Articles

The article is devoted to the problem of transformation of the Qur‘anic story of Yusuf and its key motifs in Persian Classic poetry, both lyric and epic. On the basis of the examples from qasidas and ghazals composed by famous Persian poets like Khakani, ‘Attar, Sa‘di, Hafiz and some other the author of the article shows how the process of artistic transformation and canonization of key motifs of the Qur‘anic story took place. The citations of lyric poetry represent wide genre specter and specific individual interpretations of motifs connected with the story of Yusuf. Transformation of plot is shown on the example of Jami’s famous romance Yusuf and Zuleykha. All changes in the plot and in the list of personages are made in accordance with canon of Persian Classic verse romance.

The problem of our research is how the semantic field of thickness is divided by the lexemes in Russian and Chinese languages and what features can describe the difference between these lexemes. This study is performed within the framework of lexical typology. Methods used include context analysis of dictionary articles and corpora examples; questioning of native speakers informants. The goal of this study is to give a detailed analysis of the semantics of Chinese adjectives with initial meaning ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ and to give a comparison of systems of meanings between Chinese and Russian adjectives from the semantic field of thickness.

The article, based on a series of computations and models, shows that during the last thirty years developing countries, by applying their comparative and dynamic advantages (among them low, although rising, levels of wages and steeply increasing levels of educational attainment and investment rates), have on the whole substantially enlarged their positions in the world economy — in global GDP, industrial production, gross fixed capital formation, R&D expenditures, exports, and inflows of foreign direct investment. Despite acute ecological, financial, social and political problems that Asian, African and Latin American countries are grappling with, many (including the largest) of them, by implementing institutional reforms and rational economic policies, have by and large benefited from ongoing globalization and substantially progressed in catch-up development, productivity growth, reduction of poverty and reaching levels of global competitiveness which turned out to be considerably higher than could be expected judging by their GDP per capita standards.

The article concerns the geopolitical concept of the “Shia Crescent”, a term that has become widely spread in Western and Arab political discourse over the last decade. The article studies the problems of Sunni-Shii relations through one of the programs of “Al-Jazeera”, a leading Arab satellite channel; the conducted analysis proves that regional media are constructing a negative image of the Shiis in public opinion. Although mutual antipathy between Sunnis and Shiis has a centuries-long history, latest developments have created new impulses for this antagonism.

The article examines the concept of Waqf in contemporary India as well as the waqf system structure, which was shaped in the country after 1947. In focus are the main problems of the Indian waqf system, particularly the legal and administrative difficulties of the past decades.

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the role and place of Buddhist heritage in the formation of all-national identity in modern India, where Buddhist ideas are incorporated into the governmental strategy of unification of the state and interpreted as a composite part of cultural foundations of South Asian civilization, strengthening the links between the peoples inside the boundaries of contemporary state.

The customs union is the form of international integration, which countries of various regions often tend to reach, while their leaders are believe in it’s effectiveness. The Turkish experience helps to evaluate the customs union’s capabilities and costs associated with a specific state of the national economy as well as it is reflecting some universal features of the transition to a deeper level of international economic cooperation.

The paper centers on the problem of conceptualization of death in the novel “Cries in the Drizzle” (Zai xi yu zhong huhan) by modern Chinese writer Yu Hua. The analysis of the phenomenon is carried out from a triple perspective: in terms of influence of traditional Chinese worldview, Western philosophies and totalitarian (maoist) discourse on the views of Yu Hua. The author comes to a conclusion that the simultaneous search for a kind of existential truth, historical authenticity and attempts to re-think Chinese tradition lie at the core of the writer’s art world.

The paper analyses the dynamics of the transformation of Turkey’s party and political system from the 1980s to the early 2010s according to five variables: voter activity, electoral volatility, fragmentation of party system (effective number of parties), level of political competition, and proportionality of party representation in parliament. The growing stabilization of Turkey’s party and political system makes it increasingly difficult for any new political party to find an electoral niche and facilitates the migration of electorate between old parties. Reformation of the party and political system and creation of a new matrix for political life forced the opposition to search both the new strategies of political struggle and new approaches towards electorate and to revise both party ideology and programs.

Contrary to the opinion spread in some studies on the history of Islamic thought, a tendency to revive and reform Islamic practices with direct reliance on the sacred texts of the Koran and the Sunnah was common among some Muslim thinkers not only in Egypt but also in Ottoman Syria. And the mentioned tendency practically met no resistance provided that the principle of sacred Sultan’s reign was not challenged by this or that Muslim scholar. The represented article is devoted to the analysis of the activities of some Salafi-minded Islamic scholars (ulama) in Damascus during the reign of Abdul Hamid II. A special attention is paid to the personality of sheikh Jamal al-Din al-Qasimi.

The article covers the advertising discourse peculiarities in East Africa. The research is based on various advertising texts in Swahili. The main focus is outdoor advertising. The advertising texts are analyzed as the objects of language play and manipulation.

The article deals with the opinion of some Israeli scientists who believed that Napoleon had some plans connected with the Jews of Syro-Palestinian region. Basing on different sources the author comes to the conclusion that these plans existed only in the imagination of some contemporaries of these events. In that period the returning of the Jews to the Ottoman Syria, rebuilding of the Temple and the restoration of the Jewish state were impossible because of the political situation in the world.