Дисертації з теми "Holy Qur'an"

Thesis (MTh (Practical Theology and Missiology))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006.
This study is an attempt to gain an understanding of the al-ruh (Holy Spirit) from a Muslim perspective and a comparison with the Christian perspective. Chapter 1 is an introduction. Chapter 2 and 3 are textual study; the meaning and usage of the al-ruh (Holy Spirit) in the Qur’an will be examined, especially in Muslim Dictionaries, Encyclopaedias and Commentaries as compared with the meaning and usage in the Biblical and Jewish scriptures. Obviously, the Holy Spirit plays an active role with humankind in creation and in revelation; the al-ruh has evidently inspired all the prophets and even believers according to the Qur’an. The experience of Muhammad with respect to the al-ruh is also mentioned in the Qur’an even when he was not yet aware of the work of Holy Spirit as well as the person of the Holy Spirit, as the third person of the Trinity in Christianity. Chapter 3 carries on the findings from the Qur’an, and furthermore give explanations as well as evaluate exegeses and various commentators’ opinions regarding al-ruh. Moreover, there are some disagreements among various Muslim commentators as manifested in their interpretations. Such disagreement is discernable with respect to the doctrine of Holy Spirit as a Person in the Trinity. In addition to this, various issues are investigated like: ‘Where did the divisions and disunity come from?’ Is it possible to find a satisfactory answer? ‘Is al-ruh the angel Gabriel?’ since the angel Gabriel is only mentioned once (66:4). Nevertheless, most of the commentators indicate that the Holy Spirit and the Spirit as the angel Gabriel are the same. Is there a gap in understanding between Muhammad and commentators? Is there a gap between classical and contemporary commentators? Chapter 4 presents a report of the empirical fieldwork carried out through interviews. Questionnaires are designed based on findings in the Qur’an and what commentators have said. A cross section of Muslims in the Western Cape of South Africa as well as Muslims from other African countries presently in Stellenbosch is selected for interviews. Several Islamic sects (i.e. Sunni, Sufis) who are found in South Africa are included in these interviews along with relevant information obtained from Internet sources. An analysis of data provides the basic thoughts for the assessment and response from the Christian point of view in Chapters 5 and 6. Chapter 5 is a comparative study. The aim is to find out similarities in both Christian and Muslim religious concepts, thereby attempting to build up on common grounds; and to find out the differences in understanding about the Holy Spirit and to restore an agreeable understanding of the concept of the Holy Spirit. The ultimate goal is to use the idea of the al-ruh from Qur’anic and Islamic concepts in order to build a bridge to the understanding of the Holy Spirit in Christianity. Some concepts are common to both Christianity and Islam, i.e. spirit (ruh), soul (nafs) and conscience (fitrah). Some fundamental doctrines are essential for both religions. For instance, The Oneness of God is understood in Islam as Tahwid (i.e. Oneness of Allah), and in Christianity, as Trinity, the Godhead or Triune God. Besides, both religions in terms of this doctrine contain elements of the transcendence and immanence of God in relation to creation. The key issue investigated further is ‘whether the Spirit is created or eternal’ and ‘Is al-ruh the created Spirit or the creator Spirit’? The question of how a Christian explains to a Muslim that Jesus is ultimately the Ruh Allah (the Spirit of God) introduced in the next chapter. Chapter 6 is a Missiological approach which is based on the fundamental knowledge of the Holy Spirit and the Trinity in Systematic theology and Missiology. Certain topics are examined from a comparative religious point of view; firstly, a comparison of the natural human with the spiritual human to find out the function of the conscience and of spirituality from a Biblical point of view. Secondly, a comparison of Jesus with Adam and an angel in terms of the purpose for which God created the whole world is made with a focus on Jesus in humanity. Thirdly, a definition of the divinity of Jesus in terms of two aspects: Jesus as the first-born Son of God and Jesus as Messiah (the anointed one and saviour of the world), using a historical, traditional and Christological understanding. Fourthly, a Pneumatological approach is applied as an innovation to this study. Its endeavours generally explore the human religious experience, in order to initiate a ‘dialectical dialogue’; and subsequently to focus on the Trinitarian experience in Islam. An interesting example of martyrdom as an imitation of Christ on the cross can be found among Sufi Sunni Muslims. This is an evidence of the freedom of the Holy Spirit working wherever he wills. In brief, although the Person and the work of the Holy Spirit are not very obvious in the Qur’an, a careful study makes it increasingly apparent. Finally, the work of the Holy Spirit is still alive in all religions, not least in Islam, as the resulting evidence of my research suggests.

