Articles

The article concerns the geopolitical concept of the “Shia Crescent”, a term that has become widely spread in Western and Arab political discourse over the last decade. The article studies the problems of Sunni-Shii relations through one of the programs of “Al-Jazeera”, a leading Arab satellite channel; the conducted analysis proves that regional media are constructing a negative image of the Shiis in public opinion. Although mutual antipathy between Sunnis and Shiis has a centuries-long history, latest developments have created new impulses for this antagonism.

The article examines the concept of Waqf in contemporary India as well as the waqf system structure, which was shaped in the country after 1947. In focus are the main problems of the Indian waqf system, particularly the legal and administrative difficulties of the past decades.

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the role and place of Buddhist heritage in the formation of all-national identity in modern India, where Buddhist ideas are incorporated into the governmental strategy of unification of the state and interpreted as a composite part of cultural foundations of South Asian civilization, strengthening the links between the peoples inside the boundaries of contemporary state.

The customs union is the form of international integration, which countries of various regions often tend to reach, while their leaders are believe in it’s effectiveness. The Turkish experience helps to evaluate the customs union’s capabilities and costs associated with a specific state of the national economy as well as it is reflecting some universal features of the transition to a deeper level of international economic cooperation.

The paper centers on the problem of conceptualization of death in the novel “Cries in the Drizzle” (Zai xi yu zhong huhan) by modern Chinese writer Yu Hua. The analysis of the phenomenon is carried out from a triple perspective: in terms of influence of traditional Chinese worldview, Western philosophies and totalitarian (maoist) discourse on the views of Yu Hua. The author comes to a conclusion that the simultaneous search for a kind of existential truth, historical authenticity and attempts to re-think Chinese tradition lie at the core of the writer’s art world.

The paper analyses the dynamics of the transformation of Turkey’s party and political system from the 1980s to the early 2010s according to five variables: voter activity, electoral volatility, fragmentation of party system (effective number of parties), level of political competition, and proportionality of party representation in parliament. The growing stabilization of Turkey’s party and political system makes it increasingly difficult for any new political party to find an electoral niche and facilitates the migration of electorate between old parties. Reformation of the party and political system and creation of a new matrix for political life forced the opposition to search both the new strategies of political struggle and new approaches towards electorate and to revise both party ideology and programs.

Contrary to the opinion spread in some studies on the history of Islamic thought, a tendency to revive and reform Islamic practices with direct reliance on the sacred texts of the Koran and the Sunnah was common among some Muslim thinkers not only in Egypt but also in Ottoman Syria. And the mentioned tendency practically met no resistance provided that the principle of sacred Sultan’s reign was not challenged by this or that Muslim scholar. The represented article is devoted to the analysis of the activities of some Salafi-minded Islamic scholars (ulama) in Damascus during the reign of Abdul Hamid II. A special attention is paid to the personality of sheikh Jamal al-Din al-Qasimi.

The article covers the advertising discourse peculiarities in East Africa. The research is based on various advertising texts in Swahili. The main focus is outdoor advertising. The advertising texts are analyzed as the objects of language play and manipulation.

The article deals with the opinion of some Israeli scientists who believed that Napoleon had some plans connected with the Jews of Syro-Palestinian region. Basing on different sources the author comes to the conclusion that these plans existed only in the imagination of some contemporaries of these events. In that period the returning of the Jews to the Ottoman Syria, rebuilding of the Temple and the restoration of the Jewish state were impossible because of the political situation in the world.

The article gives a theoretical analysis of the genre system of the medieval Turkish ashik poetry — oral individual-author creation of ashik-songers. The author takes into consideration two the most popular in the Turkish philology genre classifications of the ashik poetry and shows the opposite views about the term «genre» and points out weak places of the existing classifications. In the conclusion the author suggests his own genre classification of ashiks` songs basing on the idea that the term `genre` relating ashiks` songs must comprise four closely connected with each other and equal from the point of their genre determinating role elements — theme, emotional tone, melody and form.

The article deals with the problem of “Taiwanese identity”, that may have a direct impact on the future development of the relations between the two sides of Taiwan strait. This subject attracts the attention of many Taiwanese and Western researchers but is still poorly studied in Russian historiography. The article discusses main peculiarities of defining the notion of “Taiwanese identity” and related to this terminological difficulties and certain phenomena of Taiwanese social life.