Fatalities due to methyl alcohol intoxication in Turkey: an 8-year study

The aim of this study is to examine methyl alcohol poisoning cases from the medico-legal point of view. The records of the Morgue Department of Council of the Forensic Medicine were reviewed retrospectively for all methyl alcohol poisonings for the period of 27.10.1992 and 30.05.2001. The victim's age, sex, death year, death place, methyl alcohol blood levels, the source of methyl alcohol, accompanying laboratory results and histopathologic tissue changes were recorded. The number of deaths due to the methyl alcohol poisoning was 271 during that period of time. Two hundred and forty-two of the (89.3%) total 271 methyl alcohol fatalities were men and 29 (10.7%) of were women. The largest age group was 36-40 years old, followed by 41-45. The methyl alcohol blood concentrations ranged widely from 50 to 755 mg for per 100 ml. There were 222 cases (81.9%) with the methyl alcohol blood concentrations over 100 mg/dl. Twenty-nine (10.7%) victims were poisoned through the consumption of cologne and three of them with alcoholic beverage named "Raki". Consumed products were not known in all other cases because of insufficient patient history and data. As a conclusion, regarding the distribution according to years, mortality due to methyl alcohol intoxication in our country have been proceeding on a certain level. In order to decrease the mortality due to methyl alcohol intoxication, some precautions should be developed that could prevent the production and consumption of alcoholic beverages illegally produced.     

Handwriting changes under the effect of alcohol

Document examiners are often faced with difficulties in evaluating handwriting by persons under the influence of alcohol. Although numerous articles are available on the subject of alcohol influence on handwriting quality, most of them were based on empirical data such as "few" or "increased", without any statistical evaluation. The aim of this research is to determine whether previous observations on reported effects of alcohol on handwriting are valid and to establish the predictability of observing specific effects. A total of 73 participants, who completed all steps of the experiment, were surveyed. Handwriting samples were taken before and after the consumption of alcohol. The test form, including criteria of prior studies used by document examiners, was evaluated with the help of a Olympus X-Tr stereo microscope, direct and oblique angle lighting and a video spectral comparator (VSC 2000). Measurements were done by means of digital caliper, statistics using repeated measures ANOVA, Pearson correlation, Pearson Chi square test, McNemar test and Wilcoxon signed rank test.The results revealed that the handwriting parameters such as word lengths, height of upper and lower case letters, height of ascending letter, height of descending letter, spacing between words, number of angularity, number of tremor, and number of tapered ends are all significantly increased under the effect of alcohol.It was also determined that the significant correlation between the alteration of handwriting parameters such as height of upper and lower case letters, number of angularity, number of tapered ends and the amount of alcohol. Furthermore, it does not confirm the conclusions of previous studies stating that alcohol levels are not proper indicators. Our data strongly confirms that handwriting changes can be observed at any level of alcohol.None of the alterations in handwriting can be attributed to the effects of alcohol intake alone. However, the presence of some alterations together is strongly suggestive that the person was under the influence of alcohol.First of all, the duty of handwriting examiner is to identify if the questioned and known sample are coming from the same source. Consequently, as this explanatory analysis suggests that differences between sober and intoxicated persons can be identified in handwriting, but the examiner's judgement must be proportionately cautious, keeping in mind the abnormally wide range of variation.     

Allele frequencies for 15 STR loci in Van-Ağri districts of the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey

Allele frequencies of 13 tetrameric short tandem repeat (STR) loci (D3S1358, TH01, D21S11, D18S51, D5S818, D13S317, D7S820, D16S539, CSF1PO, vWA, D8S1179, TPOX, FGA) and 2 pentameric short tandem repeat loci (Penta E and Penta D) included in the PowerPlex 16 kit were obtained from a sample of 116 unrelated individuals in Van-A?ri districts of the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey. The expected performance of these loci for personal identification and paternity testing in this population was estimated.     

A: reviews: general

BETWEEN MARRIAGE AND THE MARKET: INTIMATE POLITICS AND SURVIVAL IN CAIRO. By Homa Hoodfar. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, University of California Press, 1997. xviii, 302 pp.

THE COURT OF THE IL‐KHANS 1290–1340. Edited by J. Raby and T. Fitzherbert. Oxford Studies in Islamic Art (XII), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996. 218 pp., 84 black and white illustrations, ISBN 0–19–728022–6. £35 (hb)

COMMODITY AND EXCHANGE IN THE MONGOL EMPIRE: A CULTURAL HISTORY OF ISLAMIC TEXTILES. By Thomas T. Allsen. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997. 137 pp. ISBN 0521–58301–2, £30.00 (US$49.95).

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA AND AMERICAN CULTURE: THE MAKING OF A TRANSATLANTIC LEGEND. By JOEL C. HODSON. Contributions to the Study of Popular Culture, No. 47. Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Publishing, 1995. xiii + 183 pp., Index, $45.00.

THE CAMBRIDGE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD. Edited by Francis Robinson. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996. xxiii, 328 pp., maps, illustrations, £24.95.

THE HOLY WAR IDEA IN WESTERN AND ISLAMIC TRADITIONS. By James Turner Johnson. Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997. 185 pp.

MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS FACE‐TO‐FACE. By Kate Zebiri. Oxford, Oneworld, 1997. 258 pp., £14.99.

JINNAH, PAKISTAN AND ISLAMIC IDENTITY: THE SEARCH FOR SALADIN. By Akbar S. Ahmed. London and New York, Routledge, 1997. 274 pp., 18 plates, 4 maps, £45.00 (hb) £12.99 (pb).

YEZIDISM — ITS BACKGROUND, OBSERVANCES AND TEXTUAL TRADITION. By Philip G. Kreyenbroek. (Texts and Studies in Religion, Vol. 62). Lewiston, New York, Edwin Mellen Press, 1995. 349 pp.

GENDERING THE MIDDLE EAST: EMERGING PERSPECTIVES. Edited by Deniz Kandiyoti New York, Syracuse University Press, 1996. 177 pp.

DORIA SHAFIK, EGYPTIAN FEMINIST: A WOMAN APART. By Cynthia Nelson. Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 1996. xxvi + 322 pp., illustrations, $49.95.

THE MOBILIZATION OF MUSLIM WOMEN IN EGYPT. By Ghada Hashem Talhami. Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 1996. 192 pp., £36.00.

KNOWLEDGE AND SOCIAL PRACTICE IN MEDIEVAL DAMASCUS, 1190–1350. By Michael Chamberlain. (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization) Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994. xii + 199 pp., maps.

EGYPTIENS ET FRANÇAIS AU CAIRE 1798–1801. By André Raymond. Cairo, Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale, Bibliothèque Générate, 18, 1998. 391 pp.

THE STRUCTURE OF CENTRAL AUTHORITY IN QAJAR IRAN: 1871–1896. By A. Reza Sheikholeslami. Atlanta, Georgia, Scholars Press, 1997. 246 pp.

BALAT: ETUDE ETHNOLOGIQUE D'UNE COMMUNAUTE RURALE. By Jacques Hivernel, Cairo, Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale du Caire, 1996. 204 pp. bibliography, illustrations, maps and pictures.

A BLOOD‐DIMMED TIDE. DISPATCHES FROM THE MIDDLE EAST. By Amos Elon New York, Columbia University Press, 1997. 332 pp., Index £19.95 ($29.00).

RELIGIOUS RADICALISM IN THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST. Bruce Maddy‐Weitzman and Efraim Inbar (eds). Ilford, Essex, Frank Cass, 1997. 264 pp., ISBN 0–7146–4769–1 (hb), 0–7146–4326–2 (pb).

THE SCROLL OR THE SWORD? DILEMMAS OF RELIGION AND MILITARY SERVICE IN ISRAEL. By Stuart A. Cohen. Amsterdam, Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997. xx + 148 pp.

ISLAM IN A CHANGING WORLD: EUROPE AND THE MIDDLE EAST. Edited by A. Jerichow and J. Bæk Simonsen. Richmond, Surrey, Curzon Press, 1997. 190 pp.

ISLAMISCHE WIRTSCHAFTS‐UND WOHLFAHRTSEINRICHTUNGEN IN ÄGYPTEN ZWISCHEN MARKT UND MORAL. By Steffen Wippel. (Studien zur Volkswirtschaft des Vorderen Orients. Bd. 9). Münister, LIT Verlag, 1997. xlii + 391 pp., 88.80 DM.

