The breadth and boundaries of a self‐psychological immersion in shame a one‐and‐a‐half‐person perspective

Shame colors other feelings and perceptions about the self. From reflections about his own personal experiences and observations regarding a particular manic‐depressive patient, the author discusses the evolution of his current clinical and theoretical understanding of shame. The framework of analytic self psychology is offered as a particularly useful perspective from which to consider shame, with its emphasis on the concept of selfobject to account both for shame's development (through selfobject misattunement and unresponsive‐ness) and for its amelioration (through empathic mirroring, idealization, and twinning). A developmental sequence for shame is advanced reflecting limitations in selfobject responsiveness, and problems are noted in the ability of current self psychology theory to fully account for the alleviation of shame. The self plays its part in the construction of those selfobjects needed to ease shame, representing the “one‐and‐a‐half‐person psychology”; of the paper's subtitle. Finally, the important role of countertransference shame is considered through a clinical example of therapist disclosure of his own shame to his patient, utilized in order to repair an interrupted kinship selfobject transference.     

Fill‐in and infill errors in order memory

Many current models of memory are specified with enough detail to make predictions about patterns of errors in memory tasks. However, there are often not enough empirical data available to test these predictions. We report two experiments that examine the relative frequency of fill‐in and infill errors. In immediate serial recall tasks, subjects sometimes incorrectly recall item N too soon, placing it in position N?1. The error of interest is which item is recalled after this initial mistake. A fill‐in error is the tendency to recall item N?1 next, whereas an infill error is the tendency to recall item N+1 next. Both experiments reveal more fill‐in than infill errors, not only overall but at each possible error location throughout the list. The overall ratio is approximately 2:1. We conclude that none of the currently existing models adequately accounts for fill‐in and infill errors.     

Al‐Dhimma: The non‐believers’ identity in Islam

The question as to the status of non‐Muslim minorities in Muslim states under an Islamic aegis has assumed importance once again in our times. The article argues that since dhimma status is secondary to the status of non‐believers, it is necessary that the theoretical basis of this latter relationship should be explored further. The article also points to the need of a fresh analytical understanding of the qur'anic term ‘the people of the Book’ and the possibilities of its wider application. The article reverts to the basic qur'anic distinction between din or faith and shir^ca and minhaj or code of conduct and way of life. The accommodative possibilities inherent in the distinction are briefly referred to.     

The Yin‐Yang‐Wu‐Hsing doctrine in the textual tradition of Tokugawa Japanese Agriculture

Japanese agricultural scholarship reached its peak in the Tokugawa period (1603–1868). Most of its representative works were imbued with the Chinese metaphysical doctrine of yin‐yang‐wu‐hsing. They used the ideas of yin‐yang, wu‐hsing, yun‐ch'i, hexagrams, and feng‐shui extensively to develop their views and to explain various practices. There were two different attitudes towards Chinese concepts among Tokugawa scholars. Some regarded Chinese ideas as universal principles, and faithfully introduced them to Japan, whereas some were faced with the problem of national identity and attempted to accommodate Chinese metaphysical principles to Japanese agriculture. This article examines the adoption of the yin‐yang‐wu‐hsing doctrine in Tokugawa agriculture through a careful and critical textual study of several major Tokugawa writings.     

Religious education in state schools in German‐speaking Switzerland

There are today a variety of patterns in the different cantons of Switzerland for regulating the teaching of RE. The Swiss system is based on a cooperation between Church and state which varies in relation to the history and character of the differing cantons. This allows for diversity in modes of delivering RE. In two cantons there is complete separation between church and state whereas in the majority there is some form of cooperation. State recognized religious communities (normally the Swiss Reformed and Roman Catholic Churches, but in Basel the Old Catholic Church and Jewish community also) are in charge of the RE in schools where it is taught by their representatives visiting the schools. Where state related RE is taught this is done by teachers in the school employed by the state. The presence of Turkish immigrants is raising problems for the teaching of RE in certain areas since Islam has not been traditionally state recognized. However, the inherent diversity of patterns within the 26 cantons allows considerable room for innovation feasible because there is generally an openness between the churches and from the state which facilitates this.     

Ahl al‐dhimma in an Islamic state: The teaching of Abū al‐Hasan al‐Mawardi's Al‐ahkam al‐sultaniyya

The much‐quoted Al‐ahkam al‐sultaniyya of the prominent Shafi'i jurisconsult, Abu l‐Hasan al‐Mawardi (364–450 AH/974–1058 AD), was written primarily to buttress the ‘Abbadsid caliphate which was facing, at the time, challenges to its authority by the competing caliphates of the Fatimids and Umayyads, in Cairo and al‐Andalus respectively, and, at home by the actual usurpation of its power by the Twelver Shi'ite Buwayhids (945–1055 CE).

