avenues for change. (shrink)

Our world is mobile. People move, either within the state or from one state to another, to access opportunities, to improve their living conditions, or to start afresh. Yet, we usually assume that migration is an exceptional activity that leads to permanent settlement. In this paper, I invite us to reconsider this assumption. First, I analyse several ways in which people experience mobility in contemporary societies. Then, I turn to migration, as a specific form of mobility. I distinguish between a (...) legal/administrative, a social, and a self-identification-based approach to migration, demonstrating that they lead to divergent definitions of who is a migrant. I proceed by introducing the concept of mobile migration and by developing a typology of mobile migrants. I conclude that, in order to devise migration policies that treat migrants fairly, a careful consideration of the claims and interests of the different types of mobile migrants is necessary. (shrink)

Social scientific evidence suggests that labor migration can increase resilience to climate change. For that reason, some have recently advocated using labor migration policy as a tool for climate adaptation. This paper engages with the normative question of whether, and under what conditions, states may permissibly use labor migration policy as a tool for climate adaptation. I argue that states may use labor migration policy as a tool for climate adaptation and may even have a duty to do so, subject (...) to two moral constraints. First, states must also provide acceptable alternative options for adaptation so that the vulnerable are not forced to sacrifice their morally important interests in being able to remain where they are. Second, states may not impose restrictive terms on labor migrants to make accepting greater numbers less costly for themselves because doing so unfairly shifts the costs of adaptation onto the most vulnerable. (shrink)

Neorepublicanism holds that domination is the foremost political evil. More, it claims to be able to address today’s most pressing issues. It follows that neorepublicanism should, then, speak to questions of migration, membership, and domination. However, this is not the case. Some critical voices inspired by the idea of non-domination arrive at interesting critiques of migration, membership, and domination, but their answers are often partial and in some ways problematic. They are also largely ahistorical. The contemporary paucity of neorepublican reflections (...) on migration contrasts sharply with its centrality in republican history. In the US, from the colonial period until late into the 19th century, some republicans understood the domination of migrants and citizens as conjoined concerns. They developed a robust account of the relationship between domestic domination and exclusionary migration regimes. They conceptualized the republic as a global asylum where membership is based on volitional allegiance, and they vigorously defended the right of aliens to expatriate. Those ideas were ultimately defeated by aristocratic, oligarchic, and statist forces. This article explicates that history through a genealogical account of what I call ‘insurgent republicanism’. The article then returns to contemporary theorization to diagnose its limitations, continuities, and potentials as seen from the perspective of the insurgent republican tradition. (shrink)

How is it possible to acknowledge and confront patriarchal violence within Muslim migrant communities without descending into cultural deficit explanations (they are overly patriarchal and inherently uncivilised) and without inviting extraordinary measures of stigmatisation, surveillance and control so increased after the events of September 11, 2001? In this paper, I explore this question by examining Norway's responses to the issue of forced marriages. I argue that social and political responses to violence against women in Muslim communities have been primarily culturalist. (...) That is, the violence is understood as originating entirely in culture, an approach that obscures the multiple factors that give rise to and sustain the violence. The culturalist approach enables the stigmatising and surveillance of Muslim communities. I approach this argument in two parts. In part one I discuss two important and influential books written by women who identify their concerns as feminist and who lay out the case for considering the problem of forced marriage as a problem of controlling fundamentally unassimilable and culturally inferior Muslims. I explore these works as paradigmatic of the culturalising or culturalist move. In part two, I review a variety of legal initiatives in Norway, first contextualising them as part of a larger European venture to control Muslim populations and then examining what they share conceptually with the approaches in part one. I end with how we might begin to develop an anti-racist response to the problem of violence against women. (shrink)

Climate change intersecting with complex socio-economic and political processes has produced distinctive patterns of crisis migration. However there exists a significant gap in understanding and theorizing these forms of migration creating significant policy challenges. Using a case study of an interstate migrant settlement in Bengaluru, India this article unpacks migration as an adaptation strategy through the lens of emotions. The article offers significant insights into how emotions affect the choice of migration as an adaptation strategy and shapes the differential experiences (...) of risks and vulnerability for different groups of people. Emphasizing such relational aspects of migration, the article calls for more research that develops a nuanced understanding of the emotional landscapes of migrants across migration pathways. (shrink)

