The existence of ‘human-like’ attributes and actions in the Qur’an and Hebrew Bible entails to various interpretations towards anthropomorphic verses among the Muslim and Jewish counterparts. Al-Ghazali and Maimonides in their discourses strongly affirmed the unity of God and refuted anthropomorphism. Therefore, this study expounded al-Ghazali and Maimonides’ methods in affirming the incorporeality of God through outlining the similarities and differences in their interpretation. This study was qualitative in nature which analyses writings of al-Ghazali and Maimonides in encountering anthropomorphism. It (...) can be deduced that both scholars were found to be employing allegorical interpretation with different level of interpretations in their attempts to repudiate the corporeal form of God. Alternatively, they both agree on the literalist’s approach with conditions that one must not perceive God’s essence in a bodily figure. Consequently, believing so will lead one to heresy. In sum, their emphasis on an incorporeal God brought them to similar interpretation despite their different religion and theological or philosophical orientation.Contribution: This article contributed to comparative theological study in understanding anthropomorphic verses through the discourse of al-Ghazali and Maimonides in Islam and Judaism, respectively. (shrink)

Soon after the first COVID-19 positive case was detected in Wuhan, China, the virus spread around the globe, and in no time, it was declared as a global pandemic by the WHO. Testing, which is the first step in identifying and diagnosing COVID-19, became the first need of the masses. Therefore, testing kits for COVID-19 were manufactured for efficiently detecting COVID-19. However, due to limited resources in the densely populated countries, testing capacity even after a year is still a limiting (...) factor for COVID-19 diagnosis on a larger scale and contributes to a lag in disease tracking and containment. Due to this reason, we started this study to provide a better cost-effective solution for enhancing the testing capacity so that the maximum number of people could get tested for COVID-19. For this purpose, we utilized the approach of artificial neural networks (ANN) to acquire the relevant data on COVID-19 and its testing. The data were analyzed by using Machine Learning, and probabilistic algorithms were applied to obtain a statistically proven solution for COVID-19 testing. The results obtained through ANN indicated that sample pooling is not only an effective way but also regarded as a “Gold standard” for testing samples when the prevalence of the disease is low in the population and the chances of getting a positive result are less. We further demonstrated through algorithms that pooling samples from 16 individuals is better than pooling samples of 8 individuals when there is a high likelihood of getting negative test results. These findings provide ground to the fact that if sample pooling will be employed on a larger scale, testing capacity will be considerably increased within limited available resources without compromising the test specificity. It will provide healthcare units and enterprises with solutions through scientifically proven algorithms, thus, saving a considerable amount of time and finances. This will eventually help in containing the spread of the pandemic in densely populated areas including vulnerably confined groups, such as nursing homes, hospitals, cruise ships, and military ships. (shrink)

If one thing that the failed coup by a small but some of the top hierarchy of Turkish armed forces on that fateful July 15, 2016 day made clear, it was: the ordinary civilians, unarmed as they were poured into the streets to defend the government whatever way they can. This massive public sympathy and support for Turkish resident Erdogan and his government would be hard, if not impossible to understand, without knowing the historical intellectual, academic, and moral combat between (...) the modernists and Islamist groups working within the country. Mustafa Kamal had turned Turkey, mostly by force, from Ottoman Empire into the secular mode using military power. Various Islamic revolutionary outfits struggled for the revival of Ottoman Empire. Among them Bedi-uz-Zaman Said Nursi managed to cast a strong influence. A little slow but steadfast effort influenced by Nursi movement. Islam-shy Western powers managed alternate power structure against sitting President Tayyep Erdogan. They, however, failed due to result oriented social work delivered by his regime as Mayor and Prime Minister. It is a lesson for other revolutionaries and Governments especially for Islamic revolutionaries that if politicians deliver no power can oust them like a bee from butter. (shrink)

