There is a great need throughout the Middle East and North Africa for contemporary urban research that goes beyond classical analysis of the traditional Arab City. Important topics include urban transformation, the flow of global capital and its affect on urban realities, urban structures and polity, changes in social life and lines of inclusion and exclusion , and such " metropolitization " fo...

A large literature contends that legal systems that adapt efficiently to meet the contracting needs of the economy foster financial sector development. The paper discusses the adaptability features of Islamic law related to commercial transactions (Islamic commercial law) in light of contemporary financial system. After discussing the nature and way the common and civil law traditions can evolv...

The paper briefly describes the objectives and technological issues of PAST, a project aimed at assisting visitors of archaeological sites in understanding cultural heritage. Pilot installations are being developed at three sites, Bibracte in France, Passo di Corvo in Italy and Toumba in Greece.

This paper is concerned with the evaluation and potential of IS for archaeology and cultural tourism. We call the support of cultural heritage communication with ICT “e-heritage systems” (e-HS). Many advanced ICTs are involved in cultural projects. In this paper we shall primarily focus on evaluating the a priori potential of e-HS for fully exploiting the communicative potential of ICT. This pa...

Introduction This chapter considers social patterns that contribute to shaping the position of women in Arab societies today. It focuses on the impact of two central sources of influence: cultural and especially religious heritage and Arab intellectual production. Culture plays a pervasive role in composing the social context of women's position in the Arab world, and religious interpretations ...

This study investigates the banking behavior of Islamic bank customers in Bangladesh. By collecting data from a sample of 100 customers of Islamic banks, researchers conducted a comprehensive profile analysis, a number of chi-square tests, and t tests and found a number of key findings as to the behavior of Islamic bank customers in Bangladesh. First, most of the customers of Islamic banks fall...

This paper intends to examine the methods of reasoning that are employed in Fiqh and critically discuss their adoption in Islamic economics. The paper argues that the methods used in Fiqh are mainly designed to find out whether or not a certain act is permissible or prohibited. Islamic economics, on the other hand, is a social science. Like any other social science its proper unit of analysis i...

The purpose of this empirical study is to analyze and compare the performance of Islamic and conventional banking in Pakistan and to find out which of the banking stream is performing better than other. For this study, sample of 22 conventional banks and 5 Islamic banks were selected. For in-depth understanding and sound comparison, key performance indicators were divided into external and inte...

This paper presents a case series with preliminary data regarding the neurophysiological effects of specific prayer practices associated with the Islamic religion. Such practices, like other prayer practices, are likely associated with several coordinated cognitive activities and a complex pattern of brain physiology. However, there may also be changes specific to the goals of Islamic prayer wh...