Al‐Mawardi recapitulates Sunni political thought to lend credence to the primacy of the ^cAbbasid caliphate in Baghdad and its legitimacy. His discussion of the various functions, rights and duties of the caliph included discussion of the rights and obligations of ahl al‐dhimma (Christians and Jews) in the Muslim state which included freedom of worship and protection by the state, in lieu of the obligation of male adults to pay a poll tax (jizya) and land tax (kharäj) by farmers. Al‐Mawardi affirms the obtaining practice that allowed Christians and Jews to attain high ranks in the government, serving as executive ministers, and participating in certain military campaigns.     

Muslim anti‐secularist discourse in the context of Muslim‐Christian relations

This article observes and critically evaluates some of the main components of Muslim anti‐secularist discourse: the assumption that there is ‘no separation between religion and politics’, that the Shari^c a represents the antithesis of secularism, that secularism is a specifically Western or Christian phenomenon, and that secularism is causally related to a crisis of values in contemporary Western civilization. After observing some recent attempts to justify secularism on Islamic grounds, the article draws conclusions not just with respect to the discourse but also with regard to the underlying issues. The relevance of this topic to Muslim‐Christian relations emerges in two ways. Firstly, attention is paid to the way in which Christianity, or the West (the two are sometimes conflated), provides a significant Other for the purposes of self‐definition; and secondly, a comparative perspective on certain issues reflects shared concerns between Muslims and Christians on the role of religion in the modem nation‐state.     

Insidious syncretism in the political philosophy of Huai‐nan‐tzu 1

This is a study of the ninth chapter of the Huai‐nan‐tzu, a Chinese philosophical text compiled in the mid‐second century BC. The chapter (entitled Chu‐shu [The techniques of the ruler]) has been consistently interpreted as a proposal for a benign government that is rooted in the syncretic Taoist principles of the Huai‐nan‐tzu and is designed to serve the best interests of the people. I argue, on the contrary, that the text makes skilful (and deliberately deceptive) use of vocabulary from the major philosophical traditions of the day, in an attempt to subdue all philosophical sectarianism and wrench various antecedent philosophical ideas into the justification of a supreme political state. The best interests of the people are understood as nothing more than their material needs, since the text also denies that the ruler's subjects are possessed of ‘minds’ in any philosophical sense. It is this process of systematically undermining other philosophical traditions that I call ‘insidious syncretism. ‘     

Introducing the concept of spirit injury in education‐to‐work transitions

This paper introduces the topic of spiritual injury and the possible influences and relationships it might share with education‐to‐work transitions of young adults. Students of both dominant and minority cultural backgrounds were interviewed to gain a detailed understanding of how perceptions of transitions came about. Further, I sought to understand what role spirituality and experiences of spirit injury have in the decision‐making processes.     

Ijtihad and innovation in neo‐modernist Islamic thought in Indonesia

This article briefly explores three models of ijtihad followed in contemporary Islam: text‐based, eclectic and context‐based ijtihad, and attempts to sketch the features of the environment within which each model functions. The key aim of the article, however, is to examine the context‐based model of ijtihad which is utilized by the neo‐Modernist Muslims in Indonesia, to identify a number of their major concerns and to highlight the nature of the reform agenda the neo‐Modernists are pursuing. Though this agenda may be seen by many Muslims to be problematic and even dangerous, it is gaining ground in Indonesia, particularly within the younger generation who have had the opportunity of combining traditional Islamic scholarship with modern Western education. The article examines these issues of interest on the basis of interviews conducted during 1995 in Jakarta with two leading Muslim intellectuals: Nurcholish Majid, the leading neo‐Modernist thinker, and Abdurrahman Wahid, the leader of the largest Islamic organization in Indonesia, Nahdlatul Ulama.     

Decision‐making concerns in British Islamic environments

The paper surveys aspects of Islamic decision‐making within the United Kingdom's Muslim communities, in terms of the approaches towards different priority issues including ‘family values’, leadership, and inter‐Muslim relations. Fieldwork interviews incorporate diverse perspectives within different communities, in particular those seeking to approach the interpretation of Islamic primary sources in the minority, secularizing context of the UK.     

Religion and society in present‐day Albania

Albania is the only European country with a majority Muslim population (with the arguable exception of Bosnia). In this age of religious prejudice and in view of the terrible policies of ethnic cleansing in its neighbouring countries, Albania's religious climate has remained remarkably tolerant. The intermingling of religions is epitomized by Albania's national hero Skanderbeg who was born an Orthodox, lived as a Muslim, and died a Catholic. The most extreme demands were made on Albania's people of faith during a 23‐year period of state‐proclaimed atheism. A widespread revival of all religions after 1991 is generally thought to be in similar proportions to those at the start of the century. As we near its close, we can only hope that interaction between religious groups continues to remain peaceful and tolerant.     