In the aftermath of the independence of Morocco and Algeria in the second half of the twentieth century, each sought to create one homogeneous nation-state, defining themselves as Arab, declaring Arabic language as the only official language and embarking on Arabisation campaign that attempted to eliminate any ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity. The Berber community which comprised 40% of the Moroccan population (Madani 2003, Silverstein and Crawford 2004, Maddy-Weitzman 2006) and 25% of the Algerian population (Ennaji 2009) appeared to be relegated to an inferior position and pushed back to the peripheries. This situation gave rise to what is generally referred to as ‘the Berber question’; the Berbers became increasingly aware of their minority status and began to demand certain linguistic and cultural rights. Translation, most importantly the translation of the Holy Quran, became an important means of asserting these rights and the identity of the Berber as a distinct nation. Drawing on paratext theory as proposed by Genette (1997) and framing theory as put forward by Goffman (1974) and elaborated by others (e.g. Entman 1993, Snow and Benford 1988, 2000 and Asimakoulas 2009), the study investigated the role that three Berber translations of the Holy Quran have played in renegotiating the political landscape of Berber communities in the past eighteen years (1999-2017). Analysis of the three translations have shown that the translators, while being faithful to the text, managed to signal their difference, foreground their language and culture and question, challenge and even undermine widespread official claims, through subtle, counter-hegemonic moves, using framing strategies and a toolbox of paratextual devices.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD
The study of sound symbolism, phonetics and semantics has been of major concern for linguists since the Greeks and the Romans in the fifth century before AD. The idea of sound symbolism - the existence of correspondence between the sound of letters (or linguists, such as Ibn Jinni (942-1002 AD), and modern Arabic linguists, including al- Badráwi (1999), and Na'aim Alwia (1984), have attempted to elucidate this phenomenon, providing detailed description and some examples from Arabic and the Holy Qur'an. Modern Western linguists such as Magnus (1999) have discussed the correspondence between the sounds of letters and the sense in Western languages. Jespersen (1962) and Badráwi (1999) have recommended that this phenomenon needs further detailed study and have indicated the need of more examples to be used as reference theory. Using Ibn Jinni's model, this study is an attempt to build on the theory of the correspondence between sound and meaning using the Holy Qur'an as an example. While Jinni's focus was on the correspondence of sound and meaning at the word level, this study will focus on the individual sound segments within the word, and the effect of the word within the Surat. The argument is that it is the individual distinctive features of each phoneme in a word that give the word its distinctive sound quality, and also has have an impact on the meaning of the word. Any correspondence between sound and meaning in a word should therefore be assigned to a particular significant distinctive feature. Given that the focus on the presumed direct relationship between sound and meaning, recourse will be made to the principal of onomatopoeia. Therefore, the objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between the distinctive features of the sounds that form Arabic words and the meaning of such words as used in the Holy Qur'an. In particular, the study will analyze the distinctive features, such as a sound being a consonant or a vowel, voicing, manner and place of articulation, airstream mechanism, among others (singly or combined) of the sounds in Arabic words, and relate this to the meaning of the words. This phenomenon will be investigated using descriptive methods and the Holy Qur' an as the object of study.

