Middle Eastern Culture & Religion Issues

Emotional Representation and Moral Framing of Indonesia’s Defeat in Al-Jazeera Arabic News: A Faircloughian Critical Discourse Analysis

Muhammad Fadhlurrahman Zakaria — 2026-07-28

This study examines how an Al-Jazeera Arabic news text constructs Indonesia’s defeat to Iraq in the fourth qualifying round of the 2026 FIFA World Cup through patterns of emotional representation and moral framing. The study aims to identify how linguistic choices and discursive strategies shape the representation of Indonesian players’ post-match conduct. This research employs a qualitative descriptive approach and is designed as a single-text critical case study. The data consists of selected excerpts from one Al-Jazeera Arabic online news article reporting the incident. The analysis was conducted through close reading using Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis framework, encompassing text analysis, discourse practice, and sociocultural practice. The findings indicate that the report constructs the Indonesian national team through evaluative lexical choices, plural categorization, causality, and imperative headline structure that foreground emotional instability, indiscipline, and collective attribution. Rather than functioning solely as neutral sports reporting, the text may be interpreted as directing readers toward a moral evaluation of the team’s conduct. This study contributes specifically to the discussion of Arab media representation of non-Arab actors in the context of sport, while also extending the application of Critical Discourse Analysis to contemporary sports journalism.

Isytiqāq in an al-Jazeera.net Report: Ibn Jinni’s Perspective

Roudathul Aisyah — 2026-07-28

This study reviews the forms of isytiqāq in Arabic-language news articles on the Al-Jazeera website and analyzes the resulting semantic relationships, particularly within the framework of Ibn Jinni’s theory. This study is a library research project using primary data consisting of news articles on the Palestinian conflict and the Iran-U.S. conflict published on November 14, 2024, and April 13, 2026. The method employed is content analysis through the stages of identification, classification, and description of the forms of isytiqāq in the news texts. The results of the study indicate that two types of isytiqāq were found in the news texts: isytiqāq ṣagir and isytiqāq kabīr. Isytiqāq ṣagir appears in morphological forms such as plurals, verb conjugations, and the mazīd form, which serve to clarify the time, quantity, and dynamics of events in the news. Furthermore, isytiqāq kabīr is identified through phonemic similarities with variations in letter arrangement. The semantic relationships identified in the data from this study reveal a variety of connections, ranging from lexical relationships—which can still be traced through similarities in phonemic elements—to conceptual and contextual relationships formed by the use of words in discourse. These findings demonstrate the relevance of Ibn Jinni’s theory in modern linguistic analysis, particularly for understanding the various forms of semantic relationships that emerge in news texts.

Orientalism and Christian Missions: Knowledge Production and Power Relations in ABCFM Activities in Nineteenth-Century Greater Syria

Yuangga Kurnia Yahya — 2026-07-29

This article examines the missionary activities of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in Greater Syria during the nineteenth century through a postcolonial perspective. Existing scholarship has largely emphasised the contribution of ABCFM to education, publishing, translation, and the Arab intellectual revival (Nahda), while paying comparatively little attention to the ways in which these activities functioned within broader structures of power and knowledge production. Employing a historical approach and drawing upon Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism, this study analyses missionary reports, official ABCFM publications, memoirs, and relevant historical literature through four analytical categories: representation, missionary legitimation, knowledge production, and power relations. The findings demonstrate that ABCFM missionaries portrayed Middle Eastern societies as communities in need of intellectual, moral, and religious reform, thereby legitimising missionary intervention. Educational institutions, medical services, translation projects, and printing activities functioned not only as instruments of evangelisation but also as mechanisms for producing knowledge and extending American Protestant intellectual and cultural influence. Through these activities, ABCFM contributed to social transformation and the development of Arab Christian communities while simultaneously establishing new forms of educational and religious authority. The study argues that Christian missions in Greater Syria should be understood as a complex arena where religion, knowledge, modernity, and power intersected and mutually shaped one another.