Complexity factors in visuo‐spatial working memory

Three experiments are presented that use a technique of selective interference—irrelevant pictures—to develop our understanding of visuo‐spatial working memory. Visual noise fields are used as the irrelevant pictures. Using two related measures of simple visual complexity, the experiments demonstrate that the greater the complexity the greater the degree of interference, even within a paradigm where subjects are instructed to look at but otherwise ignore the irrelevant pictures. Both the number of dots and the density of the dots comprising the visual noise fields affect the degree of interference in a concurrent memory task. In addition, increasing the size of the field increases the amount of interference. It is argued that the results give insight into the properties of visual working memory and contribute to its theoretical development. For example, it is argued that the store is directly accessible by externally presented interference and that particular aspects of the noise displays cause interference with visual memory.     

Christian‐Muslim relations in the African context

Abstract

The course of Islam and Christianity in Africa as well as statistical figures suggest a wide variety within, as well as considerable divergence between, both religions in the many African contexts. Though the majority of African Muslims still stick to a ‘traditional African Islam’, we observe a resurgence of Islam reflecting a growing religious awareness, on the one hand, and tendencies towards an ideological re‐interpretation (Islamism), on the other. Trends in resurgent Islam are highlighted by the examples of Islamic internationalism and da'wa, the modernisation of Islamic education, and the proliferation of Islamic political groups all over the continent. Various dimensions of Christian—Muslim relations in Africa today show areas of conflict as well as of cooperation and exchange. Against the background of the economic and social disintegration of many African societies, there is no alternative to inter‐religious dialogue which must be based on an authentic African theological foundation, being rooted in the African heritage shared by Muslim and Christian communities alike.     

Multisensory self‐motion encoding in parietal cortex

Navigation through the environment requires the brain to process a number of incoming sensory signals, such as visual optical flow on the retina and motion information originating from the vestibular organs. In addition, tactile as well as auditory signals can help to disambiguate the continuous stream of incoming information and determining the signals resulting from one's own set of motion. In this review I will focus on the cortical processing of motion information in one subregion of the posterior parietal cortex, i.e., the ventral intraparietal area (VIP). I will review (1) electrophysiological data from single cell recordings in the awake macaque showing how self‐motion signals across different sensory modalities are represented within this area and (2) data from fMRI recordings in normal human subjects providing evidence for the existence of a functionally equivalent area of macaque area VIP in the human cortex.     

Muslim‐Christian polemics in Indonesian Islamic literature

As Indonesian Muslim depictions of Christianity have varied over time and according to the receptivity of particular regions, this study provides a brief survey of the Muslim attitudes towards Christianity from the seventeenth to the twentieth century in Indonesia. In this article, Nuruddin al‐Raniri and Hasbullah Bakry are taken as the prototype of Indonesian Muslims’ depictions of Christianity in the early and modem eras. In Bakry's works, as the main concern of this study, we find greater familiarity with the Bible which is quoted in an almost literal fashion. The biblical verses are quoted for the purpose of convincing a Muslim audience that Islam is the last religion and that Muhammad is the last messenger; they are used to defend Islam from the misrepresentations of Christians who had wielded the Bible as one of their chief weapons in the effort of Christianize Indonesia.     

State faith‐based education in Israel: a messianic‐nationalist model of interpretation

This article analyzes the traces and configuration of three syntagmatic interpretation models in the educational text produced by Israel’s state religious educational system: the modus, the hermetic and the gnostic models, which together add up to a fourth, and unique one: the messianic nationalist model of interpretation. This interpretive model has a concrete configuration which, as opposed to similar but secular educational models, uses transcendental motifs in order to pragmatically organize the explanation of ‘reality’. From this point of view the messianic nationalist model presents a case study in religious education, which integrates between modern (i.e., nationalist) and traditional (religious) motifs in a relatively flexible way, situating itself between a fundamentalist religious idiosyncrasy and a secular one. Theoretically and methodologically the article develops the textual analysis of educational texts. The specific analysis presented here assumes that an educational ideological text interprets, and is interpreted constantly by, its producers and its users as well.     

The reproduction of Jamaat‐i Islami in Britain

Maulana Mawdudi founded Jamaat‐i Islami in 1941 to give an organized form to his idea that Muslims needed an Islamic state in order to carry out the requirements of their religion fully. The influx of Muslim migrants from the sub‐continent throughout the 1960s enabled organizations that were closely allied to Jamaat‐i Islami to be established in Britain. The following article was written as a result of research undertaken amongst Jamaat‐i Islami sympathizers in both the sub‐continent and Britain. The intention was to monitor the process of change as the organization moved from one cultural milieu to another. In particular I wanted to investigate the idea put forward by many British sympathizers that the kind of Islam they practised was free of any ‘cultural accretion’ and therefore uniquely adaptable to the situation of Muslims born and educated in Britain.