Online Reactions to the Muhammad Cartoons: YouTube and the Virtual Ummah

The publication of 12 cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad by the Danish newspaper Jyllands‐Posten on September 30, 2005, created a great deal of controversy over self‐censorship, freedom of speech, and accusations of religious incitement. Muslim activists organized protests, and later hundreds of people were killed and hundreds of others were injured due to violent reactions to the cartoons. This article focuses on how people used YouTube to react to these cartoons by analyzing 261 video clips and 4,153 comments. Results show that the majority of the video clips and comments were moderate and positive in tone toward Islam and Muhammad; however, a small percentage either called for jihad against the West or made lethal threats against the artist. Other comments carried curses or insults against Denmark, while a few others were anti‐Islamic. The fact that these online reactions were highly varied in tone suggests that the online public sphere is very much divided.     

Negotiating Apostasy: Applying to “Leave Islam” in Malaysia

In Malaysia, freedom of religion has clear limitations, especially regarding Muslims wishing to leave Islam, who may currently find it difficult to secure legal acceptance. However, such applications are received under a Sharia legal provision in Negeri Sembilan – the only state in Malaysia that allows a Muslim to change his religion for reasonable cause. The application is made at the Sharia High Court, and is then forwarded to the Mufti's Department, which in turn arranges a consultation for the applicant to reconsider his decision. This article critically reviews this process of application to leave Islam and also provides a clear mapping of principal court decisions and an analysis of the legal rationale for accepting some applications and refusing others. The paper is critical of the disproportionate discretion afforded to Muslim bureaucrats in the Mufti's Department with regard to determining an individual's religious rights and argues that, in Malaysia, the power to legally determine or classify religion should be confined to the Sharia Court. Finally, the article evaluates how “applications to leave Islam” are reconciled with and distinguished from the Islamic prohibition of “apostasy” and so is relevant to Islamic countries beyond Malaysia.     

Mass Gathering Medicine New discipline to Deal with Epidemic and Infectious Diseases in the Hajj Among Muslim Pilgrimage: A Mini Review Article

Mass Gathering Medicine is one of the new disciplines in Medicine which deal with all health aspects in overcrowded areas. Mass Gathering Medicine is an important new challenging discipline which needs to be supported by all concern experts such as the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ministries of health from all countries, universities, research centers, and all other experts in this field. Scientist and academic staffs from all countries should be encouraged to participate in narrowing the gap of knowledge for Mass Gathering Medicine. Postgraduate board or fellowship certificate should be encouraged internationally.     

Academic Centrarchy: a Political System of Governing Education and Technology

Journal of Academic Ethics - This article relies on two international projects to argue for the existence of a ‘centrarchy’ in the fields of education and technology (and beyond)....     

Social Identity and Intergroup Conflict

This paper explores why people identify with social groups and what this identification signifies for their sense of self, status in society and intergroup conflict. We describe various theories of social identity to elucidate ways in which individuals can negotiate their different social identities, and what this means for intergroup relations. We consider the implications for both majority and minority group members, and those from high and low status groups. We show that social identification is an essential part of an individual’s social existence, and that such identification is inextricably related to intergroup conflict. While overarching common identities have been hailed as a possible panacea for conflict, we demonstrate that such identities have differential effects for minority and majority group members. There is a serious tension between the assimilationist preference that the majority wishes for minority members to adopt, and the integrationist position that the minority group themselves prefer. We conclude with a call to focus research efforts on how to balance the needs of the many and the few in pluralist and unequal societies.     

What Shall We Do: Pretend or Real? Preschoolers’ Choices and Parents’ Perceptions

ABSTRACT

Pretend play is common in childhood. Yet by age 4, children shown pretend and real activities in a book said they would choose to do the real activity over the pretend one. The present studies extended this research, examining children’s actual behavior in laboratory and school settings (Study 1, n = 32, M = 59.32 months; and Study 2, n = 16, M = 54.08 months), their choices about pretend roles (Study 3, n = 50, M = 59.48 months), and parents’ perspectives on what children prefer (Study 4, n = 83). As in prior work, 4-year-olds preferred real activities from a book; by 5, children also engaged more with real activities. In contrast, 3- to 4-year-olds preferred pretend roles and 5- to 6-year-olds were ambivalent. Parents correctly predicted children’s preference for real activities, but they did not predict that children’s reality preferences increase with age.     

The sacred and the profane: social media and temporal patterns of religiosity in the United Arab Emirates

ABSTRACT

Large datasets associated with internet search engines and social media platforms are increasingly used to study psychological variables. Over the past decade, ‘big data’, as they have become known, have become central to the exploration of a diverse range of topics. Few studies, however, have examined religiosity (religious belief, commitment, and devotion), particularly Islamic religiosity in the Arab world. This study looked at religiosity in the United Arab Emirates through data extracted from Twitter, a popular social media platform. The data comprised 152 million Twitter messages, spanning the period 1 April–30 September 2016. Bilingual search algorithms were employed to investigate the temporal patterns of religiosity expressed within the dataset. The study also explored patterns in the expression of obscenity (offensive language), hypothesising a negative relationship with religious sentiment. Religiosity followed hypothesised temporal patterns and was also inversely correlated with obscenity. There were differences observed between languages (Arabic vs English) and gender, with males, surprisingly, expressing greater religiosity than females. This research contributes to the nascent study of religiosity through social media.     

Risk factors associated with overdose among Bahraini youth.

The aim of this study was to identify the risk factors of overdose among Bahraini youth (15-24 years). These factors included psychiatric disorders, family pathology, and psychosocial stress. All suicide attempters in the country during an 18-month period (N= 100) were identified prospectively. One hospital-matched control was selected for each case. Both cases and controls underwent a semistructured personal interview in the two state general hospitals. A matched pair analysis was done, as well as computation of McNemar's continuity corrected chi-square test, odds ratio, and the 95% confidence interval of the odds ratio. The overdose attempter was more likely than the control to be unemployed, a member of a non-intact family, having a mother whose education was high school or above, not having a friend, involved in a boy/girlfriend relationship, and a cigarette smoker. More students among attempters had failed an examination in the past year than matched controls. Father's education, social class, death of father, recent row with a friend, use of drugs and alcohol, relationship with teachers, recent mobility, financial difficulties, and legal problems were similar in both groups. Stresses generated from living in a non-intact family, interpersonal relationships mainly with the opposite sex, unemployment, and school performance came out as the main risk factors. The association of previously identified risk factors such as depression, aggressive behavior, and use of drug and alcohol was low among attempters. While the results of this study are consistent with the present view that suicidal behaviors are multifactorial in origin, the magnitude and effect of each factor are culturally determined.