This thesis presents an indepth examination of the exegetical treatment of Qur'anic themes and concepts. It explains the process of communication between God and human beings by using communication models. The invisibility of God to human beings, coupled with His difference in nature, make their interaction difficult to conceive but not impossible. This thesis will thus seek to show how that interaction is feasible, making it as comprehensible as possible.
Muslim theologians studied exhaustively the subject of God's speech and its nature without actually revealing its process in any detail or in systematic fashion. This thesis concludes that the theological differences have little bearing on God as a communicator. Finally, it demonstrates that the process of God-human interaction is entirely different from that of ordinary interpersonal communication.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD
The Holy Qurʾān, like the Bible, is an acknowledged literary masterpiece. Its linguistic and aesthetic vivacity with an amalgam of religious beliefs, moral values, religious social orthodoxy and historical backgrounds pose a great challenge to any translator and make the task overwhelmingly arduous, if not unattainable. The study aims at examining the problems the Qurʾān translators encounter while translating near-synonyms from Arabic into English. It is based on the translations of two professional translators namely, Yusuf Ali and T.B. Irving. The translations provide an empirical basis for the discussion of the problems while translating Qurʾānnic texts into English. The corpus for the present study includes the translations of four near-synonymous pairs namely, ghayth and maṭar, al-ḥilf and al-qasm, bakhīl and shaḥīḥ and ʿāqir and ʿaqīm in their Qurʾānic context. The two translated texts are compared to determine to which extent the translations reflect the referential and the connotative meaning of the original Qurʾānic text as well as to which extent they maintain the textuality standards such as cohesion, coherence, informativity, situationality and acceptability, intentionality and intertextuality. In short, the study sets out to identify the roblematic areas in the translated Qurʾānic texts at the lexical and textual levels with a view to determining what makes one translation better than the other, or what brings one translation closer to the original text than the other.The study is an intersection between Qurʾānic exegeses (tafsīr) and applied linguistics. The researcher consults different books on translation theories as well as of Qurʾānic exegeses (tafsīr) to facilitate the process of analyzing the near-synonyms in their Qurʾānic context. The researcher opts for eclecticism, instead of confining to a particular rigid model or approach, which is a combination of text-analysis translation-oriented approaches of De Beaugrande & Dressler(1981); Neubert & Shreve(1992); Halliday (1994) and Hatim & Mason (1990). In addition, the study draws upon the multiple and theoretical implications of Nida's dynamic equivalence, Beekman & Callow's (1974) historical and dynamic fidelity and Gutt's (1991) relevance theory and the emphasis on communication as mainly context-dependent. These models are closely related and reliable in the process of analyzing and evaluating the problems encountered in Arabic-English translation of the Qurʾānic near-synonyms. Furthermore, the researcher suggests an outline approach for the process of analyzing the Qurʾānic near-synonyms translations in a systemic and organized way thereby ensuring maximum and effective communication of the Qurʾānic message. The study concludes that the Qurʾān translator, compared to other literary genres, faces many difficulties in translating the Qurʾānic ST message. The selected translations of the Holy Qurʾān have failed to measure up to the depth of the Qurʾānic message, its originality and the connotative shades of meanings of the original expression. The study attributes these problems to contextual, socio-cultural, theological and historical factors which create differences that lead to gaps or absence of lexicalization in the TT. Furthermore, the reliance on dictionary meaning rather than the meaning of the lexical item in context, the negligence of context culture as well as the context of situation (the reason for the revelation of the verses) affect the “periodicity” of the text as indicated by Martin & Rose (2007, p.187), that is, the information flow of the whole text. Accordingly, this affects maintaining the standards of textuality and the fidelity which a religious text should meet. The complexity of the Qurʾān as genre is a great challenge to the translator at both the lexical and Qurʾān textual levels, which dilutes the authenticity of the holy text and misrepresents its true message. The conclusion of the study which contains recommendations based on experience may prove helpful to the future novice and professional translators to improve the quality of translation in general and religious translation in particular. The study is a contribution towards a greater understanding of the subtle differences between the near-synonymous pairs in their Qurʾānic context through Arabic-English translation. It is a novel addition to the world of religious translation, Qurʾān translation, ḥadīth and in English. It also contributes to some extent to modern exegeses of the Qurʾān. It is hoped that the work will encourage further studies in the field of translation to employ a context-based linguistic approach to translating different genres and sacred texts in particular, integrating insights from applicable translation and linguistic approaches.
