Machine summary:
Order Number DA9216382 The main purpose of this research was to study aspects of social change in education, housing, health, labor force composition, and political participation in Muslim nations in two periods: 1975 and 1985.
Further, the researcher compared the extent of change among Muslim countries in these aspects, and tested hypotheses concerning relationships between infant mortality (as the endogenous variable) and adult literacy, women's participation in the labor force, access to piped water, population density, and GNP per capita (as exogenous variables).
It analyzes Rida's attempts to introduce into Islamic thought three themes to adapt and preserve the Islamic caliphate in a period of rapid change catalyzed by the West: an Islamic religious revival and the establishment of a spiritual caliphate not 594 Abstracts 595 advocated previously except by Ibn Khaldun, as this dissertation is the first study to reveal; the need for the political independence of Islam, especially in the core regions of the Arabian Peninsula, Syria, Iraq, and Palestine; and the promotion of a democratic consultative system of government under a modernized Shari'ah.
Order Number DA9221011 Using concepts from Anthony Gidden's structuration theory and feminist theorymethodology, this dissertation first analyzes gender relations, ethnic relations, and relations with the state among Austronesian-speaking Muslims of Hainan Island.
The understanding gained from this examination is used for developing a conceptual framework whereby only the universal aspects of Western modernity are included, while those which seem to have been influenced by the historical specificities of Western society are excluded.