This paper raises a moral issue for contemporary post-revolutionary Muslim intellectuals in Iran. According to traditional Islamic teachings, ethics enables people to transcend from this mundane world and offers guidance on ways to improve virtues. Most contemporary Iranian Muslim intellectuals have attempted to pave the way for accomplishing this goal. After clarifying the ways in which Iranian Muslim intellectuals have faith in virtue ethics as a best possible moral normative theory, we claim that virtue ethics fails to support some of (...) our modern problems in the realm of politics such as human rights and democracy. Also, we argue that virtue ethics is not a good theory for ordinary average people who have weakness of will. A preliminary conclusion of the paper will be that utilitarianism, generally, and principle of utility, specifically, is a better solution to the modern problems. This, we believe, has been overlooked from the eyes of post-revolutionary Muslim intellectuals. Yet, we suggest that among different versions of utilitarianism, rule-utilitarianism is more justified to do this job. (shrink)

Recent political and social events as well as advances in science and technology have posed challenges to the traditional Muslim discourse on ethics. In this latest in the series of Occasional Papers produced by the Institute of Ismaili Studies, Amyn B. Sajoo examines these challenges, and through a critical analysis of the implications of emerging initiatives in political pluralism and civic culture, in bio-medicine and environmental conservatism, considers how the contours of public ethics in Islam may be redefined to provide (...) shared conceptions of the good in pluralist societies. (shrink)

Doctors, nurses and midwifes from developing countries migrate to affluent countries in large numbers, often leaving behind severely understaffed healthcare systems. One way to limit this ‘brain drain’ is to restrict the freedom of movement of healthcare workers. Yet this seems to give rise to a conflict of human rights: on the one hand rights to freedom of movement, on the other hand rights to health. By motivating its own account of human rights, this paper argues that the conflict is (...) not as acute as it seems, since rights to freedom of movement are in fact more limited than often acknowledged. Weak restrictions of the freedom to leave and strong restrictions of the freedom to enter are in principle compatible with the rights of healthcare workers. Hence, policies that involve restrictions of both kinds can be justified in order to secure the human right to health. (shrink)

Qui peut revendiquer un territoire, sur quelles bases et avec quelles conséquences sont des questions qui font l’objet de débats en philosophie politique contemporaine. En réponse, j’adopte « la théorie de l’État légitime » proposée par Stilz. Selon Wellman, une conséquence des revendications territoriales serait le droit de l’État de refuser la migration sur son territoire. Je juxtapose son propos de l’État légitime avec celui de Stilz et soutiens que, si l’on accepte la fondation de l’État légitime sur la valeur (...) de l’autonomie individuelle, accepter seulement des devoirs négatifs, soit de ne pas violer les droits des non-citoyens, n’est pas plausible. Je justifie les devoirs positifs des États légitimes d’aider à la réalisation de l’autonomie individuelle pour tous ceux dont les États d’origine échouent à la tâche et qui souhaitent se joindre et soutenir les institutions de l’État légitime. Cela implique l’obligation de l’État de permettre leur immigration.Who can claim a territory, on what grounds and what such claims entitle to has recently been the subject of much philosophical debate. In answer to this question, I adopt the ‘legitimate state theory’ proposed by Stilz. One consequence of the claim to territory that has been proposed by Wellman is the right to refuse migration onto a territory. I contrast his and Stilz’ account of the legitimate state and argue that if we accept that legitimate states are grounded on the value of individual autonomy, it is not plausible why states only have the negative duty to not violate human rights in dealings with non-citizens ; instead, I argue that states have positive duties to realize the possibility for individual autonomy for all those whose states fail in providing them with the means to individual autonomy and who wish to join and support the institutions of the legitimate state. This implies a duty to allow their immigration. (shrink)