South Africa

This dissertation offers an analysis of the exegetical treatment of the Qur'anic evidence for the prophecy of women. Specifically, it tries to answer contentious questions whether or not there were women prophets according to the Qur'an, and whether or not women were regarded as eligible for this office. Scholars are sharply divided in their opinions on these issues, and the majority rejects both possibilities. This study will show that even though their conclusions happen to coincide with that of the Qur'an, their arguments lack genuine Qur'anic support.
For they failed to consider the fact that, one has to identify, first and foremost, the Qur'anic concept of prophecy, which, through juxtaposition of its verses, can be identified as "God's sending of a human being with a book/scripture in order to deliver a message of glad tidings and warnings to people." To evaluate this, certain important scenarios have to be addressed in searching for the concept of prophecy; namely, the purpose of the prophecy; the question of God sending the individuals; and the idea of sending down books/scriptures.
At the same time another group of scholars who argue in favor of women's prophecy have concentrated on the fact that certain women, such as the mothers of the Prophets Isaac, Moses and Jesus, have actually received inspiration from God; a fact that makes them, in their opinion, prophets. The Spanish-born theologian Ibn Ḥazm (d.1064) belongs to this group, and he is considered their chief representative. Thus, this study focuses on him and his theory. He tried to prove women's prophecy through a philological approach and by establishing how communication did take place between God and certain women. Despite the conclusion of this study (using the Qur'an as a measure of prophet/messenger) that the Qur'an does not recognize the prophecy of women, it nonetheless, finds no credible proof that women, in consequence, are debarred from any other type of leadership in Islam.

Translations of the meaning of the Quran in English are becoming amongst the most read books in the world. Unfortunately, almost all the existing renditions fail to transfer the original clearly into the target language. They suffer from serious shortcomings that cause incomprehensibility in parts of the text. These renditions contain some elements that make the target reader struggle to understand the meaning. This research aims to contribute to overcoming the shortcomings of existing translations. It discusses the reasons why the English target reader of the Quran struggles to follow and comprehend the meaning of some of its verses, and attempts to find a workable methodology for translating the meaning of the Quran. It tries to find new methods to help tackle the weaknesses in the translations of the meaning of the Quran and provides suggestions for improving them. It is hoped this methodology will lead to producing a more accurate and comprehensible translation of the meaning of the Quran in which the meaning is transferred clearly in a natural-sounding targetlanguage text, and that will improve comprehensibility for both Muslim and non- Muslim native speakers of English. This research also studies the role and importance of the translator in achieving a good translation, and tries to establish a set of criteria for the attributes and conditions of the translator of the Quran.

In a sociolinguistic-pragmatic framework, the Classical Arabic terms of address and forms of reference used by the members of the society of the story of the Prophet Joseph as presented in the Holy Quran are analysed. The addressing as well as the referring terms (nominal and pronominal) are, first, extracted from the Quranic text in order to explore their linguistic features with regard to number, case, and gender. They are, then, not interpreted in isolation, but in contexts to be tested against the common sociolinguistic variables (age, gender, setting and status). In addition, the collected data are discussed contextually as well as theoretically in relation to contemporary views, such as Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness theory, Brown and Gilman's (1960) theory of power/solidarity and Brown and Ford's (1961) theory of intimacy/ status. It is found that the choice of these addressing and referring terms by Classical Arabic speakers is determined by the above sociolinguistic factors particularly gender, setting, and status. Also, although Classical Arabic addressing and referring systems do not have the pronominal T and V distinctions suggested by Brown and Gilman's (1960), the theory of power/solidarity is found applicable to many aspects of Classical Arabic addressing and referring behaviours. In addition, the analysis of the data supports the views proposed in Brown and Ford's (1961) theory of intimacy/ status. Positive and negative politeness, as classified by Brown and Levinson (1987), are reported by the present study data in many aspects of addressing and referring behaviours.

