Volume 73, Issue 1 -

In 2019, the Basel Institute for Middle Eastern Studies will celebrate its centennial, but the preoccupation of some Basel (and Swiss) scholars with topics of Islamic and Oriental studies dates back to the 16 th century. This paper first looks at specialists with a Basel background before the institute was founded in 1919 (Hieronymus Harder, Johann Ludwig Frey, Albert Socin, Adam Mez, Wilhelm Sarasin-His). It then presents an outline of the last hundred years of institutional Middle Eastern studies in Basel, and finishes with some reflections on the recent developments of a discipline which has undergone major changes since the 1980s in the wake of the debate on “Orientalism”.

The Argument for God’s Existence is one of the major issues in the history of philosophy. It also constitutes an illuminating example of a shared philosophical problem in the entangled intellectual histories of Europe and the Islamic World. Drawing on Aristotle, various forms of the argument were appropriated by both rational Islamic Theology ( kalām ) and Islamic philosophers such as Avicenna. Whereas the argument, reshaped, refined and modified, has been intensively discussed throughout the entire post-classical era, particularly in the Islamic East, it has likewise been adopted in the West by thinkers such as the Hebrew Polymath Maimonides and the Medieval Latin Philosopher and Theologian Thomas Aquinas. However, these mutual reception-processes did not end in the middle ages. They can be witnessed in the twentieth century and even up until today: On the one hand, we see a Middle Eastern thinker like the Iranian philosopher Mahdī Ḥāʾirī Yazdī re-evaluating Kant’s fundamental critique of the classical philosophical arguments for God’s existence, in particular of the ontological proof, and refuting the critique. On the other hand, an argument from creation brought forward by the Islamic Theologian and critic of the peripatetic tradition al-Ghazāli has been adopted by a strand of Western philosophers who label their own version “The Kalām-cosmological Argument”. By discussing important cornerstones in the history of the philosophical proof for God’s existence we argue for a re-consideration of current Eurocentric narratives in the history of philosophy and suggest that such a transcultural perspective may also provide inspiration for current philosophical discourses between Europe, the Middle East and beyond.

This paper attempts to explore the dynamics of inequality in the post-financial crisis period, which has been reshaping the lifeworld in South Korea. The neo-liberal economic reform in the post-crisis period has drastically affected income distribution, generating working poor and large marginalized social groups. The sharp rise of income inequality has been conducive to an unprecedented social crisis associated with the lowest birth rate and the highest poverty rate of the elderly in the world. Under the poor South Korean welfare system, the increase in precarious employment and rising inequality and poverty have undermined the social fabric, generating a drastic increase in suicide, family dissolution, and social distrust.

To the question, “Who was the Śalya of the Mahābhārata ?”, a wide scale of different answers can be given. Without being exhaustive, Śalya can be described as a king, a general, a friend, a charioteer or even as a traitor. The high number of his roles indicates that he is among the most prominent epic heroes. On the other hand, it is striking that none of the answers given above refers to Śalya’s ancestry. The importance of the genealogical lists in the Mahābhārata is well established. For an epic hero it was his ancestry that determined his real identity. Therefore it is surprising that our knowledge about Śalya’s family is so meagre. As a matter of fact, the only thing we know about his birth is that he was an offspring of a prestigious royal dynasty. Śalya himself was, however, very proud of his descent and considered his service as Karṇa’s charioteer as a disgrace on his family. This paper attempts to identify this highly honoured dynasty from which Śalya arose. Many passages of the epic give the impression that Śalya was also of Kuru descent just as the Kaurava and Pāṇḍava heroes. This interpretation may shed new light on such events as Śalya’s appointment as general and Pāṇḍu’s second marriage.

The article is concerned with the Masāʾil fī aʿmāl al-qulūb wa-l-jawāriḥ (“Questions concerning the acts of the heart and the limbs”) by al-Muḥāsibī (d. 247 AH/853 CE). It contains a translation and a commentary of a part of the work that deals with the meaning of the term shuhra . The word is used in the sense of “to attract attention”. A repeated example is the woolen dress of the ṣūfīs , by which they distinguish themselves from the common people. Other examples are men dressed like women or women dressed like men. As in his other works, al-Muḥāsibī concentrates on the intention of an action, rather than on the action itself. To attract attention is not sinful as such, but when it is driven by a histrionic disorder, it begins to be. The text introduces the reader into a virtual discussion in which different traditional views of the matter are brought forward. According to a liberal attitude, everything which is not explicitly forbidden by Qurʾān and Sunna should be regarded as allowed. But by distinguishing between the customs of different epochs – pre-Islamic times, early Islamic times, the author’s present day – the same action could be considered correct or sinful depending upon when it happened. However, according to another view, the customs of the first Islamic community can never become wrong. With this, the direction of argumentation shifts towards fundamentalism. This view was held by al-Muḥāsibī himself, for whom the ideal of the early Islamic community stands above all.

Southeast Asia is of highest geostrategic interest for China as a rising Great Power as well as for the U.S. and its ally Japan. Since the “Pivot to East Asia” of the Obama administration in Washington in 2011 observers are discussing a “New Great Game” in the region. But has China already established a “backyard” by its economic activities in Southeast Asia and in particular in ASEAN countries? What is the spatial pattern of China’s activities? As an analysis of FDI stocks as well as trade related data show ASEAN countries can be divided into several groups. (1) China’s small neighbour Laos dominated by Chinese FDI. (2) Countries like Cambodia and Myanmar partly dominated by Chinese FDI. (3) Countries with different trade ties to China but mostly strong military or diplomatic ties to the U.S. like Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and (4) the independent Brunei Darussalam. Therefore, Southeast Asia and in particular ASEAN cannot be called a Chinese “backyard” yet. But if U.S. president Trump withdraws the U.S. attention from the region China could be able to achieve a hegemonic position in the region soon.