Calls to expand temporary work programmes come from two directions. First, as global justice advocates observe, every year thousands of poor migrants cross borders in search of better opportunities, often in the form of improved employment opportunities. As a result, international organizations now lobby in favour of expanding ‘guest-work’ opportunities, that is, opportunities for citizens of poorer countries to migrate temporarily to wealthier countries to fill labour shortages. Second, temporary work programmes permit domestic governments to respond to two internal, contradictory (...) political pressures: (1) to fill labour shortages and (2) to do so without increasing rates of permanent migration. Temporary work programmes permit governments to appear ‘tough’ on migration, while responding to employer pressure to locate workers willing to work in low-skilled, poorly remunerated positions. The coincidence of national self-interest and global justice generates a strong case in favour of expanding guest-work. We evaluate the moral benefits and burdens of expanding guest-work opportunities, and conclude that although there are benefits to be gleaned from the perspective of global wealth redistribution, at present, temporary work programmes are generally unjust. We will argue that just temporary work programmes, in time, permit temporary workers to attain citizenship. This spells the end of traditional temporary work programmes, which require that workers return to their home country in time; instead, what is temporary is the employment obligation that must be fulfilled as a requirement to access citizenship. As long as this requirement is met, we endorse guest-work programmes as a tool to respond to global inequality. (shrink)

It is commonly accepted that former European colonising states ought to make reparations for the many harmful legacies of colonialism. I defend an undertheorised case for migration as reparation for one harmful legacy of colonialism in particular, that of exploitation. Making reparations for the harmful legacy of colonial exploitation requires, among other measures, a redistribution of wealth from former colonising states to their former colonies, and for former colonising states to make symbolic reparations, acknowledging the wrong of exploitation. Often it (...) is assumed that the reparative redistribution can occur through in situ monetary transfers, and that symbolic reparations can involve measures such as apologies. But I highlight an overlooked additional option that should be added to the reparative package: migration rights. Firstly, migration would constitute material reparations, as it is well established that migration from poorer to richer states is an effective mechanism of redistributing wealth, both to the individuals who migrate, but also to those who choose not to migrate through remittances. Secondly, offering postcolonial migrants not only the right to work in their former colonising states, but substantive rights, including immediate access to public funds, would be a powerful means of making symbolic reparations, of former colonising states acknowledging that their key institutions are funded with colonially extracted wealth. (shrink)

Even though anthropogenic climate change is largely caused by industrialized nations, its burden is distributed unevenly with poor developing countries suffering the most. A common response to livelihood insecurities and destruction is migration. Using Peter Singer's ‘historical principle’, this paper argues that a morally just evaluation requires taking causality between climate change and migration under consideration. The historical principle is employed to emphasize shortcomings in commonly made philosophical arguments to oppose immigration. The article concludes that none of these arguments is (...) able to override the moral responsibility of industrialized countries to compensate for harms that their actions have caused. (shrink)

This book brings together philosophical, social-theoretical and empirically oriented contributions on the philosophical and socio-theoretical debate on migration and integration, using the instruments of recognition as a normative and social-scientific category. Furthermore, the theoretical and practical implications of recognition theory are reflected through the case of migration. Migration movements, refugees and the associated tensions are phenomena that have become the focus of scientific, political and public debate in recent years. Migrants, in particular refugees, face many injustices and are especially vulnerable, (...) but the right-wing political discourse presents them as threats to social order and stability. This book shows what a critical theory of recognition can contribute to the debate. The book is suitable for researchers in philosophy, social theory and migration research. "A profound examination of how states and societies struggle to recognize migrants as fellow human beings in all their fullness. The contributions are exceptional for combining astute philosophy and social theory with a discussion of actual politics and real lives." Dr. Hugo Slim “This impressive and timely volume offers an innovative way of understanding the issues of migration and integration by using a critical theory of recognition. Recognition theory has rich potential for effectively responding to the issues of autonomy, identity, integration, and empowerment that are at the core of the current public debates on mass migration, displacement, and the refugee crisis. By examining the normative and policy implications of recognition as they apply to migration, the book offers a pathbreaking look at the human dimension of the debate.” Dr. Helle Porsdam. (shrink)

This paper argues that one of the most valuable insights that Muslim-Americans ought to bring into the political arena is our affective response to the government of the United States' internal and foreign policies regarding Muslims. I posit the concept of empathy as one such response that ought to inform our foreign policy in a manner inclusive of Muslim-Americans. The scope of our epistemic privilege encompasses the affective response that crosses borders of the nation-state in virtue of our propinquity (...) to the narratives of Muslims globally. Such an affective response is crucial to our selves remaining multiplicitous and whole. Furthermore, I argue that we ought to access and assess those aspects of our identity that make us subject to suspicions of disloyalty, because it is precisely those aspects that can inform our social and political discourse in a more morally adequate and responsive way. (shrink)