From fourteenth century medieval literature to contemporary American and African American literature, researchers have singled out and analyzed writing from every genre that is prophetic in nature, predicting or warning about events, both revolutionary and dire, to come. One twentieth-century American whose work embodies the essence of warning and foretelling through history-laden literature is Toni Morrison. This modern-day literary prophet reinterprets eras gone by through what she calls “re-memory” in order to guide her readers, and her society, to a greater understanding of the consequences of slavery and racism in America and to prompt both races to escape the pernicious effects of this heritage. Several critics have recognized and written about Morrison’s unique style of prophetic prose. These critics, however, have either taken a general cursory analysis of her complete body of works or they are only focused on one of her texts as a site of evidence. Despite the many critical essays and journal articles that have been written about Morrison as literary prophet, no critic has extensively investigated Morrison’s major works by way of textual analysis under this subject, to discuss Morrison prophetic prose, her motivation for engaging in a form of prophetic writing, and the context of this writing in a wider general, as well as an African-American, tradition. This dissertation takes on a more comprehensive, cross-sectional analysis of her works that has been previously employed, concentrating on five of Morrison’s major novels: The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, Beloved, Jazz and Paradise, in an order to assess how Morrison develops and infuses warnings and admonitions of biblical proportions. This investigation seeks to reveal Morrison’s motivation to prophecy to Americans, black and white, the context in which she engages with her historical and contemporary subjects, and the nature of the admonitions to present and future action she offers to what she sees as a contemporary generation of socially and historically oblivious African Americans, using literary prophecy as the tool by which to accomplish her objectives. This dissertation also demonstrates—by way of textual analysis and literary theory—the evolution through five novels of Morrison’s development as a literary prophet.

This is a systematic study of tropes of the Holy Qur`an, divided into four chapters… The first chapter is entitled: “An historical review of rhetoric and stylistics” and it consists of two sections; the first section is entitled: “Western rhetoric and stylistics” where as the second section deals with “Arabic rhetoric and stylistics”. The second chapter is entitled: “Tropes and their components” and it consists of two sections; the first section is entitled: “the definition of tropes”. This section deals with the definition of “literal expressions” and “figurative expressions”, and the required condition for figurative expressions; that is the syntactical and semantic coherence and relationships. The second section is entitled: “Components of tropes” which deals with different components of tropes. The third chapter is entitled: “Linguistic tropes of the Holy Qur`an” and it consists of two sections; the first section is entitled: “The spread of linguistic tropes in the Holy Qur`an”. The second section is entitled: “Relationship of linguistic tropes in the Holy Qur`an”. This section quotes each and every relationship of linguistic tropes in the Holy Qur`an. The fourth chapter is entitled: “mental tropes in the Holy Qur`an”, and it consists of three sections; the first section is entitled: “Mental tropes in the Holy Qur`an, from part 1 to part 10”. The second section is entitled: “Mental tropes in the Holy Qur`an, from part 11 to part 20”, and the third section is entitled: “Mental tropes in the Holy Qur`an, from part 21 to part 30”. These sections quote verses of the Holy Qur`an which contain mental tropes.
