Muslim Diaspora in Western Europe: The Islamic Headscarf ( Hijab ), the Media and Muslims' Integration in France

The hijab , an Arabic word that is related to Islamic proper dressing, has become a buzzword in contemporary French popular discourse. In the Islamic tradition, both men and women are required to dress modestly. Women traditionally cover their hair, a practice called hijab. This hijab (Islamic scarf) seems to have created a controversy in France in recent years, and the French media have exploited the matter even further. Even scholars seem to have abstracted the cultural/ religious symbol from its proper context. The controversy of the hijab in France therefore has actually revealed more about the character of the French society/ mentality than about the Muslim community. I intend to use the controversy over the hijab to question and challenge the conventional reading of the integration of the Muslim Maghrebin people into secular French society. I will explore the concept of integration and the way this integration functioned as a source of privilege as well as a source of discrimination. I will use the debate over the hijab to further investigate the interplay of religion, immigration and citizenship in France.     

Trickster Humour in Randa Jarrar's A Map of Home: Negotiating Arab American Muslim Female Sexuality

Randa Jarrar’ s A Map of Home (2008), a major contemporary Arab American woman's novel, utilizes trickster humour as a way to resist the ideological manufacture of the Muslim female body propounded by US orientalism, Islamist orthodoxy and secular Arab patriarchy. Current scholarship on A Map of Home has not examined the relationship between humour and contemporary female sexuality. Focusing mostly on authorial tone, this article reads the novel's narrator-protagonist, Nidali Ammar, as a trickster figure, who resists being perceived as a cultural heroine and in doing so disrupts the sacredness of social conventions. The trickster A Map of Home celebrates, and Nidali enacts, prompts readers to laugh at key cultural norms shaping the Muslim female body in post-9/11 US sculpture. This inquiry examines a range of interconnected sexual themes—most notably, ‘proper’ sexual boundaries, orientations and codes of virginity—to illustrate how trickster humour fosters Arab American women's agency.     

Suicide by explosion of natural gas: case report and review of literature

Natural gas (NG) is used as a home energy supply and, with or without ignition, is rarely misused to result in death. The authors report an unusual suicidal explosive death induced by NG. A huge explosion with resultant fire had blown out a bungalow, with destructive damage predominantly above the ground, resulting in only 1 exterior wall and the foundation still in place. The victim was transferred to the hospital, and on the way, he admitted to undoing the natural gas fitting and to igniting the source. He survived for a short interval of time in the hospital before all resuscitative efforts failed. During autopsy, a special attention was paid to victim's identification and search for other injuries, not related to the explosion, so as to exclude or document homicidal injuries disguised by the subsequent explosion. The forensic pathologist should be aware of the different kinds of inflammable substances and integrate the findings with the scene information and the impression of the investigators at the scene.