I revisit themes from Against Borders: Why the World Needs Free Movement of People (2020) in dialogue with Gillian Brock's Justice of People on the Move (2020) and Sarah Song's Immigration and Democracy (2019). We share the conviction that current border regimes are deeply unjust but differ in what migration justice requires. Brock and Song continue to give states significant discretion to exclude people from entering and settling in their territories, whereas I contend that migration justice demands open borders. I (...) reject the claim that state self-determination justifies migration restrictions. Central arguments for open borders highlight the role that restrictive border controls and the state category of ‘immigrant’ play in upholding racialised hierarchies and exploitative economic relations, as well as in inflicting violence against mobile people. (shrink)

My new book, Exile, Statelessness, and Migration. Playing Chess With History From Hannah Arendt to Isaiah Berlin, considers the intertwined lives and work of Jewish intellectuals as they make their escape from war-torn Europe into new countries. Although the group which I consider, including Hannah Arendt, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Judith Shklar, Albert Hirschman and Isaiah Berlin, have a unique profile as migrants because of their formidable education and intellectual capital, I argue that their lives are still exemplary for many (...) of the dilemmas and risks faced by all migrants. In the reply to critics, I consider such issues as the intellectual relations between Benjamin, Adorno and Horkheimer; differences between Arendt’s and Adorno’s views of an interpretive social science; and why international law played such an important role in the imagination of Jewish intellectuals. A further question involves the generalizability of the experience of Jewish otherness in European culture. Liberal societies always designate some others as their constitutive exterior. How continuous is the experience of emigré Jewish intellectuals with the exclusion of ethnic and racial minorities in our societies? Finally, if the founding of the State of Israel has by no means resolved the problems of statelessness but re-created it for the Palestinian population, what kind of political stance should we assume vis-à-vis this reality today? (shrink)

Religious Reflection Scales yield cross-cultural data suggesting that religious traditions have potentials to integrate intellect with faith. This investigation extended analysis of that possibility to Sunni Muslim university students in Malaysia and also examined the hypothesis that Islamic commitments to knowledge promote religious openness. Faith and Intellect Oriented Religious Reflection correlated positively and predicted openness. The Truth of Texts and Teachings factor from the Religious Schema Scales essentially assesses a form of fundamentalism and displayed direct linkages with religious openness as (...) well. Ilm factors from the Ummatic Personality Inventory correlated positively with religious openness and mediated associations of Islamic Religious Reflection with other constructs. Quest as a presumed index of religious openness proved to be incompatible with sincere Muslim commitments. These findings supplemented previous Muslim, Christian, and Hindu data in confirming the potential openness of religious traditions. (shrink)

This article argues that vehicles, roads and routes merit a much more central place in theorizations of migration politics. This argument is developed in terms of three theses. First, the study of migration politics should examine how vehicles feature in the public mediation of migration and border controversies. Second, it is important to analyze vehicles as mobile sites of power and contestation in their own right. Third, an understanding of the materiality of transportation helps to explain how the vehicle can (...) sometimes become a site of strategic political action. These arguments are in turn used to develop a concept of viapolitics as a contribution to literatures on migration, mobilities and power. Viapolitics orients us to see migration from the middle, that is, from the angle of the vehicle and not just the state. It also seeks to connect migration studies to the history of problematizations, cultural types and the mythopoetics of the road. (shrink)

This paper argues that climate migration-in case of climate refugees in a strict sense-differs from other forms of migration not only by its finality but also by the fact that entire communities are forced to resettle elsewhere. For such communities to migrate with dignity-that is in a way that protects the social bases of their self-respect-their host countries are required to ensure the necessary institutional arrangements enabling these people to become full and equal members within a reasonably short time. Ensuring (...) that their equal participation rights are not merely formal but have ‘fair value’ requires taking cultural differences into account to ensure that they do not pose substantial disadvantages for participation in the political and social sphere. (shrink)

A study of the struggle and achievement of al-Ghazālī, which examines his life and thought as a whole within the context of the time in which he lived. al-Ghazālī has been acclaimed as the greatest Muslim after Muḥammad, and is certainly one of the greatest. His outlook, too, closer than that of many Muslims to the outlook of modern Europe and America, and will be more easily comprehended today.

