Articles

The article examines the features of the religious and intellectual activities of a group of reform-minded Muslim scholars (ulama) led by Jamal al-Din al-Qasimi (1866–1914) in Ottoman Syria at the end of the 19th century, as well as the reaction to their activities by conservative supporters of Islamic traditionalism (taqlid) and the Ottoman authorities. The key historical event in the focus of the study is the so-called The “Mujtahids Incident” of 1896, when al-Qasimi and a number of his supporters were summoned to a judicial instance in Damascus for a public trial of their religious views and academic studies, where they were forced to respond to accusations, made against them by the Hanafi Mufti, of disloyalty to the authorities and independent arbitrary interpretations of the Koran and Sunnah. The study and discussion of sacred texts in the circle of Jamal al-Din al-Qasimi became an occasion for attacks from conservative-minded ulama, who were afraid of competition from Islamic intellectuals who did not consider themselves obliged to unconditionally accept all the conclusions of one or another of the four madhhabs (religious and legal schools). And although the participants in the “Mujtahids Incident” managed to justify themselves to the authorities in 1896, in the future until the Young Turk revolution of 1908–1909 they could not openly declare that they were practicing ijtihad, i.e. independent formulation and clarification of Islamic religious and legal conclusions based on direct reference to the Koran and the Sunnah. Both the formal and informal influence of conservative ulama in Ottoman Syria during the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1876–1909) remained virtually undeniable.

In the article some features of the development of the territorial problem in Indonesia — Malaysia relations in the late XX — early XXI centuries are revealed, in particular the recent dispute over the islands of Sipadan and Ligitan is reviewed. The author emphasizes the importance of the issue for the development of bilateral cooperation between Indonesia and Malaysia and for the process of interstate border final delimitation in today’s conditions. In conclusion, the author attempts to identify possible ways to solve the problem taking into consideration its historical and legal background.

The Bayero University Dictionary, published in 2006, is the first Hausa explanatory dictionary, compiled by a team of authors from the Center for the Study of National Languages of Nigeria, Bayero University in Kano. Unfortunately, the dictionary does not indicate the number of words, but the sheer volume of the dictionary — 502 pages — suggests that the dictionary provides interpretations of a large number of words, including those that are not recorded in earlier Hausa-English dictionaries. The dictionary explains new semantic neologisms that have emerged in the Hausa language over the past 30 years. The second dictionary was created by Ayuba T. Abubakar, who worked on its compilation for more than 25 years and during the work consulted Hausa language scholars both in Nigeria and abroad. Unfortunately, this dictionary does not indicate the number of dictionary entries. It is interesting that the author provided each dictionary entry not only with an explanation of its meaning, but also with a large number of examples. For better understanding, excerpts from songs are also given, since some words are used only in songs. Particularly interesting and useful not only to linguists, but also to ethnographers and historians is the explanation of the various appellatives that the Hausa give to children along with names taken from the Koran. Most of these appellatives are not noted in other dictionaries. Both of these dictionaries are an important source of knowledge on the vocabulary of the Hausa language both for philologists involved in the study of Chadic languages and Hausa in particular, and for students of this language.

The paper analyzes the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economies of North African countries. The pandemic is shown to have had a significant impact on the economies of the countries in the region. Despite the decisive measures taken by the governments of the North African countries to limit social contacts in order to slow down the spread of the virus, the consequences of the pandemic have significantly slowed down economic and social projects and worsened the internal situation. The leading country in the region, Egypt, faced a high rate of spread of the coronavirus due to its densely populated population, but was best prepared for the financial and economic turbulence caused by the consequences of COVID-19. Morocco’s economy coped relatively painlessly with the COVID restrictions and showed good recovery growth rates. Algeria’s economy experienced slow economic growth on the eve of, during and after the pandemic. The worst impact of the pandemic was felt by the Tunisian economy, which was in deep stagnation at the start of the pandemic. The stimulus measures had a short-term effect and did not have a decisive impact on the Tunisian economy, which continues to show low rates of economic development. The graphs presented by the authors on the dynamics of total GDP and GDP at purchasing power parity clearly support the above conclusions.

The “Pivot to Africa” officially proclaimed by the decision-making bodies of the Russian Federation is gradually being filled with specific content. Along with the propaganda discourse, the official and academic approach to the realities of African countries — potential partners is being updated, and the Russian Federation’s capabilities for developing dialogue with Africa are being clarified, taking into account the current state of international relations. The article, based on numerous publications in 2023, reveals the mutual influence of academic, propaganda and official discourse in the process of building a new policy of the Russian Federation towards African partners.

The article examines the potential of the Russian language and cooperation in education as a source of Russian “soft power” in Nigeria. Today, Africa is becoming an increasingly relevant regional area of foreign policy of the Russian Federation. The spread of Russian “soft power” in Nigeria, one of the key states in sub-Saharan Africa, will promote national interests throughout the continent. Cooperation in education has proved to be a more influential source of soft power, while a number of difficulties accompanies the popularization of the Russian language in Nigeria. Russia’s lack of a strategy to form elites in Nigeria slows down the possibility of intensifying cooperation with this African state.

