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Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies (BRIIFS)

Ancient South Arabian civilization has been largely ignored by anthropologists in their comparative study of complex cultures. This omission of South Arabia from the catalogue of civilizations is difficult to explain considering that during the first millennium BC this region gave rise to an economy based on long-distance trade in luxury goods and a complex division of labour which supported an urban culture and mature state politics manifest in a social structure based on class, a developed ritual life, and a military organization which conducted full-scale warfare with other regional civilizations. This paper deals with the evolution of the state in South Arabia and distinguishes the key factors which define a specifically South Arabian political culture. Besides the monopoly on the incense and spice trade between the Indian East and the Mediterranean region, South Arabian civilization was characterized by a dynamic tribe-state relationship; this dialectic promoted the rise and fall of numerous polities, as well as competition between ritual centres and peripheries. Overall, South Arabian political culture provided a rich and complicated background to the rise Of monotheism in the peninsula, an inter-civilizational competition for control over the Red Sea shipping lanes, and the appearance of Islam.

Japan has often been acknowledged as a major example of successful cultural, in particular religious, syncretism and has, in modern times, projected this positive self-image to the outside world. In a long process of mutual accommodation, several religious and value systems from China have permeated Japanese culture to be amalgamated with indigenous ritual practices and idea systems. This has led to the coexistence of Shinto, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and a plethora of New Religions, as well as folk-religious practices. Each of these has been allocated a specific position in the life-trajectory of the individual, as well as a niche in the social domain of different forms of community organization. By testing some hypotheses about the historical trajectory of religious coexistence against the present-day example of the New Religions, the paper explores some of the preconditions for such coexistence in the future. It also examines the different forms which the syncretistic mixing of ritual practices may take, and the correlates in the value-system—and in the type of community—the diverse religious forms seem to engender or attempt to satisfy. The Japanese case seems to raise some important theoretical questions as to the distinction between syncretism and pluralism in the framework of exclusioity and inclustity for processes of cultural diffusion. Therefore, the paper concludes with some general observations on the reflexive dimensions of self-identity and otherness in Japanese discourse and their relevance for post-modern theories of cultural hybridity.

Once a mountain kingdom lying between the Moghul empire and the Tibetan state, Ladakh is today the third part of the political conglomerate of Kashmir. Since Indian independence, the Buddhist Ladakhis have sought greater autonomy from the Muslim-dominated Kashmiri state government, and recently the national government in Delhi has partially answered this demand. It remains to be seen whether this device will solve outstanding issues. Historical analysis shows that the Sunni members of the Muslim minority came to settle in Ladakh due to conflict-resolving treaties and invitations to take sophisticated roles in government while Shias came from Baltistan to farm. All settled residents played significant roles in the economy, and there was little strife between local Muslims and Buddhists. Communal antagonism arose in this century largely because of external influence, in particular the post-independence dominance of the pro-Muslim state government over the region. The onset of international tourism intensified competition between the communities finally leading to conflict and a politically-driven Buddhist boycott of Muslims only recently resolved by the new dispensation. But the present situation remains problematic, with the continuing right of the Kashmir government to oversee development and control funding, and new divisions emerging in the body politic which both reduce the bipolar tensions of earlier communalism and cause new questions to arise. Indian politicians have often shown skill in accommodating the variety of social identities frequently found in the many multicultural regions of India. While this history of skilled political management suggests that progress might occur without strife, the recalcitrance of the Jammu and Kashmir state government continues to block effective advance, and its violent rejection is in the cards.

Many sociological theories on new religious movements (sects or cults) point out that they create new types of community in response to contemporary social and cultural changes that have had deleterious effects both on the family and on communal relationships. This paper examines three contemporary groups in the United States as religious communities. ISKCON, a Hindu sect, has become a well-structured parish-type community whose members are engaged in different levels of involvement. It maintains its identity not only by its unique religious practices and lifestyle, but also by regional and international meetings. The Aetherius Society, a UFO religion, teaches occult wisdom and encourages its members to participate in many missions whose goals are to further the good of the earth and its inhabitants. Finally, Promise Keepers, the most recent Christian evangelical revival, while allowing its members to keep their denom-national ties, bonds them together by a strong, conservative theology and by means of small group meetings, and local and national rallies. These groups dif Jer in their ideologies, in their religious goals, in their relations to society at large, and in the type of communal relationships they have established. However, they are all characterized by a homogeneity in ideology and religious practice, and by an opposition to the secular ideology that pervades Western culture.

This paper discusses prevailing representations in social science studies on the successor states of the Soviet Union, as well as on the ethnic fringe of the Russian Federation. Whereas the critique of Orientalism has led, over the past twenty years, to a more historical and nuanced approach to understanding Islamic societies, post-Soviet Studies tend to uncritically incorporate and apply Orientalist, static and over-deterministic portrayals of Islam. In reviewing the basic critiques of Orientalism, particular attention is paid to how ‘regions and their boundaries are constructed through scholarship. Comparing scholarly and popular notions of ‘the Orient’, ‘the Balkans’, ‘Central Asia’ and ‘the Islamic world’, highlights the similarities and differences of these ‘imaginative geographis’ and the ways in which they shape perceptions of the societies and peoples of these regions. Nationalism, ethnic identification and Islamic beliefs are all offered as major factors embroiling these regions in political and armed conflict, and preventing them from integrating into the global economy and polity. This paper argues that the focus on Islam, as both the cause and the explanation of conflict in these regions, is as much a result of the disorder in post-Soviet Studies as of real political struggles taking place. The implications of conceptually assimilating these regions into the ‘Islamic World Order’ need to be carefully considered.

First §: MANY CHRISTIANS ARE unaware of the important role Jesus plays in Islam, or rather, that he is considered to be the last and most important prophet before Muḥammad’s appearance. Certainly, when reading the Qurʾanic accounts of Jesus and the numerous stories and poems composed around him, many of them will object to the fact that he is ‘only a prophet and not the Son of God for on this point the Quran is absolutely clear. When Sura 112 attests to the absolute unity and unicity of God who “begets not nor was He begotten,” other revelations are as outspoken; thus Sura 5:116 says: “It befits not Allah that He should take unto Himself a son. . . . “

First §: THIS CONFERENCE WAS the first ever held in the United States on the life and works of Professor, later Father, Louis Massignon (1883-1962). As such, it assembled the most eminent scholars of Louis Massignon studies in the world. Still largely unknown in anglophone America, Louis Massignon’s life and work were examined and analysed over several days by a number of scholars from different disciplines, including theology, Arabic literature, government, law and history.