It is often argued that in order to prevent migration from having social dumping effects, a strict enforcement of equal labour and welfare rights for both migrants and local workers is required. However, we claim that the specific circumstances of those migrants who engage in temporary migration may require a regime of special rights and labour standards that protect and further their distinctive interests and needs. We defend this claim by appealing to the principle that labour and welfare rights should (...) accommodate the life plans of workers and we show that not only these special arrangements are fairer to the migrants involved, but they could also help to prevent social dumping. (shrink)

In this chapter, I bring non-ideal theory to bear on the ethics of immigration. In particular, I explore what the obligations of liberal states would be if they were to attempt to implement migration arrangements that conform to liberal-cosmopolitan principles. I argue that some of the obligations states have are feasibility-insensitive, while some are feasibility-sensitive. I show that such obligations can have as their content both the inclusion and exclusion of prospective immigrants, and that they can be grounded in the (...) requirements of liberal justice, mere capacity to assist, as well as past or foreseeable contribution to harm. The chapter therefore explores the possibility of an international migration regime that takes human rights seriously whilst avoiding the twin pitfalls of strict immigration restrictions and the complete liberalization of immigration. (shrink)

Brain drain critiques and human rights advocates have conflicting views on emigration. From a brain drain perspective, the emigration harms a country when emigrants are skilled and the source country is poor. From the human rights perspective, the right "to leave any country, including one's own" is a fundamental right, protected for all, whatever their skills. Is the concern with poverty and social justice at odds with the right to emigrate? At the beginning of the l970s, the economist Jagdish Bhagwati (...) replied in the negative. He imagined a tax on the income earned by the skilled migrants in the destination country, to the benefit of the source country. He thus sought to reconcile the right to emigration and the brain drain effects. -/- This article argues that there is no need to tax skilled migrants in order to reconcile the right to emigration and social justice. Social justice is not incompatible with the right to emigration but rather with restrictions on mobility. If it is both the case that equal opportunities are a minimal requisite for social justice, and that access to opportunities implies freedom of movement, as I shall argue, then the brain drain criticism doesn't satisfy the minimal requirements of social justice. -/- The article is divided into three parts. Each part rejects one of the possible justifications of the Bhagwati tax, that is, as a way, for skilled migrants, (i.) to compensate the welfare loss occasioned to their country of origin; (ii.) to discharge for their obligation to the national community when it publicly financed their education; and (iii.) to compensate for the resulting inequality of opportunities between themselves and their non-migrant compatriots. (shrink)

Climate change challenges the means of subsistence for many, particularly in the Global South. To respond to the challenges of climate change, countries increasingly resort to resettling those most affected by land erosion, heat, drought, floods, and the like. In this article, I investigate to what extent resettlement can compensate for the harm that climate-induced migration brings. The first harm I identify is that to individual autonomy. I argue that climate change changes the options of those affected by it to (...) the point that the decision to migrate can no longer count as a voluntary one. In some cases, I argue, the conditions of climate change coerce individuals. Second, I suggest that climate-induced migration severs the ties to territory, explaining the constitutive nature of such ties for accounts of individual autonomy. Third, I argue that severing ties with a traditional and historical territory challenges the capacity to imagine a future for individuals. I conclude that resettlement, even if actively planned and chosen, possibly providing gains in individual well-being and human flourishing, nevertheless harms individual autonomy interests. (shrink)

Previous research indicates that spirituality expressed in tradition-specific terms may initiate, invigorate, and integrate Muslim religious commitments, suggesting a 3-I Model of Religious Spirituality. In a test of this model, Islamic seminarians, university students, and office workers in Iran responded to Muslim Experiential Religiousness, Religious Orientation, and mental health scales. The tradition- specific spirituality of MER displayed correlation, moderation, and mediation results with Intrinsic and Extrinsic Personal Religious Orientations that pointed toward initiation, invigoration, and integration effects, respectively. MER also clarified (...) the ambiguous implications of the Extrinsic Social Religious Orientation. These data most generally confirmed the heuristic potential of the 3-I Model. (shrink)

In response to Albrecht et al.’s (J Agric Environ Ethics 26(4):827–845, 2013) discussion on the ethics of assisted migration, we emphasize the issues of risk and scientific uncertainty as an inextricable part of a comprehensive ethical evaluation. Insisting on a separation of risk and ethical considerations, although arguably common in many policy contexts, is at best misguided and at worst damaging.