Pervez Musharraf was the thirteenth Chief of the Army staff and tenth president of Pakistan. In October 1999, he took over as a Chief Executive of Pakistan by dismissing then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Military takeover was savored by the people of Pakistan due to bad governance of democratic Governments. Unlike the former dictator Gen Zia ul Haq, Gen. Pervez Musharraf gave the impression of being secular and liberal. He was an ardent admirer of Mustafa Kamal Ataturk and wanted to (...) establish Turkish Model of democracy in Pakistan. To delink Islam from extremism and fundamentalism, he introduced the strategy of “enlightened moderation” which has been discussed in this paper. Many Pakistanis welcomed his policy of “enlightened moderation” and even OIC acknowledged his approach. He worked sincerely to uplift the status of women in the society. He also led the army in the war against terrorism and launched operation against militants who were challenging the writ of the Government. The economy of Pakistan was at its peak and poverty graph was declining in Pakistan during his period when many sociological changes in the country took place. (shrink)

Çalışma, Muhammed b. Mustafa el-Alâî’ye (ö. 1234/1818) nispet edilen Şerḥ-i İrâde-i cüzʾiyye risâlesinin ona aidiyeti üzerine yoğunlaşacaktır. Muhammed b. Mustafa el-Alâî’nin kendisine ait olduğunu söylediği ve ona nispet edilen Şerḥ-i İrâde-i cüzʾiyye risâlesi aslında Dâvûd-i Karsî’nin (ö. 1169/1756) Risâle fi’l-iḫtiyârâti’l-cüzʾiyye ve’l-irâdâti’l-ḳalbiyye adlı risâlesinin kısmen değiştirilmiş bir versiyonudur. Alâî, Karsî’nin risâlesinden ihtiyaç duymadığı bazı bağlam ve konuları çıkararak ve gerekli gördüğü bazı başlıkları da Ebû Saîd el-Hâdimî’nin (ö. 1176/1762) el-Berîḳatu’l-maḥmûdiyye eserinden eklemeler yaparak oluşturduğu Şerḥ-i İrâde-i cüzʾiyye risâlesi, içerik açısından dikkate alındığında (...) intihalin en bariz görüldüğü bir eser niteliğindedir. Osmanlı ilim düşüncesi dikkate alındığında irade ve insan fiilleri konusunda büyük bir literatürün ortaya konulduğu ve bu metinlerin konu hakkında belli bir fikrin yerleşmesinde etkisi olduğu bilinmektedir. Belli bir dönemde telif edilen risâlelerin muhteva olarak sonraki risâle ve eserlerin muhtevasını etkilemiş olması ve bu nedenle kısmî tedâhüllerin olması sıkça karşılaşılan bir durumdur. Fakat başkasına ait bir telif üzerinde tikel bir değişiklik yaparak eseri kendisine nispet etmek ilmî olarak kabul edilemez bir durumdur. Araştırmanın konusu olan Alâî’nin risâlesi de ikinci türden bir risâle hüviyetindedir. Risâlenin tamamına yakın bir bölümü Karsî’nin konu hakkındaki risâlesi kısmen değiştirilerek oluşturulmuş ve Dâvûd-i Karsî’ye herhangi bir atıfta bulunulmamıştır. Bu çalışmada amaçlanan ise Alâî’nin kendisine nispet ettiği bu risâlenin aslında Karsî’ye ait olduğunu karşılaştırmalı tablolar üzerinden ortaya koymaktır. Bu bağlamda hem Karsî hem de Alâî’ye ait her iki metin tablolar üzerinden baştan sona kadar karşılaştırılmış; ortak ve farklı noktalar tespit edilerek gösterilmeye çalışılmıştır. Karşılaştırmalar neticesinde risâlenin Karsî’ye aidiyeti kesin şekilde tespit edildiğinden bahsi geçen intihal olgusunun bizzat Alâî tarafından mı, yoksa başka birisi tarafından mı yapıldığı sorusuna dikkat çekilmiştir. Ayrıca Alâî’nin Ebû Saîd el-Hâdimî’den kaynak göstermeden alıntı yaptığı yerler de tespit edilerek metin üzerinde farklı bir renkle gösterilmiştir. Son olarak bütünsel bir bakış imkânı sunması için Alâî’ye ait risâlenin tahkiki de yapılmıştır. Metnin tahkikinde Karsî’nin metninde mevcut olup Alâî’nin metninde olmayan ve anlamı tamamlayan kelimeler ile cümleler köşeli parantez içinde gösterilmiştir. Ayrıca Karsî’nin metninde metin-şerh ayrımı olduğundan Alâî’nin risâlesindeki bu ayrım da tespit edilmiş böylece metin bold ve parantez içinde gösterilirken şerh ise normal yazı stiliyle gösterilmiştir. Çünkü bu metin-şerh ayrımının gösterilmesi, metnin anlaşılması ve bütünlüğü açısından elzem bir durum arz etmektedir. (shrink)

