Al-Hākim bi-Amr Allāh (reign 996–1021), the sixth Fatimid caliph in North Africa, is one of the most controversial characters in the history of Islam, who has engendered different and sometimes conflicting views of historians. Adopting a descriptive–analytical method, the present study aimed to assess the views of Heinz Halm, the contemporary Ismaili era researcher, on al-Hākim. Although al-Hākim has gone down the history as a brutal, wicked-minded man, Halm in The Fatimids and Their Traditions of Learning (1997) refers to al-Hākim as a highly-respected person among Egyptians, as a person who had a stable character with consistency in religious policies. Moreover, Halm depicts al-Hākim as totally opposed to the Druze who emerged, as a religious sect, with a belief in al-Hākim’s divinity. The results of the study showed that Halm, drawing eclectically on historical sources, reports, and statements to depict al-Hākim’s character as justified and sound, had foregrounded, marginalized, and eliminated historical data about al-Hākim.
Austronesia, one of the largest language families in the world, covers a vast area from Madagascar in the extreme west to Easter Island in the far east, Taiwan in the north to New Zealand in the south. The languages are spoken by the people of insular southeast Asia, Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia in the Pacific, as well as certain parts of the Asia mainland. The vernacular architecture of the people that belong to this language family shows certain shared characteristics that seem to indicate a common origin in the distant past. The Grand Shrines at Ise, Japan pose an intriguing phenomenon because they possess striking architectural features that are reminiscent of Austronesian vernacular architecture. This paper is an attempt to investigate the phenomenon using the findings of studies by experts from other disciplines such as historians, anthropologists, linguists and others, based on the link between culture, language and architecture.1
Malaysian mosques exhibit remarkable variations, ranging from humble traditional timber structures to massive modern complexes. This evolution has been studied by numerous historians, architects, and academicians resulting in a steadily expanding historiography of mosque architecture. However, this body of work on the history and development of local mosques has never been formally studied in detail as a whole. Therefore, this paper focuses on 2 major aspects: first, identifying general research approaches present in the historiography of mosque architecture in Malaysia, and second, classifying the formal elements and characteristics used to describe the architecture of local mosques. Based on selected texts from 5 Malaysian authors, it was identified that these works are descriptive studies that are primarily structured on a combination of chronological, stylistic, cultural, geographical and typological approaches. Additionally, descriptions of mosque architecture by the authors were based on a set of formal elements and characteristics which falls into 5 distinct categories: i) typological element, ii) spatial organisation, iii) roof form, iv) building technology, and v) design articulation. These results reflect the complexity of mosque development in Malaysia and the multiple angles that are possible to holistically examine them. This paper also discusses 3 significant aspects embedded within the study of mosque architecture in Malaysia, covering unique elements and characteristics of local mosques, followed by issues related to language, conceptual, and factual ambiguity, and finally on the complexity of mosque classifications.
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