The phenomenon of the “new” novel in Swahili, which arose at the turn of the last and current centuries, can be considered as one of the highest achievements of modern Swahili literature. Among the writers who created and develop the “new” novel, we should first of all name the Tanzanian authors Euphrase Kezilahabi and Said Ahmed Mohamed and the Kenyans Kyallo Wadi Wamitila and Tom Olali. Their works reveal a number of similar features, one of which is the depiction of the current state of Africa and the whole world and the vision of their future. The idea of this future as a catastrophe can be traced at different levels of the text, including the level of its “topography”, consisting of three main elements — the human world, the other world (as a rule, the underground world with obvious features of hell), and the world of the future. All these worlds closely interact with each other, thereby expressing the authors’ idea — humanity is persistently building (or has already built) hell on earth, which is destined for an exclusively apocalyptic future. The authors see a possible way out of the situation in the joint efforts of those who are not indifferent to the fate of future generations, under the slogan of “unity in equality”. These joint efforts should be made in various areas — primarily in the dissemination of education, knowledge and creativity, creation instead of consumption, mutual support instead of the “laws of the wolf pack.” In this case, humanity can even again count on the support of higher powers — and the scenario of a possible future may not be so gloomy.

The first part of this article is dedicated to the problem of correlation between the categories of modality and subjectivity. The notion of modality is one of the most debatable in linguistics. The scholars tend to define the field of modality by listing the varieties of the modality meanings and group them around several conceptual centers. This article provides a comparative overview of existing classifications of the types of modality, as well as gives a working definition of modality that suits the aims of the current research. The modal meanings express an assessment of the status of the situation in relation to the real world, a subjective assessment of the content of the statement by the speaker, as well as its communicative intention. Based on the ideas proposed by E. Paducheva, we consider that subjective-modal meanings are located on the intersection of two semantic fields — modality and egocentricity/subjectivity, which allows us to interpret modality as an egocentric category. The second part of this work justifies the relevance of studying subjective-modal meanings in colloquial Egyptian Arabic. The analysis of real language examples illustrates such problems as: compatibility of different types of modality in one statement, attributing the possibility and necessity to the sphere of subjective modality, as well as the question of expressing modality in Egyptian Arabic by grammatical means.

The paper presents an overview of ultrasound and laryngoscopic studies which have gained ground in the last two decades and made a significant contribution to the understanding and description of the articulatory base of phonological features characteristic of African languages. Ultrasound studies shed light on the peculiarities of click production and provided a comprehensive picture of the posterior constriction location during their articulation. The posterior constriction was shown to occur in various parts of the post-velar region depending on the type of click, which gave grounds to replace the notion of velaric airstream mechanism with the notion of lingual airstream mechanism. The studies also revealed the important role of the tongue root retraction as part of the rarefaction gesture, which is a key step in the production of clicks. Ultrasound studies shed light on the role of the tongue root and tongue body height in the production of the advanced tongue root contrast. The tongue root movement was shown to be an independent gesture, the difference in tongue body height during the production of the vowels of different harmonic sets being non-significant or inconsistent across vowel types and speakers. Laryngoscopic studies have made a significant contribution to the understanding of the articulatory base of the advanced tongue root feature and the production of different phonation types. The laryngoscopic studies gave primacy in production of the contrast to aryepiglotto-epiglottal constriction while all the other mechanisms postulated before — tongue root position, the volume of the pharyngeal cavity and larynx height — are considered as parts of a synergistic system of laryngeal articulations. Laryngoscopic studies also shed light on the production of different phonation types including the so-called faucalised voice which has not been reported as a contrastive feature outside of Africa.

A review of the book: Foreign Policy and Diplomacy of the Republic of Korea / M.P. Kukla, L.E. Kozlov, E.M. Ermolaeva, K.A. Pak, V.I. Voloshchak; under the general editorship of M.P. Kukla. Vladivostok: Far Eastern Federal University Publishing House, 2022. 252 p.

The article discusses the main stages of creating and implementing a strategy for building a green economy in the Republic of Korea. The directions of implementation of the principles of sustainable development and green growth in the leading sectors of the economy and the role of the state in this process are analyzed. The financial and institutional drivers of the green growth of the South Korean economy are determined. The goals, objectives, and targets for the implementation of the New Green Course in South Korea for the period 2020–2025 are given.

This article examines the economic policy in the last years of Park Chung-hee’s presidency (second half of the 1970s), ending the period of rapid economic growth and marking the transition to economic deregulation. The period under review is marked by significant political, social and economic changes. In Russian Korean studies, the process of transformation of the economic policy of the Republic of Korea at the turn of the 1970–80s is shown in insufficient detail. This work analyzes the political aspects of the transition from industrialization, built on the budget support of heavy industry, to deregulation of economic in the Republic of Korea during the last years of presidency of Park Chung-hee. Particular attention is paid to the role of economic management institutions in this transformation. The article examines internal and external factors which South Korean economy faced in 1970s (including imbalances resulted from industrialization, 1970s oil shocks, etc.) as well as methods South Korean government utilized to deal with their consequences. The system for making key economic decisions and the discussion around economic policy measures, in particular the role of the Economic Planning Department, are analyzed. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the stabilization measures announced by Park Chung-hee in 1979, which actually marked the transition to a neoliberal model of economy.