Articles

The article analyzes the film of the German film director Wim Wenders “Tokyo-ga” from the point of “questioning identity” of a Western man which was proposed by the French philosopher Y. Kristeva. The film shows the meanings and images opened to Wim Wenders as a result of a dialogue with the spiritual heritage of the Japanese film director Yasujiro Ozu.

The article studies the formation of pilgrimage routes used by Muslims of the Russian Empire to reach the Islamic holy sites in Arabia. It compares traditional and less-used Hajj routes and examines the authorities’ role in organising travel, preventing disease, issuing passports and choosing safer routes.

The article examines the influence of relations with India on Pakistan’s 2018 election campaign. It compares the programs of major political parties, their portrayals of India and the prospects for implementing the proposals of the winning party.

The article examines the concept of fate in Chinese, its cultural and historical development, and its conceptual, value-related and figurative features in the Chinese linguistic worldview.

This article deals with an episode of the early mediaeval empires’ struggle for domination over Arabia, namely, an attempt of direct intervention which the Sasanids undertook in the middle of the 6th century with the help of Abū-l-Ǧabr, a prince from the South Arabic (Qaḥṭānite) tribal confederation, who had fled to them. Abū-l-Ǧabr’s initiative arose out of an internal struggle which broke among the Kindites after those of them who had advanced to the North-East of Arabia in the process of the conquests of the 5th and early 6th centuries were defeated by Sasanids and Laḫmids and retreated to Hadramawt. This period of the Kindites’ history is insufficiently explored, especially as compared to earlier times. This article presents an attempt to reconstruct the course and chronology of those events. For the Sasanids, Abū-l-Ǧabr’s initiative was a chance to set foot in Southern Arabia, especially valuable after the intensification of their struggle with Abraha, the Abissinian ruler of Yemen, in the middle of the 6th century.

Based on a travel treatise by the Damascus Sufi ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, the article examines travel in search of knowledge in the cultural and intellectual life of late-17th-century Bilad al-Sham. It explores pilgrimage routes, cultural centres, scholarly contacts and cultural exchange.

The article examines the spread of Jama’ah Tabligh in Southeast Asia since the 1960s, focusing on its missionary activity in Malaysia, Indonesia and southern Thailand and on the movement’s adaptation to local religious practices and Muslim communities.

The article examines the erosion of noun class agreement in Bantu languages, including reduction of class inventories, unification of plural markers and a shift toward semantic agreement based on animacy.

In this paper we attempt to reconstruct the evolution of ideas in the studies of Soviet and post-Soviet Russian Orientalists about the Republic of Tripolitania, which existed on the territory of the modern State of Libya in 1918–1923. Based on the analysis of historiographic materials, we identified the main stages in the development of research in this area, as well as problematic issues and approaches to their comprehension. Specific examples show how changes in the sociopolitical context in the Russia and Libya, as well as the dynamics of interstate relations, influenced the transformation of ideas about the Tripolitan Republic and its role in the history of Libya in the 20th century.

The article examines contact between Western and Far Eastern civilizations in the early modern period. European printing houses in Siam and Vietnam introduced new printing techniques and books in the Latin alphabet. It also discusses the role of Catholic missionaries in establishing these presses and promoting Christianity in the region.

Drawing on travel accounts by Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi and Muhammad Kibrit, the article compares two seventeenth-century Muslim pilgrims’ experiences in Ottoman Cairo and their contacts with its religious and intellectual circles.

Comparing episodes from the Ayodhya book of Valmiki’s Ramayana and Tulsidas’s retelling, the article shows how changes in the characters’ motives reflect bhakti ideas and new models of virtuous conduct.

Monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula and the adjacent islands remain a very specific part of the Arab world throughout the contemporary history. Before gaining independence, these countries represented the most economically and politically backward part of the Peninsula. In the final third of the last century they have overtaken their counterparts in such characteristics as the standard of living, becoming the forefront of the Arab region. The political elite of the country carried out fundamental political and socio-economic reforms, and showed that it is able to move society from medieval backwardness to modernity. The danger of this situation isn’t a secret for ruling houses is extinguished by elite which makes efforts on the different directions in the aspiration to preserve the social peace and the power. The work was written on the basis of data obtained from the studies of such authors as Rosmarin Zakhlan, Mehran Kamrava, Ali Khalifa Al Kuwari and others, as well as on the statistics of the international organization of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the national statistics of the ministry of information of Qatar, the Russian and Western press.

The article examines the role of the Coptic Orthodox Church journal “Al-Kiraza” in the life of the Coptic community, the circumstances of its emergence, and its influence on readers. Founded through the efforts of young church leaders in the 1930s–1950s, the journal promoted their philosophical views among Copts.

The article examines collective terms in the records of the early modern Venetian Jewish community, especially “ghetto synagogues”, and shows how culturally distinct congregations understood themselves within a shared communal space.