Religious Studies and Arabic
Psychology

~ajwid (Tajweed) - the tradition of the Holy Qur'an's recitation - is composed of about twenty-eight phonological patterns, which have an underlying semantidpragmatic meaning of sacredness. Nasal n assimilation patterns of 'idgh?im (gemination with & without nasalization), 'ikhfa' (nasal place assimilation), 'i+b (labial place assimilation) and %ihhiir (zero nasal assimilation) are taken as representative of Tajwid in this work. The central theme of this thesis is two fold. First, the twenty-eight sounds of the language of the Holy Qur'an (LHQ) as used in the four patterns of nasal n assimilation are distributed among the three natural sound classes of sonorants, obstruents and gutturals, the latter of which crosscuts the other two. Second, the realization of the meaning of sacredness in the LHQ is best accounted for by Kurisu's (2001) Realize Morpheme Theory set in Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993). Kurisu's (2001) Realize Morpheme constraint is expanded herein to encompass a variety of meanings; i.e., morphosyntactic and non-morphosyntactic. Like Kurisu (2001), I contend that faith is relativized to the meaning expressed in that each pattern is determined by ranking a particular faithfulness constraint in relation to RM. However, the meaning expressed in the LHQ is non-morphosyntactic. This thesis is organized as follows. Chapter one introduces the reader to the Language of the Holy Qur'an through describing its genetic affiliation and geographical location in addition to past research done on it and the theoretical assumption adopted. Chapter two describes each patterniprocess of nasal n in the LHQ, whereas chapter three explores how the LHQ sounds are grouped into natural sound classes. Finally, chapter four analyses nasal n patterns in the LHQ using Kurisu's (2001) Theory of Realize Morpheme set in Optimality Theory.

The present study covers the causes of victory and defeat in the light of chapter eight of the Holy Qur'an. It has been prompted by the current situation facing Muslims in many parts of the world, which is characterized by despair, reversals and loss, This study is thus reflexive in nature. In order to obtain a satisfactory response to this predicament, the relevant text in addition to several of its commentaries were scrutinized. The latter search remained unsatisfactory since their focus of inquiry was merely exegetical and failed to reveal any didactic element, which is crucial for obtaining guidance. This work has successfully managed to deduce this aspect from the text which amplifies the importance of extensive sacrifice for gaining glory.
Religious Studies and Arabic
M.A. (Islamic studies)

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD
The Holy Qurʾān, like the Bible, is an acknowledged literary masterpiece. Its linguistic and aesthetic vivacity with an amalgam of religious beliefs, moral values, religious social orthodoxy and historical backgrounds pose a great challenge to any translator and make the task overwhelmingly arduous, if not unattainable. The study aims at examining the problems the Qurʾān translators encounter while translating near-synonyms from Arabic into English. It is based on the translations of two professional translators namely, Yusuf Ali and T.B. Irving. The translations provide an empirical basis for the discussion of the problems while translating Qurʾānic texts into English. The corpus for the present study includes the translations of four near-synonymous pairs namely, ghayth and maṭar,al-ḥilf and al-qasm, bakhīl and shaḥīḥ and ʿāqir and ʿaqīm in their Qurʾānic context. The two translated texts are compared to determine to which extent the translations reflect the referential and the connotative meaning of the original Qurʾānic text as well as to which extent they maintain the textuality standards such as cohesion,coherence, informativity, situationality and acceptability, intentionality and intertextuality. In short, the study sets out to identify the problematic areas in the translated Qurʾānic texts at the lexical and textual levels with a view to determining what makes one translation better than the other, or what brings one translation closer to the original text than the other.The study is an intersection between Qurʾānic exegeses (tafsīr) and applied linguistics. The researcher consults different books on translation theories as well as of Qurʾānic exegeses(tafsīr) to facilitate the process of analyzing the near-synonyms in their Qurʾānic context. The researcher opts for eclecticism, instead of confining to a particular rigid model or approach,which is a combination of text-analysis translation-oriented approaches of De Beaugrande & Dressler (1981); Neubert & Shreve (1992); Halliday (1994) and Hatim & Mason (1990). In addition, the study draws upon the multiple and theoretical implications of Nida’s dynamic equivalence, Beekman & Callow’s (1974) historical