In Pakistan, as in many non‐Western cultures, decisions about a patient's health care are often made by the family or the doctor. For doctors educated in the West, the Pakistani approach requires striking a balance between preserving indigenous values and carving out room for patients to participate in their medical decisions.

In theory, a commercial market for kidneys could increase the scarce supply of transplantable organs and give impoverished people a new way to lift themselves out of poverty. In‐depth sociological work on those who opt to sell their kidneys reveals a different set of realities. Around the town of Sarghoda, Pakistan, the negative social and psychological ramifications of selling a kidney affect not only the vendors themselves, but also their families, communities, and even the country as a whole.

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan has a population of more than 145 million people, about 95% of whom are Muslims . Although it has a few large cities such as Karachi, almost 65% of the country is still rural, with a per capita income of $408 per year. The overall literacy rate is estimated to be 41.5% but is much lower for women in many of the provinces. Pakistan has a complex culture with many ethnic groups and socioeconomic strata, but (...) overall the society is characterized by hierarchical systems in both private and public domains. The population is religious and family centered with the “family” understood as extending beyond the nuclear; it is not uncommon to have three generations residing under one roof or within close proximity to each other and pooling their resources. (shrink)

Despite some promising steps in the right direction, organizational analysis has yet to exploit fully the theoretical and empirical possibilities inherent in the writings of Pierre Bourdieu. While certain concepts associated with his thought, such as field and capital, are already widely known in the organizational literature, the specific ways in which these terms are being used provide ample evidence that the full significance of his relational mode of thought has yet to be sufficiently apprehended. Moreover, the almost complete inattention (...) to habitus, the third of Bourdieu’s major concepts, without which the concepts of field and capital (at least as he deployed them) make no sense, further attests to the misappropriation of his ideas and to the lack of appreciation of their potential usefulness. It is our aim in this paper, by contrast, to set forth a more informed and comprehensive account of what a relational – and, in particular, a Bourdieu-inspired – agenda for organizational research might look like. Accordingly, we examine the implications of his theoretical framework for interorganizational relations, as well as for organizations themselves analyzed as fields. The primary advantage of such an approach, we argue, is the central place accorded therein to the social conditions under which inter- and intraorganizational power relations are produced, reproduced, and contested. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Although a preference for sons is reportedly a universal phenomenon, in some Asian societies daughters are considered financial and cultural liabilities. Increasing availability of ultrasonography and amniocentesis has led to widespread gender screening and selective abortion of normal female foetuses in many countries, including India. Feminists have taken widely divergent positions on the morality of this practice. Feminists from India have strongly opposed it, considering it as a further disenfranchisement of females in their patriarchal society, and have agitated successfully (...) for legislative prohibitions. Libertarian feminists on the other hand, primarily from the United States, have argued that any prohibition of the use of this technology is a curtailment of a woman's reproductive choices and a violation of her right to make autonomous decisions regarding procreation. Using India as an illustrative case, this paper argues that in the context of what prevails in some societies, an ethical argument that hinges on the principle of autonomy as understood in the West can be problematic. Furthermore, a liberal theoretical assumption that it is always better to have more rather than fewer choices may not hold up well against the realities of life for such women. Although feminists have little disagreement concerning substantive matters, it is in the area of strategy that differences of opinion have arisen, their moral reasoning and responses shaped by the culture, ethnicity, class and race to which they belong. A view that a single ‘orthodox’ feminism of any variety can embody the aspiration of all women reverts to the problematic issues in the evolution of the rationalistic, individualistic, ‘male’ ethics against which women have consistently raised objections. (shrink)

