Special Issue Language And Islam In The Asian Pacific

Research into language issues and communication problems is investigated across a range of disciplines and appears in a wide diversity of published outlets. In addition, any linguistic and communication problems faced by Southeast Asian immigrants elsewhere in the world are also located in disparate contexts. This journal is the first real attempt to provide a forum for such widespread concerns to be published in the English Language.

This volume covers the language situation in Hong Kong, Timor-Leste and Sri Lanka explaining the linguistic diversity, the historical and political contexts and the current language situation, including language-in-education planning, the role of the media, the role of religion and the roles of non-indigenous languages. Two of the authors are indigenous to the situations described while the other has undertaken extensive field work and consulting there. The three monographs contained in this volume draw together the literature on each of the polities to present an overview of the research available about each of them, while providing new research-based information. The purpose of the volume is to provide an up-to-date overview of the language situation in each polity based on a series of key questions in the hope that this might facilitate the development of a richer theory to guide language policy and planning in other polities where similar issues may arise. This book was published as special issues of Current Issues in Language Planning.

Muslim Education in the 21st Century reinvestigates the current state of affairs in Muslim education in Asia whilst at the same time paying special attention to Muslim schools’ perception of educational changes and the reasons for such changes. It highlights and explores the important question of whether the Muslim school has been reinventing itself in the field of pedagogy and curriculum to meet the challenges of the 21st century education. It interrogates the schools whose curriculum content carry mostly the subject of religion and Islam as its school culture. Typologically, these include state-owned or privately-run madrasah or dayah in Aceh, Indonesia; pondok, traditional Muslim schools largely prevalent in the East Malaysian states and Indonesia; pesantren, Muslim boarding schools commonly found in Indonesia; imam-khatip schools in Turkey, and other variations in Asia. Contributed by a host of international experts, Muslim Education in the 21st Century focuses on how Muslim educators strive to deal with the educational contingencies of their times and on Muslim schools’ perception of educational changes and reasons for such changes. It will be of great interest to anyone interested in Asian and Muslim education.

This book presents 25 selected papers from the International Conference on “Developing Synergies between Islam & Science and Technology for Mankind’s Benefit” held at the International Institute for Advanced Islamic Studies Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, in October 2014. The papers cover a broad range of issues reflecting the main conference themes: Cosmology and the Universe, Philosophy of Science and the Emergence of Biological Systems, Principles and Applications of Tawhidic Science, Medical Applications of Tawhidic Science and Bioethics, and the History and Teaching of Science from an Islamic Perspective. Highlighting the relationships between the Islamic religious worldview and the physical sciences, the book challenges secularist paradigms on the study of Science and Technology. Integrating metaphysical perspectives of Science, topics include Islamic approaches to S&T such as an Islamic epistemology of the philosophy of science, a new quantum theory, environmental care, avoiding wasteful consumption using Islamic teachings, and emotional-blasting psychological therapy. Eminent contributing scholars include Osman Bakar, Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Mehdi Golshani, Mohd. Kamal Hassan, Adi Setia and Malik Badri. The book is essential reading for a broad group of academics and practitioners, from Islamic scholars and social scientists to (physical) scientists and engineers.

The impact of globalization processes on language is an emergent field in sociolinguistics. To date there has not been an in-depth look at this in Asia, although Asia includes the two most populous globalizing economies of the world, India and China. Covering the major themes in the field of globalization and language, this book will take a look at topics such as English emerging as the medium of instruction for subjects like mathematics and science. Another theme is the rise of Mandarin as a potentially 'global' language networking the Chinese diaspora. The cultural contexts of Asia, specifically the Sinic, Hindu and Islamic civililizations give the processes of globalization and language a unique dimension. This book is suitable for researchers and postgraduate students in all fields of sociolinguistic enquiry.

This volume examines the dynamic, mutually constitutive, relationship between religion and mobility in the contemporary era of Asian globalisation in which an increasing number of people have been displaced, forcefully or voluntarily, by an expanding global market economy and lasting regional political strife. Seven case studies provide up-to-date ethnographic perspectives on the translocal/transnational dimension of religion and the religious/spiritual aspect of movement. The chapters draw on research into Buddhism, Islam, Chinese qigong, Christianity and communal ritual as these religious beliefs and practices move in and across Singapore, Taiwan, China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the upper Mekong region, the Thai-Burma border, the Middle East and France. With these diverse and rich ethnographic cases on translocal/transnational Asian religious practices and subjectivities, the book transcends the conventional nation-state centered framework to look into how mobile religious agents are redefining boundaries of local, regional, national identities and recreating translocal, transnational and interregional connectivity. In so doing, it illustrates the importance of promoting a dynamic understanding of Asia not just as a geopolitical entity but as an ongoing social and religious formation in late modernity. This book was published as a special issue of the Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology.