During the Mamluk period, the number of mosques which served as venues for Friday prayers grew, especially in Damascus and Aleppo. Several historians estimate that there were one thousand mosques of different levels in the city of Damascus by the end of the Mamluk era. In the ninth/fifteenth century, many institutions, originally established for different functions, i.e. masjids, madrasas, khanqahs and others in Mamluk Syria, were apparently converted to jamis, to provide for the Friday prayers, just as had happened in Mamluk Cairo.

By the late Mamluk period, differentiations between the functions of the various institutions became considerably less clear so that the perception of educational and religious institutions and how they functioned became more complex. That is why different historical sources refer to numerous institutions by different functional names. This study traces the educational activities within mosques in late medieval Syria. It follows, in light of changing political and economic circumstances, developments in the building of new mosques and madrasa-jamis in the main cities of Mamluk Syria.

In the appendix, special attention is given to deciphering and editing some newly discovered epigraphic texts of Bengal, and to the analysis of information derived from them in their proper historical context, such as the names of the contemporary rulers, local administrative officers, religious figures, and military commanders. These findings provide rare clues to the political, administrative, social, religious and cultural life of the region at the time. Particular attention is given to the titles that invariably accompany the names appearing in the inscriptions and throw light on the personalities of the title-bearers and other contemporary issues. Many of these inscriptions record the construction of mosques and other religious monuments, which contribute to our understanding of the history of religious transformation in the region.

The article assesses the overall cultural continuity of the Muslims of Bengal with their counterparts elsewhere in the Muslim world, which binds them together as an umma. Thus, in spite of many distinctive local cultural features, one soon discovers in these wonderful epigraphic treasures the most vibrant message—unity within diversity—that is prevalent everywhere in Islamic culture.

To that end, this study focuses on two main works, the Commentary on Plato's Republic, where Averroes expounds Plato's model of the ideal society, and women's role in it, and his book on Islamic law, the Bidayat al-mujtahid (A Jurist's Primer) In both cases Averroes, while following the tradition, philosophical or religious, displays an undeniable preference for women's emancipation.

Averroes’ considerations on women offer a remarkably original insight. He considers women essentially identical with men, possessing the same intellectual abilities. He advocates their active participation in society and performance of all tasks, including those that had been the prerogative of men. He urges socitey, in particular his Muslim contemporaries, to allow women a greater role in public affairs for the benefit of the entire state. His references to women break new ground, and prefigure important debates that would flourish in modern Europe. Averrores does not see a contradiction between this and Islamic religion.

Ambiguous Adventure was written in the early 1950s, but was not published until 1961. It has often been seen as a philosophical novel that deals with the social and intellectual dilemmas of an African Muslim society having to submit to secular cultural norms imported with French rule; but the story is actually about something much more fundamental.

This article tries to demonstrate that Ambiguous Adventure is about the devastating effect upon the protagonist, Samba Diallo, of losing the precious esoteric knowledge transmitted to him within the Islamic mystical tradition, which is erased with the imposition of the French educational system.

Ambiguous Adventure has also been called a ‘tale of initiation’, much like the risala from the Ishraqi School. Examining the work in this light, the paper shows that Samba Diallo's journey is actually a tragic inversion of the classical model featured in tales of initiation. He moves from an environment in which he is able to experience knowledge to one in which he is only able to discuss knowledge—a state of ‘rootless intellectualism’ devoid of real meaning.