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For centuries Islam in Asia was renowned for its adaptability to local practices and tolerance of other religions. Over the past three decades, however, fundamentalists have tried to homogenize Islam, introducing new tensions. More than any other factor, what has fuelled conflicts and divided Muslims and others in otherwise tolerant and harmonious plural societies of Asia, is the slow but steady process of the transformation of Islam in the region, from a syncretic and inclusive Islam to a puritanical and exclusivist one under the influence of ideas, norms, practices, and finances flowing from the Arab world. The 'Islam of the desert' has made inroads across the Indian Ocean. This process of homogenization and regimentation—a process I would like to call the 'Arabization' of Islam—puts greater emphasis on rituals and codes of conduct than on substance, through the Wahhabi and Salafi creeds, a rigidly puritanical branch of Islam exported from, and subsidized by, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The internationalization of Islam drew Asian Muslims to the desert and brought the desert to them. Such 'globalization of political Islam' could threaten stability throughout Asia and the world. Unfortunately, too many proponents of any form of fundamentalism rely on it as a tool, not for inspiring spirituality, but for acquiring economic or political power.

Introduction: History of A Coptic Imagination -- Lamenting Islam: Copto-Arabic Maledictions of An Assimilated People -- Fertile as Sheep: Medieval Islamic-Arabic Representations of Copts -- Imagining Conversion: Coptic Caliphs and the New Muslim Martyrs -- The Pope's Mangled Genitals: Persecution and Suffering in the Coptic Consciousness -- Conclusions: Remembering Copticness.

In what is now Sudan there occurred over the centuries a process of ta'rib, or Arabization, entailing the gradual spread of both Arab identity and the Arabic language among northern peoples. After the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of 1898, British colonial policies favoured a narrow elite from within these Arab communities. Members of this elite went on to develop a conception of a self-consciously Sudanese Arabic national identity, in the process adapting the term Sudanese (sudani), which derived from an Arabic word for blackness and previously had servile connotations. At decolonization in the 1950s, these nationalists turned ta'rib, into an official policy that sought to propagate Arabic quickly throughout a territory where scores of languages were spoken. This article considers the historical diffusion of Sudanese Arabic-language culture and Arab identity, contrasts this with the post-colonial policy of Arabization, and analyses the relevance of the latter for civil conflicts in Southern Sudan, the Nuba Mountains, and, more recently, Darfur. Far from spreading Arabness, Arabization policy sharpened non-Arab and, in some cases, self-consciously African (implying culturally pluralist) identities. Arabization policy also accompanied, in some quarters, the growth of an ideology of Arab cultural and racial supremacy that is now most evident in Darfur. Adapted from the source document.

The task -- falls to the area specialists : national interests, knowledge production, and the emergence of an informal network -- The all-pervading influence of the Muslim faith : the perils and promise of political Islam -- A new amalgam of interests, religion, propaganda, and mobs : interpretations of secular mass politics -- What modernization requires of the Arabs -- is their de-Arabization : imagining a transformed Middle East -- A profound and growing disturbance -- which may last for decades : the Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the limits of the network

This is a book about the use of languages as a proxy for conflict. It traces the history of Algeria from colonization by the French in 1830 to the celebration of 50 years of independence in 2012, and examines the linguistic issues that have accompanied this turbulent period. The book begins with an examination of 'language conflict' and related concepts, and then applies them to both the French colonists' language policies and the Arabization campaigns which followed independence. This is followed by an analysis of the rivalry between the English and French languages in independent Algeria. Th

This study reports on the Arabization and empirical evaluation of two standard scales to assess Egyptian teachers' attitudes toward personal use and school use of computers. To date, no similar instruments have been translated and empirically evaluated in an Arabic-speaking community. Data provided by a sample of 443 teachers support the reliability and validity of the two Arabic versions and the body of the research evidence, which suggests that computer attitude is multidimensional. The relationship between gender, years of teaching experience, computer use, computer experience, and computer attitudes is also examined. Implications for preservice and in-service teacher preparation in Egypt are provided.

This essay develops an image of nineteenth century Zanzibari consumer sensibilities by demonstrating how goods from and new engagements with distant locales affected the socio-cultural landscape of Zanzibar. The East African port's particular cosmopolitanism represents one form of social reconstitution stimulated by global integration. It also represents a material vision of global relations that was discounted by nineteenth century theorizations of Western modernity. By focusing on the rise of a new materiality in Zanzibar, I excavate precolonial visions of global relations and cultural assimilations of global symbols. I argue that East African desires for goods produced all over the globe represented not simply a Westernization, Indicization, or Arabization of Zanzibar, but also a reconfiguration of a standardized set of global materials in an attempt to bring Zanzibari cultural forms into conversation with broader global trends.