The effectiveness of a compliance management framework can be guaranteed only if the framework is based on sound conceptual and formal foundations. In particular, the formal language used in the CMF is able to expressively represent the specifications of normative requirements that impose constraints on various activities of a business process. However, if the language used lacks expressiveness and the modelling constructs proposed in the CMF are not able to properly represent different types of norms, it can significantly impede the (...) reliability of the compliance results produced by the CMF. This paper investigates whether existing CMFs are able to provide reasoning and modeling support for various types of normative requirements by evaluating the conceptual foundations of the modeling constructs that existing CMFs use to represent a specific type of norm. The evaluation results portray somewhat a bleak picture of the state-of-the-affairs when it comes to represent norms as none of the existing CMFs is able to provide a comprehensive reasoning and modeling support. Also, it points to the shortcomings of the CMFs and emphasises exigent need of new modeling languages with sound theoretical and formal foundations for representing legal norms. (shrink)

The common narrations in the main hadith books in the tradition of Ahl as-Sunnah and Shia are an essential subject of examination in determining the relations within and between sects. In the significant part of these narrations, the two madhhabs differ by attributing different meanings to the common hadiths. It is understood that Shia's practices such as walaya, the necessity of the imam, being innocent and muhaddath of the imams are proven especially in the common hadiths related to the principles (...) of faith. Aside from who is right, the meaning and wording differences in the common narrations could provide an understanding of the differences and formation processes between and within the sects. For example, the hadith of firâsah, one of the common narrations, has been discussed. An independent study concludes that the hadith of firâsah found a place in the Ahl al-Sunnah, especially in the Sufi tradition and did not pass on to the Ahl al-Sunnah from the Shia. This article has examined the common narrators of whether the hadith passed from Ahl al-Sunnah to Shia and has focused on whether there is an intellectual interaction. It has been determined that the meaning attributed to the understanding of firâsah by the Sufis among the Ahl al-Sunnah is similar to the imams' characteristic of being muhaddath in Shia. It has also been determined that the Shia made some additions to the hadith of firâsah and reached different conclusions from the Ahl as-sunnah. In addition, it has been seen that Ithnâashariya used the hadith of firâsah as evidence against other groups to confirm its justification in the sectarian divisions of the Shia. (shrink)

El presente artículo se centra en explorar una cuestión fundamental del pensamiento de al-Fārābī, específicamente su comprensión de la potencia de la poesía y su papel político y social en el contexto del mundo árabe clásico. La lectura de este filósofo implica una reinterpretación innovadora de la Poética y la Retórica de Aristóteles, destacando el carácter productivo de la imaginación en términos de evocación de imágenes y creación de semejanzas. Se explora, asimismo, la influencia de la filosofía de al-Fārābī en (...) otros filósofos árabes e islámicos, como Avicena y Averroes, quienes se convirtieron en principales referentes en la reivindicación de la filosofía en este contexto cultural. (shrink)

The data mining field in computer science specializes in extracting implicit information that is distributed across the stored data records and/or exists as associations among groups of records. Criminal databases contain information on the crimes themselves, the offenders, the victims as well as the vehicles that were involved in the crime. Among these records lie groups of crimes that can be attributed to serial criminals who are responsible for multiple criminal offenses and usually exhibit patterns in their operations, by specializing (...) in a particular crime category (i.e., rape, murder, robbery, etc.), and applying a specific method for implementing their crimes. Discovering serial criminal patterns in crime databases is, in general, a clustering activity in the area of data mining that is concerned with detecting trends in the data by classifying and grouping similar records. In this paper, we report on the different statistical and neural network approaches to the clustering problem in data mining in general, and as it applies to our crime domain in particular. We discuss our approach of using a cascaded network of Kohonen neural networks followed by heuristic processing of the networks outputs that best simulated the experts in the field. We address the issues in this project and the reasoning behind this approach, including: the choice of neural networks, in general, over statistical algorithms as the main tool, and the use of Kohonen networks in particular, the choice for the cascaded approach instead of the direct approach, and the choice of a heuristics subsystem as a back-end subsystem to the neural networks. We also report on the advantages of this approach over both the traditional approach of using a single neural network to accommodate all the attributes, and that of applying a single clustering algorithm on all the data attributes. (shrink)

