Al-Noor: Now Available Online
Saturday May 3, 2008

Al-Noor, The new Boston College Undergraduate Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Journal, is now available online and in hardcopy at locations around Boston College. The Journal has recently been featured in The Heights, the student newspaper on campus.

The Journal seeks to provide undergraduate students a medium for publishing about the Middle East and Islam and promote a discourse about the diverse opinions, myriad cultures, histories, and perspectives that comprise the Middle East.

To view the issue in its entirety, click on the image to the left. Our current issue page also has each story listed separately. The Al-Noor blog, while still a work in progress, will be covering issues as they happen in the Middle East and be a venue for further discussion of the issues raised in Al-Noor.

Al-Noor is always accepting submissions from undergraduate students worldwide interested in the Middle East and Islam. For more information, visit our submissions page.

Letter from the Editors
Saturday May 3, 2008

For the past year we have had one goal on our minds: presenting the Middle East in a different light. A critical region historically linking Europe with Asia, the Middle East has for thousands of years been a focal point of great civilizations, a source of great cultural development, and an epicenter of great cultural and political conflict.

The inaugural issue of Al-Noor examines this crucial relationship—between “East” and “West.” We hope this journal encourages its readers to develop a better understanding of the real social, political, and cultural underpinnings that continue to put the Middle East at a crossroads. Our cover article examines this so-called “clash of civilizations” by looking at Turkey’s effort to enter the European Union as an Islamic modern western state. Is there really such a dichotomy or is the world, perhaps, more complex? As our cover illustrates, there is hope for relationships that cross these boundaries of religion, culture, and nation. Taken during Turkey-EU talks in Ankara in 2005, the photo shows that these hopes and aspirations have many faces but share a common goal.

This article, along with the rest in this issue, encourages readers to look past commonly held stereotypes about the Middle East and Islam and examine different perspectives based on the underlying facts. In doing so, we are convinced that readers will come to see the region in a different light—despite all of its conflicts and complexities, the Middle East is an enormously diverse region struggling for peace and reconciliation in a modernizing 21st century. This is highlighted throughout the journal in our articles on such topics as Turkey’s repression of its Kurdish population and women in the Iranian Revolution.

Al-Noor—meaning “the light” in Arabic—was founded for this very reason of shedding light on this often misunderstood region. With the rising interest in the Middle East at Boston College—highlighted by the newly founded Islamic civilization and societies major—we feel it pertinent to provide an unbiased and balanced forum to discuss and publish research based, scholarly articles on the Middle East and Islam. Al-Noor looks forward to expanding the discussion of this important region. There is a need for understanding through the dissemination of knowledge. We hope to play a part in this process.

We at Al-Noor, however, want this conversation to reach beyond traditional methods. We encourage
any suggestions, questions, comments, and yes, criticisms. Establishing a journal is an ongoing process, and we encourage all students to be a part of this monumental and necessary discussion. With the launch of an interactive Website, and future plans to expand the journal, we hope you will find Al-Noor a unique and satisfying source of discussion and information.

Cordially,

Christopher Maroshegyi ’09
Michael Weston-Murphy ’10
co-Editors-in-Chief