Escaping Atonement in Sunni Islam: Death by Jihad for Deliverance

The Syrian Baath Party and Sunni Islam: Conflicts and Connivance

I the first weeks of the Syrian uprising that began in March 2011, religious symbols and figures rapidly emerged as important components of the movement. Allah Akbar (“God is the Greatest”) was often shouted, along with liberal slogans like “God, Syria, Freedom, and that’s it!” Certain Muslim scholars or ulama became iconic figures of the protests, and many demonstrations took place in and arou...

Death and Beauty: Deliverance from Mortality in

Escaping death to quiescence

Cancer recurrence is associated with treatment failure and is the main cause of death, 1 and thus remains to be a major clinical challenge. elevated level of the cyclin-dependent kinase 1 (CDK1) correlates with cancer recurrence and treatment resistance in patients with breast cancer or colorectal cancer. 2,3 it is proposed that defects in CDKs may lead to the accumulated genetic defects, which...

Making muslim babies: Ivf and gamete donation in sunni versus shi’a islam

Medical anthropological research on science, biotechnology, and religion has focused on the "local moral worlds" of men and women as they make difficult decisions regarding their health and the beginnings and endings of human life. This paper focuses on the local moral worlds of infertile Muslims as they attempt to make, in the religiously correct fashion, Muslim babies at in vitro fertilizatio...

Purity, Soul Food, and Sunni Islam: Explorations at the Intersection of Consumption and Resistance

Paul Robeson Park in Los Angeles County was often the designated location for Eid al-Fitr, the obligatory group prayer and celebration following Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting. Families, predominantly African American, would begin arriving around 7:00 am dressed in their best Eid clothing. Well before the crowd began to trickle in, plastic tarps would be positioned in straight rows so th...