In this article, I will try to explain the meaning of the word zihâr, translated as oath of the back, trying only to situate it in its context and to bring an elucidation of the subject`s origin. The zihâr is a type of repudiation used by a husband against his wife in the times of gâhiliyya (the ante-Islamic period), by using a solemn divorce formula which consists in saying: "let (her) be from now on as the back of my mother". (...) Therefore, backing up on this formula, I want to try to clarify this concept. (shrink)

This book aims at providing a comparative study of the accounts of the relationship between essence and existence which are provided by Sadra and Hegel respectively. Sadra is presented as having a project that is similar in scope to Hegel's own. The author argues that Sadra's philosophical project centers around his rejection of the essentialism which was predominant in Islamic philosophy during the classical period. Sadra is presented as engaging with the main movements in the history of Islamic philosophy, i.e., (...) Speakers, neo-Platonic, Aristotelian, and Illuminationist, with the aim of overcoming their limitations. In much the same way that Hegel engaged with the history of ancient Greek and modern European philosophy. (shrink)

The foundations of almost all Islamic sciences were laid in the first and second centuries of hijra. With the expansion of the Islamic world since the first century of hijra, the existence of a collective effort to transfer oral information into writing is notable. With the invitation of the prophet Muḥammad to Islam, an unprecedented increase in the culture of writing has been observed. Since the emergence of Islam, the world history scene has witnessed feverish writing activity. Especially in the (...) 2th/8th century, when the transition from oral culture to written culture accelerated, the founding texts of the science of language and religion, which were the carriers of these sciences related to aqāid-kalām, fiqh and uṣūl al-fiqh, tasawwuf, tafsir, and hadith, were compiled. Thanks to the founding texts containing the basic principles, the sciences have had the opportunity to develop by deepening. In this study, the contribution of Fiqh al-akbar, the founding text of the science of creed, to the science of kalam, which has made significant progress, will be discussed. In order for a text to be considered a founding and root, there must be a system that it establishes as the fruit of the tree. In this sense, Fiqh al-akbar established a moderate and defensible belief system. There is an organic link between the most concise faith texts and the most voluminous kalām books. While the creed texts, which consist of writing the goals at the end of the road, are the counting of the principles of faith, the texts of the kalām represent the walking of the road that leads to the goal of faith. Fiqh al-akbar, which marks the end of the road by finishing the roads to be walked, is the first and most important of the milestones of Islamic thought. In this study, the contribution of Fiqh al-akbar, the founding text of the science of aqāid, to the science of kalām will be discussed in the context of its belonging to its author. This text gave direction to Ahl al-Sunna theology, which would be written in the later stages of Islamic thought. In this study, the internal and external contexts of the founding text mentioned will be confirmed in terms of its relative acumen to Abū Ḥanīfa. In addition, the reason for the increase in the commentaries (Sharḥ) of Fiqh al-akbar during the Ottoman period will be shown. As a matter of fact, each annotation strengthens that it belongs to the author. In the annotations, there is no sentence stating that the text does not belong to Abū Ḥanīfa, on the contrary, the authenticity of the belonging is emphasized. Of course, not all the annotations of the relevant text will be included here, but mostly printed works will be emphasized. Theology, prophecy and the hereafter are discussed in Fiqh al-akbar. Here, how theological debates and problems related to the history of theological concepts are handled in the commentaries will be shown. In this article, within the framework of the method discussed as an example, a preparation will be made for further studies to evaluate the topics and concepts of prophecy and the hereafter in the context of commentaries. The point that should be emphasized here is that none of the scholars who commented on the text pointed out that the subject or concept was not discussed in the period of Abū Ḥanīfa. Moreover, from the early period until as late as the 7th/13th century, both theology and bibliography books did not have any doubts about the belonging of Fiqh al-akbar to Abū Ḥanīfa. Moreover, since the early period, both theological and bibliographical works did not have any doubts about Fiqh al-akbar’s belonging to Abū Ḥanīfa. (shrink)