Migrating Minds contributes to the prominent interdisciplinary domain of Cosmopolitan Studies with twenty innovative essays by humanities scholars from all over the world that re-examine theories and practices of cosmopolitanism from a variety of perspectives.

A number of recently published studies by reformist-minded Muslim scholars have both questioned the normative nature of and emphasized the need to rethink some of the fundamental assumptions and interpretational models governing traditional Islamic legal theories and ethics. As part of this process they have emphasized the need to develop novel Islamic hermeneutics. One major element in this emergence of novel Islamic hermeneutics is the production of an increased number of what I term ‘gender equality affirmative scholarship on Islam’. What (...) is particularly interesting, if not intriguing, from the perspective of the author of this article is that the scholarship on gender equality affirmative interpretations of Islam is theorized by reformist-minded Muslim male scholars at historically unprecedented levels which is what this study seeks to highlight. This article examines the arguments employed by three prominent contemporary Muslim male reformist scholars, both Shī’ī and Sunnī, in developing gender equality affirmative interpretations of Islam – Nasr Abu Zayd, Mohsen Kadivar, and Khaled Abou El Fadl. The focus on male scholars in this article is intentional and seeks to highlight the most fundamental point and indeed the raison d’être behind it, namely to underscore the historically unprecedented support Muslim male scholars are providing to the development of feminist interpretations of Islam. (shrink)

This article deals with several mediaeval Muslim thinkers who gave sympathetic attention to the religions of India, such as al-Bīrūnī, al-Gardīzī, Amīr Khusraw and Dārā Shukōh. The main part of the paper analyses the thought of the 18th century Indian Muslim thinker Mirzā Maẓhar Jān-i Jānān. Several scholars have maintained that Jān-i Jānān regarded the Hindūs as monotheists and the Vedas as divinely inspired. The conclusion reached here is that this assessment is exaggerated. While Jān-i Jānān concedes that the Hindūs (...) of the pre-Islamic era had their own prophets and believed in a religion that pleased God, the Hindūs who have lived since the coming of Islām without joining its fold are infidels. (shrink)

This paper forms part of a project to describe and analyse historically and anthropologically nomadic pastoralism. It reflects on mobility, its forms and scale, and more especially on the critique of predominant classical, even banal ideas which assimilate nomadism to mobility. Nomadic pastoral mobility occurs in a context that separates it radically from migratory movement. In fact, nomadic mobility constitutes a strategy that stabilizes resources and populations and whose basic foundation is the appropriation of a territorial base that is established (...) as durably as possible. Just as, and following sedentary settlement, nomadic pastoralism puts an end to migratory mobility. Thus it seems that a single idea of mobility is inappropriate to describe the two fundamentally independent phenomena represented by transcontinental migration, partly arising from the effects of the ice age, and nomadic pastoralism. (shrink)

This book seeks to elucidate the concept of justice, not so much as it is expressed in law courts (retributive and procedural justice) or in state budgets (distributive justice), but as primary justice - what it means and how it can be grounded in the inalienable rights that each human being possesses qua human being. It draws inspiration from two recent works of philosopher Nicolas Wolterstorff, but also from the groundbreaking Islamic initiative of 2007, the Common Word Letter addressed by (...) 138 eminent Muslim scholars and clerics to the pope and all Christian leaders. This document affirmed that the two highest commandments in both Judaism and Christianity are also at the heart of the Islamic tradition - love of God and love of neighbor. In a style that lends itself to the classroom and beyond, the book's six chapters all begin with a case study of justice, so as to emphasize that justice must also be embodied in righteous social, political and economic practices. Along the way, leading contemporary scholars and activists from both traditions urge the reader - Muslim, Christian, or whatever - to look afresh at an age-old conundrum: how do justice and love interact so as to create a world in which everyone finds his or her rightful place? (shrink)