and dynamic fidelity and Gutt’s (1991) relevance theory and the emphasis on communication as mainly context-dependent. These models are closely related and reliable in the process of analyzing and evaluating the problems encountered in Arabic-English translation of the Qurʾānic near-synonyms. Furthermore, the researcher suggests an outline approach for the process of analyzing the Qurʾānic near-synonyms translations in a systemic and organized way thereby ensuring maximum and effective communication of the Qurʾānic message.The study concludes that the Qurʾān translator, compared to other literary genres, faces many difficulties in translating the Qurʾānic ST message. The selected translations of the Holy Qurʾān have failed to measure up to the depth of the Qurʾānic message, its originality and the connotative shades of meanings of the original expression. The study attributes these problems to contextual, socio-cultural, theological and historical factors which create differences that lead to gaps or absence of lexicalization in the TT. Furthermore, the reliance on dictionary meaning rather than the meaning of the lexical item in context, the negligence of context culture as well as the context of situation (the reason for the revelation of the verses) affect the “periodicity” of the text as indicated by Martin & Rose (2007, p.187), that is, the information flow of the whole text.Accordingly, this affects maintaining the standards of textuality and the fidelity which a religious text should meet. The complexity of the Qurʾān as a genre is a great challenge to the translator at both the lexical and textual levels, which dilutes the authenticity of the holy text and misrepresents its true message. The conclusion of the study which contains recommendations based on experience may prove helpful to the future novice and professional translators to improve the quality of translation in general and religious translation in particular.The study is a contribution towards a greater understanding of the subtle differences between the near-synonymous pairs in their Qurʾānic context through Arabic-English translation. It is a novel addition to the world of religious translation, Qurʾān translation, ḥadīth and fiqh in English. It also contributes to some extent to modern exegeses of the Qurʾān. It is hoped that the work will encourage further studies in the field of translation to employ a context-based linguistic approach to translating different genres and sacred texts in particular, integrating insights from applicable translation and linguistic approaches.

Zusammenfassung Das Forschungsprojekt untersucht Bekehrungsmotive von südsudanesischen Migranten, die in einem islamischen Kontext leben. Dazu wird zunächst das biblisch-theologische Bekeh¬rungsverständnis erhoben und im Kontext seiner kirchengeschichtlichen Entwicklung dar¬gestellt. Da jede Bekehrung ein multidimensionaler Prozess ist, der neben theologischen Fragestellungen auch soziologische, anthropologische und religionspsychologische Aspekte enthält, wird ein multidimensionaler Ansatz zur Erforschung von Bekehrungsmotiven konzipiert und ein Forschungswerkzeug erstellt, dass den Kontext südsudanesischer Migranten aufnimmt. Dieses kommt im Rahmen einer Pilotstudie zum Einsatz, die aus fünf Konvertiten-Interviews besteht. Zuerst wird der Inhalt jedes Interviews aus theologischer, soziologischer, religionspsychologischer und anthropologischer Sicht separat erhoben. Danach werden die unterschiedlichen Betrachtungsweisen in einen kritischen Dialog gebracht, um die Bekehrungsmotive zu bestimmen, welche den Kategorien kognitiv-religiös, mystisch-religiös, affektiv, experimentell oder sozial-politisch zugeordnet werden. Zum Schluss wird der Ertrag aller Interviews zu einem Gesamtergebnis verbunden und einer selbstkritischen Evaluierung unterzogen. Summary This dissertation examines conversion motives of Southern Sudanese migrants who live in an Islamic context. First of all a theological view of conversion in scripture and its development in the church history is presented. Since every conversion is a multi-dimensional process containing not only theological problems but also sociological, anthropological and religio¬psychlogical aspects, a multi-dimensional approach and a reseach methodology are designed for above context. This methodology is used for a pilot study of five interviews with converts. Each interview is examined separately from a theological, sociological, religio-psychological and anthropological analysis. After this the different views are brought into a critical dialog in order to identify the motives of conversion which are related to cognitive-religious, mystical¬religious, affective, experimental or social-political categories. The results of all individual interviews are merged in a final analysis and reflected in a self-critical evaluation.
Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology
M. Th. (Missiology)