Iran Rising now available on audio

Source: ANU. Cover for Iran Rising.

Iran Rising: The Survival and Future of the Islamic Republic, Princeton University Press (2019) paints a political picture of Iran on the 40th anniversary of the 1978–79 Iranian revolution.

At the time, Iranians overthrew their monarchy, rejecting a pro-Western shah in favour of an Islamic regime. Forty years later, Iran has emerged as a critical player in the Middle East and the wider world, as demonstrated in part by the 2015 international nuclear agreement.

In Iran Rising, Iran specialist Amin Saikal, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Public Policy Fellow, and Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (the Middle East and Central Asia) at the Australian National University (ANU), describes how the country has managed to survive despite ongoing domestic struggles, Western sanctions, and other challenges.

Saikal explores Iran’s recent history, beginning with the revolution, which set in motion a number of developments, including war with Iraq, precarious relations with Arab neighbours, and hostilities with Israel and the US. He highlights the regime’s agility as it navigated a complex relationship with Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion, survived the Gulf wars, and handled the fallout from the Iraqi and Syrian crises.

Such success, Saikal says, comes from a distinctive political order, comprising both a supreme Islamic leader and an elected president and national assembly, which can fuse religious and nationalist assertiveness with pragmatic policy actions at home and abroad.

Saikal also wrote The Rise and Fall of the Shah (Princeton) and Modern Afghanistan (IB Tauris).

Explore:

Listen to an extract from the audio book

Issue 21 of ISESCO Journal of Science and Technology now available

Source: ISESCO. Cover for issue 21 of the Journal of Science 
and Technology.

Issue 21 of the ISESCO Journal of Science and Technology, published by the ISESCO Centre for Promotion of Scientific Research (ICPSR), is now available.

The issue contains scientific articles by researchers from Indonesia, Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan and the UK.

The journal, published in English, accepts papers by scientists and scholars from the Islamic world on medicine, biotechnology, information technology, chemistry, geology, water management, agricultural science and the environment protection.

Interested?

Read the electronic version of the journal

Read Ars Orientalis back issues for free

The Smithsonian's Museums on Asian Art, the Freer and the Sackler, have made digitised versions of Ars Orientalis volumes 1 to 44 free of charge to viewers worldwide. This has been made possible with help from Smithsonian Libraries and the Internet Archive.

The volumes, which are published annually, can be viewed online, or downloaded for offline reading. Each volume features 10 to 12 articles, often around a central theme.

Volume 44 (2014) features Signs of the Hour: Eschatological Imagery in Islamic Book Arts by Christiane Gruber, while volume 43 (2013) is on imagery and has articles on Ottoman Photography, Painting, and Drawing at the Court of Sultan Abdülaziz by Mary Roberts; Royal Portrait Photography in Iran by Ali Behdad, and Photography and Afghan Diplomacy in the Early Twentieth Century by Holly Edwards.

Interested?

View the free back issues 

Buy print issues for US$60 each (individual international purchases), inclusive of digital access

posted from Bloggeroid

Albilad Bank to sponsor AAOIFI's Shari'ah Standards studies

Source: AAOIFI.

In its efforts to promote the Islamic finance industry, Albilad Bank is sponsoring AAOIFI's Shari'ah Standards studies, which will be inaugurated and published by AAOIFI in December 2015 both in hard copy and electronic formats, in addition to inclusion in a dedicated mobile application for smart phones.

This publication includes study papers and researches drawn up by shari'ah scholars and experts over the past 18 years as part of the Shari'ah Standards issuance process, including explanations, inferences, and presentation of contemporary fiqh reasoning in the area of financial transactions. Islamic finance products and contracts covered include those related to banking, takaful, investment banking, financial markets, and financing.

AAOIFI is a nonprofit infrastructure body for the international Islamic finance industry. It has more than 200 institutional members from more than 45 countries from around the world.

HE Khaled Bin Sulaiman, CEO, Albilad Bank, stated:  "This initiative reflects one side of the efforts being exerted by Albilad Bank towards promotion and augmentation of the Islamic finance industry in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and globally. AAOIFI's standards are also considered the leading professional benchmark for the industry, and the support of which will certainly have a substantial positive impact embodied in the enhancement of confident in, and reliability of, the Islamic finance industry and its products and offerings."

Dr Hamed Hassan Merah, Secretary General, AAOIFI, said: "Albilad Bank is of the influential financial institutions across the industry. The agreement culminates a long-lasting and ongoing, distinct professional relationship with AAOIFI."

Albilad Bank's Shari'ah Supervisory Board has issued 14 publications, including scientific theses and research in Islamic economics and the fiqh of financial transactions. These include a compendium on Stipulations Extracted from Resolutions of Albilad Bank's Shari'ah Supervisory Board. 

AAOIFI has issued 94 standards to date, including 54 shari'ah standards, 26 accounting standards, five auditing standards, two codes of ethics, and seven governance standards.