Constructing Islamic Moderation in Arabic Digital Discourse: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Al-Azhar’s Platform X

Han-Han Ulumudin Ismail — 2026-07-31

This paper focuses on the analysis of the linguistics of Islamic moderation in Al-Azhar's official digital discourse in Arabic and how this construction functions as a support for the religious authority of Al-Azhar in the contemporary mediated environment. The current study adopted a qualitative design based on the socio-cognitive Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Arabic micro-linguistic analysis, such that it analysed thirty tweets posted between 2019 and 2025 on Al-Azhar's verified Platform X account. The results indicate that the modulation happens through recurrent lexical patterns, nominal sentence structure (jumlah ismiyyah), masdar nominalization, definiteness marking by the prefix al-, performative institutional verb sequencing, lexical oppositions and patterned embedding of the citation of the Qur’anic text and Hadiths. There are also linguistic mechanisms which reinforce moderation as an institutional normative Islamic perspective and which highlight Al-Azhar's institutional authority in formal Arabic digital communication. The study reveals that Arabic digital religious discourse is a patterned institutional positioning that relies on grammatical form, scriptural intertextuality, and institutional register as mechanisms of authority. What is original about it is the unique combination of socio-cognitive Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) with a close Arabic micro-grammatical analysis of the original source texts, providing a language-centred framework that brings together the fields of study on Islamic moderation, digital religion and discourse analysis.

Palestinian Bedouins in Jamil as-Salhut’s Novel al-Mā`iq: A Foucauldian Study of Power Relations

Winaldy Maulidan — 2026-07-31

This study examines power relations over the body and mind in Jamīl as-Salḥūt's novel al-Mā`iq, highlighting their importance in understanding mechanisms of discipline and control. It aims to explain how power operates through everyday practices in Palestinian Bedouin society by using Michel Foucault’s theory of power relations. This research employs a descriptive qualitative method with the novel as the primary source of data. The findings show that power in the novel does not operate only through direct authority but also through cultural norms, religious values, political interests, and traditions that regulate both the body and the mind. These forms of power discipline women and men in different ways while encouraging them to internalize social expectations and accepted values. As a result, power becomes part of everyday life, shaping individual behavior, identity, and social relations rather than functioning merely as coercion. This finding supports Foucault’s view that power is embedded in daily social practices and demonstrates how literary texts can reveal the subtle ways in which discipline and normalization operate within a traditional community. This study contributes to Foucauldian literary scholarship by showing how power relations are represented in the cultural setting of a Palestinian Bedouin community, a context that has received limited attention in previous studies. It also highlights the importance of literature as a medium for understanding the relationship between power, culture, and identity in Middle Eastern societies.

The Construction of Women in the Short Stories Ma‘nā Al-Ḥubbi and Ḥubbun bi Lā Naslin by ‘Abbās Ḥāfiż: A Feminist Study

Nurin Amirotul Chusna — 2026-07-31

This study aims to examine how Egyptian women are constructed in the short stories Ma‘nā al-Ḥubbi and Ḥubbun bi Lā Naslin by ‘Abbās Ḥāfiẓ througt Rosi Braidotti’s concepts of mother, monster, and machine. The research employs a qualitative method with a descriptive-analytical approach. The findings reveal that women’s identities are closely tied to domesticity, reproduction, and moral expectations within patriarchal society. First, women are constructed as mothers through expectations related to domestic skills, caregiving, and maternal affection. Their social value is associated with their ability to serve husbands, manage the household, and nurture children, even in the absence of biological motherhood. Second, women are constructed as monsters when they deviate from patriarchal norms. Female characters who reject reproductive expectations, fail to fulfill domestic roles, or violate standards of chastity are portrayed as abnormal and socially stigmatized. Third, women are constructed as machines because their existence is primarily valued through reproductive function. Women’s bodies are treated as instruments regulated by social and cultural systems concerned with childbirth, sexuality, and family continuity. Consequently, infertility or the inability to reproduce reduces women’s social value and limits their agency within marriage and family structures. Overall, the short stories reflect how patriarchal culture confines women within rigid biological and domestic roles.