This essay provides a brief overview of the rise of organ trade in Pakistan towards the end of the last century and the concerted, collective struggle—of physicians and medical associations aided by the media, journalists, members of civil society, and senior judiciary—in pressuring the government to bring about and implement a national law criminalizing such practices opposed by an influential pro-organ trade lobby. It argues that among the most effective measures to prevent re-emergence of organ trafficking in the country is (...) increasing ethical live donations and above all, establishing sustainable, public supported deceased donor programs. To do this, the transplant community must recognize that organ transplantation is not merely a donor-recipient-physician transaction but a complex issue in which decisions to donate an organ are influenced by indigenous values and belief systems about human illness, life and death. (shrink)

Despite the majority opinion of Muslim jurists that organ donation is permitted in Sharia, surveys indicate continuing resistance by lay Muslims, especially to donating organs following death. Pakistan, a country with 165 million Muslims, currently reliant on live donors, is considering steps to establish deceased donor programs which will require public acceptance and support. This article analyzes the results of in‐depth interviews with 105 members of the public focusing on opinions and knowledge about juristic rulings regarding kidney donations, donor‐family dynamics (...) in deceased donation decisions, and attitudes towards buying kidneys. The objective was to determine the influence if any of cultural and religious values, and norms of traditional family structures and kinships, on decisions to donate. Study participants view donation of kidneys, particularly from the deceased, through a different lens from that used by jurists and physicians, one that also does not conform to familiar paradigms defining ethical organ donation. A socially modulated understanding of Islam passed down the generations, and longstanding family‐centric norms, shape the moral worldview of many rather than academic juristic rulings or non‐contextual concepts of autonomy and rights. The results of this study also highlight that medical science may be universal but its application occurs within particularities of cultural and religious values, social constructs of the self and its relationship with others, and different ways in which humans comprehend illness, suffering, and death. These findings are of relevance both to transplant related professionals and bioethicists involved with this field. (shrink)

In this study, the tahrîj method, which is used in answering contemporary Fiqh issues throughout the history of Fiqh, will be described and some sample fatwas given by the High Board of Religious Affairs based on this method will be analysed. Tahrîj is firstly to define the procedural and legal principles on which the singular views of a madhhab imam is based on, and then to determine the verdict of the issues in which an opinion from that imam is not (...) conveyed, according to the rules reached. Firstly the High Board of Religious Affairs will be introduced briefly highlighting issues such the effort put forward by the Board in the answering current fiqh issues, its contributions to the unity of fatwa and that it is a continuation of the Islamic Meşîhat-ı İslamiyye in the Ottoman Empire. Tahrîj, will be defined and its types, history, and its role in the development of fiqh and in solving current fiqh issues will be explained. Among the issues resolved by the High Board of Religious Affairs by applying the Tahrîj method or by making use of this method; commercial insurance, organ transplantation, gold-based lease certificate and the effect of injection/vaccine on fasting will be analysed. Given these exemplary fatwas, it will be tried to show that the method of Tahrîj is important today as it was in the past, both in terms of maintaining the consistency of fiqh and its contribution to the development of fiqh. (shrink)

Robert M. Adams (1979, 1987a, 1987b) defends a modified variant of the divine command theory (hereafter MDCT) to the effect that he proposes a moral argument for God’s existence driven in the form of practical reasoning with respect to rational moral agents’ beliefs in the adequacy of MDCT. For Adams, one’s commitment to MDCT as the most adequate theory legitimately provides her a practical reason for why she ought to believe in God’s existence which MDCT implies. In this paper, I (...) criticize the viability of Adams’ moral argument considering its argumentative structure and strategy. Adams’ strategy behind his moral argument, i.e. mediating theistic beliefs with deontic ones, seeks out a non-decisive medium that might be used to ubiquitously generate equally plausible arguments for/against God’s existence based on distinct sorts of allegedly adequate theories of some subject matter. Thus, his argument does not seem to distinctively ground God’s existence in comparison with a myriad of practical arguments which might follow the same argumentative strategy on the same practical grounds. More significantly, there seems to be coherent no way for Adams to disambiguate his argument on theoretical grounds. (shrink)

