Ginan bolore nit nure bharea;
Evo haide tamare harakh na maeji.
Recite continually the ginans which are filled with light;
Boundless will be the joy in your heart.

Ginans are devotional songs rooted in the musical and poetic matrix of Indian culture. The term “ginan” carries a double significance: on the one hand, it means “religious knowledge” or “wisdom,” analogous to the Sanskrit word jnana (knowledge). On the other hand, it means “song” or “recitation,” suggesting a link to the Arabic ghanna and the Urdu/Hindi ghana, both verbs meaning “to sing.” For the past seven hundred years, Ismailis from the Indian subcontinent (Satpanth Khoja Ismailis) have been reciting ginans as a part of their daily religious devotions at the congregational hall (Jamat Khana).

Al-Ghazali introduces the issue of doubt in his book al-Munqidh min al-Dalal [Deliverance from Error]. The book can be considered an intellectual autobiography of this philosopher. Here al-Ghazali describes his intellectual development and the method of his search for truth. He also discusses the ideas of various doctrines that were present in Islamic society in his period, including the philosophers, al-Mutakallimun (scholastics), al-Batiniyya (interiority), and Sufism. The book is a concise exposition of al-Ghazali’s experience in the field of research and epistemological criticism.

Soviet Scholarship on Islamic studies exists in almost hermetic isolation from its Western counterpart for both linguistic and methodological reasons. Soviet scholarship is concerned with a different set of questions that emerge from Soviet Marxism, rarely tackling the conceptual questions formulated in the West. Nevertheless, Soviet scholarship is very strong on descriptive detail which could, if properly utilized, enrich Western debate. Unfortunately, few Western Islamicists (except those involved in Central Asian history) know Russian, and therefore a wealth of factual information unearthed by Soviet scholars remains virtually unknown in the West and plays no part in the scholarly discourse here.

The 2005 UNAIDS/WHO Epidemic Update reports that the number of people living with HIV last year worldwide was 40.3 million (1). In 2005, approximately 3.2 million people became newly infected by HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa, the region of the world that is considered the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic (2).

Although the rates of HIV are much less in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) than in Sub-Saharan Africa, some experts believe that without appropriate implementation of surveillance and prevention services, the epidemic will spread to the general population (3). Reportedly, 67,000 people in MENA became infected with HIV in 2005; there are approximately 510,000 people living with HIV in the region (2). Because of cultural and social taboos surrounding the discussion of the acquisition of HIV around the world in general, and in MENA in particular, it is difficult to develop a clear representation of HIV's presence and risk in countries in the Middle East. Based on the information that is available, the main mode of transmission of HIV is sexual contact, with injecting drug use recognized as the second mode of increasing prevalence (2). Without sufficient implementation of surveillance in the region, however, estimated rates of infection may indeed be lower than the actual number of people infected with HIV (4).

In 1263 AH (1846–1847 AD) the Ottoman imperial government began to publish statistical and descriptive yearbooks of the Ottoman state: devlet salnames (Salname-yi Devlet-i Aliye-yi Osmaniye). Later the Ottoman provinces published their own, more detailed salnames. Salnames are often the only non-archival source for aspects of 19th and early 20th-century Ottoman history, yet they are only recently being extensively used by scholars. This article briefly describes two types of salnames and presents a union list of salnames, in the hope of increasing their accessibility and use.

Word began to trickle out of Baghdad in mid-April 2003 that the Iraqi National Library and Archives and the library of the Ministry of Holy Endowments and Religious Affairs (al-Awqaf) had been burned and looted during the paroxysm of aggravated mayhem that followed the collapse of the Baathist regime. Soon, it became clear that in addition to the damage to those libraries, universities, research centers and private institutions had also been harmed or destroyed, and that additional elements of Iraq's rich cultural heritage in the form of historic buildings, musical archives and contemporary art were at risk. These were moments of deep and profound sadness that ultimately gave way to conversations about ways to work to assess, rebuild and restore what had been lost.

Manuscript libraries, the items collected in them, their location, and something of their history can be classified as follows (previous work on this subject was described in Lütfü Eroğiu’s “Istanbul Kütüphaneleri”):

1. 1. Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s libraries under the auspices of the General Directorate of Libraries.

2. 2. Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s libraries under the auspices of the General Directorate of Monuments and Museums.

3. 3. University libraries.

4. 4. Public libraries.

5. 5. Libraries under the auspices of the General Directorate of Foundations.

6. 6. Private libraries, such as those associated with banks or newspapers.