Objective. The purpose of this study was to adapt and validate the New Indices of Religious Orientation Revised (NIROR) scale, which has been developed in different cultural settings, for a study of Pakistani university students. The NIROR was developed by Francis, Fawcett, Robbins, and Stairs (2016), consisting of 27 items for Canadian-Christian…[Read more]

Muslim study of religions before modern times has claimed the attention of some modern Western scholars. At least three developmental phases of this nascent discursive field are discernable. Firstly, Western views of Muslim writings on different religions started appearing as prefaces, marginal notes, and introductions to the edited manuscripts…[Read more]

Muslim study of religions before modern times has claimed the attention of some modern Western scholars. At least three developmental phases of this nascent discursive field are discernable. Firstly, Western views of Muslim writings on different religions started appearing as prefaces, marginal notes, and introductions to the edited manuscripts…[Read more]

The Muslim study of religions has claimed the attention of some modern Western scholars. Patrice C. Brodeur, a scholar of religious studies, based at the University of Montreal, is one of them. He delves into the historical realities and epistemological developments that shaped the Muslim study of other religions in the past as well as in…[Read more]

The Muslim study of religions has claimed the attention of some modern Western scholars. Patrice C. Brodeur, a scholar of religious studies, based at the University of Montreal, is one of them. He delves into the historical realities and epistemological developments that shaped the Muslim study of other religions in the past as well as in…[Read more]

This paper discusses various interpretations about the emergence of the academic study of religion in the modern world. It is viewed that the expansion of Europe and resultant engagement of European consciousness with religious and cultural otherness played a role. Internally, the Enlightenment movement had prepared the ground for a critical and…[Read more]

Sri Ramakrishna (1836–1886) is an important Hindu spiritual personality from nineteenth-century Bengal who is best known for his pluralistic approach to religions, which is based on his claim to have practically experienced the same divine reality through various strands of Hinduism and different religions of the world. This paper pertains to an a…[Read more]

This paper discusses internationalisation of the study of religion after the mid-twentieth century and some methodological implications of this development. It is shown that when the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) was established in 1950 under the auspices of UNESCO to collaborate between scholars from different…[Read more]

Several scholarly works and media reports claim that the Christian minority in Pakistan is mistreated, persecuted, and discriminated against, giving an overall impression as if Christians are alienated from the main social stream everywhere in Pakistan and that the public at large is responsible for their miseries. Noticing that most of the…[Read more]

The paper discusses how the natural environmental conditions of the Phoenician litoral in the eastern Mediterranean had shaped their culture from a very early age.

Alija Ali Izetbegović (1925-2003) is one of the outstanding Muslim thinkers in recent history who have re-conceptualized the Islamic worldview and ethos in the context of the contemporary world on the one hand and critically reflected upon the modern Western civilization, on the other. Izetbegović conceives Islam as a system representing a m…[Read more]

The classical Muslim scholarly tradition produced an assortment of literature on different religions including a considerable number of descriptive studies, a phenomenon that leaves imposing questions. Most importantly, how a pre-modern civilization was able to generate a tradition of descriptive scholarship on different religions in the absence…[Read more]

Scholars have made contesting claims about the nature and scale of works on religions by Muslim scholars before modern times. The present paper explores various primary and secondary sources, especially the classical bibliographical indexes that the scholarly tradition under scrutiny itself produced, and classifies these works into three types:…[Read more]

Late Halaf female figurines of clay/pottery from northeastern Syria (Type LH.1A; 6th millennium BCE) have close parallels in predynastic Egyptian figurines (4th millennium BCE) in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. The lack of provenance for the Egyptian statuettes – all of which were purchased – has long inhibited any comparison with the…[Read more]

Late Halaf female figurines of clay/pottery from northeastern Syria (Type LH.1A; 6th millennium BCE) have close parallels in predynastic Egyptian figurines (4th millennium BCE) in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. The lack of provenance for the Egyptian statuettes – all of which were purchased – has long inhibited any comparison with the…[Read more]

An analysis of multiple traditions in the Hebrew Bible on the founding of Jerusalem.

The Priestly or Aaronic Blessing contained in Numbers 6:22-27 is treasured by both Jewish and Christian communities. This commentary on the text and the context of the Blessing offers no radical exegesis. It is intended simply as guide to a few of the textual and interpretive issues embodied in this brief and ostensibly simple pericope.

The Priestly or Aaronic Blessing contained in Numbers 6:22-27 is treasured by both Jewish and Christian communities. This commentary on the text and the context of the Blessing offers no radical exegesis. It is intended simply as guide to a few of the textual and interpretive issues embodied in this brief and ostensibly simple pericope.

In Exodus 2, Moses has two mothers; his Hebrew mother, who nurses him and the daughter of Pharaoh, who financially supports his Hebrew mother, adopts him, and names him. Pharaoh’s daughter appears in scholarly discussions, yet little attention is given to her role as mother of Moses. Indeed, this motherhood is downplayed in the biblical texts, a…[Read more]