The aim of this article consists in presenting an interpretation of the Critique of Pure Reason that begins with the notion of method in philosophy and it is way of exposition. This interpretation obeys the imperative of comprehending Kant’s philosophy as a whole and intends, doing do, point out the importance of the method in the study of kantian philosophy. After getting into the preliminary discussion about the possible interpretation of Kant’s method of philosophy and its importance, we present the (...) method, distinguishing it from the way of exposition. After that, we present the difference between the hole of definition in mathematics and philosophy. (shrink)

Resenha de: Blumenbach, J. F. Sobre o impulso de formação e a geração. Tradução, introdução e notas de Isabel Coelho Fragelli. Revisão técnica de Luciana Valéria Nogueira. Santo André: Editora UFABC, 2019.

The principles underpinning Islam's ethical framework applied to routine clinical scenarios remain insufficiently understood by many clinicians, thereby unfortunately permitting the delivery of culturally insensitive healthcare. This paper summarises the foundations of the Islamic ethical theory, elucidating the principles and methodology employed by the Muslim jurist in deriving rulings in the field of medical ethics. The four-principles approach, as espoused by Beauchamp and Childress, is also interpreted through the prism of Islamic ethical theory. Each of the four principles is investigated (...) in turn, looking in particular at the extent to which each is rooted in the Islamic paradigm. This will provide an important insight into Islamic medical ethics, enabling the clinician to have a better informed discussion with the Muslim patient. It will also allow for a higher degree of concordance in consultations and consequently optimise culturally sensitive healthcare delivery. (shrink)

Advances in science and technology have allowed for incredible improvements in healthcare. Additionally, the digital revolution in healthcare provides new ways of collecting and storing large volum...

A intenção deste texto é articular dois temas pouco trabalhados juntos nas interpretações de Kant, embora sejam, segundo nosso entendimento, de fundamental importância para uma plena compreensão da filosofia kantiana e do conhecimento filosófico em geral: a disciplina da razão pura e a filosofia teórica. Pretendemos nos utilizar de algumas outras noções, no entanto, para responder a seguinte pergunta: é possível a formação sem a disciplina filosófica? Isto é, seria possível uma formação teórica sem uma disciplina ou uma “contribuição negativa” (...) proveniente da filosofia? O conceito de formação está, segundo gostaríamos de defender, de um ponto de vista teórico, associado intrinsecamente à disciplina da razão. Assim, indicando como esta é, em geral, relacionada, nas interpretações de Kant, apenas com a pedagogia e com a filosofia prática, gostaríamos de, indo no sentido contrário, tratar do lugar da disciplina da razão em relação ao conceito de formação em seu sentido teórico, isto é, de fundamentação do conhecimento. A disciplina da razão pura revela-se, portanto, uma condição necessária para o filosofar e para a formação do conhecimento em geral. (shrink)

The arrival of the Covid‐19 pandemic in Pakistan necessitated that the Centre of Biomedical Ethics and Culture in Karachi realign its activities to changing realities in the country. As Pakistan's only bioethics center, and with no guidelines available for allocation of scarce medical resources, CBEC developed “Guidelines for Ethical Healthcare Decision‐Making in Pakistan” with input from medical and civil society stakeholders. The CBEC blog connected to the center's bioethics programs for students from Pakistan and Kenya shifted to Covid‐related issues specific (...) to the context of existing social and political realities within these countries. As part of its outreach activities, CBEC initiated a popular Facebook series, #HumansofCovid, as an experience‐sharing platform for health care professionals and members of the public. Narratives received vary from those by frustrated physicians under quarantine to those concerning street vendors left jobless and a transsexual person in whose opinion “social distancing” is not a new phenomenon for their communities. (shrink)