ARAB AWAKENING AND ISLAMIC REVIVAL: THE POLITICS OF IDEAS IN THE MIDDLE EAST. By Martin Kramer. New Brunswick, Transaction Publishers, 1996. 286 pp., index.

ISRAEL AND THE WESTERN POWERS: 1952–1960. By Zach Levey North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press, 1997. 203 pp., $39.95.

BUILDING A PALESTINIAN STATE: THE INCOMPLETE REVOLUTION. By Glenn E. Robinson. Bloomington, Indiana, Indiana University Press, 1997. 228 pp., £12.50.

MANDATE DAYS: BRITISH LIVES IN PALESTINE 1918–1948. By A. J. Sherman. London, Thames and Hudson, 1997. 245 pp., 61 illustrations, short who was who, £16.95.

THE DECLINE OF THE ARAB‐ISRAELI CONFLICT: MIDDLE EAST POLITICS AND THE QUEST FOR REGIONAL ORDER By Avraham Sela. New York, SUNY Press, 1998. xv + 423 pp.

MAKING PEACE WITH THE PLO: THE RABIN GOVERNMENT'S ROAD TO THE OSLO ACCORD. By David Makovsky. Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press, 1996. 239 pp.

ISRAEL ON THE ROAD TO PEACE: ACCEPTING THE UNACCEPTABLE By Ziva Flamhaft. Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press, 1996. 252 pp.

REMAKING THE MIDDLE EAST. Edited by Paul J. White and William S. Logan. Oxford and New York, Berg, 1997. 340 pp.

THE COLD WAR AND THE MIDDLE EAST. Edited by Yezid Sayigh and Avi Shlaim. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997. 303 pp., map.

US‐ISRAELI RELATIONS AT THE CROSSROADS. Edited by Gabriel Sheffer. London, Frank Cass, 1997. 242 pp., £32.50.

LIBYA: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF OIL. By Judith Gurney. Oxford, Oxford University Press (For Oxford Institute for Energy Studies), 1996. 244 pp., £29.50 (hb).

NOTES FROM THE MINEFIELD. UNITED STATES INTERVENTION IN LEBANON AND THE MIDDLE EAST, 1945–1958. By Irene L. Gendzier. New York, Columbia University Press, 1997. 300 pp., maps, illustrations, £32.00.

IRAN‐SAUDI ARABIA RELATIONS AND REGIONAL ORDER. By Shahram Chu‐bin and Charles Tripp. London, IISS/Oxford University Press, 1996. 88 pp., £13.99.

THE UNITED STATES AND IRAN: IN THE SHADOW OF MUSADDIQ. By James Goode. London, Macmillan, 1997. ISBN 0–333–67831–1.

DIR IRANISCHE SCHIA UND DIE ISLAMISCHE EINHEIT 1979–1996. By Wilfried Buchta. Hamburg, Deutsches Orient‐Institut, 1997. 427 pp.

THE MAKING OF IRAQ 1900–1963: CAPITAL, POWER AND IDEOLOGY. By Samira Haj. SUNY Press, 1997. viii + 150 pp.

THE AGONY OF ALGERIA. By Martin Stone. London, Hurst, 274 pp., £14.95 (pb).

FROM TRUCIAL STATES TO UNITED ARAB EMIRATES. NEW EDITION By Frauke Heard‐Bey. London, Longman, 1996. xxvi + 540 pp.

ARABIAN DIVERSIONS: STUDIES ON THE DIALECTS OF ARABIA. By Bruce Ingham. Reading, Ithaca Press, 1997. xv + 193 pp. £35.

THE VERB IN LITERARY AND COLLOQUIAL ARABIC. By Martine Cuvalay‐Haak. Berlin and New York, Mouton de Gruyter, 1997. xx + 278 pp., DM 158.

LITERARY CRITICISM IN MEDIEVAL ARABIC‐ISLAMIC CULTURE. THE MAKING OF A TRADITION. By Wen‐Chin Ouyang. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1997. viii + 257 pp.

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ARABIC LITERATURE. Edited by Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey. London and New York, Routledge, 1998. Two volumes, 857 pp., ISBN 0–415–06808–8 (set).

IBN ‘AQIL: RELIGION AND CULTURE IN CLASSICAL ISLAM. By George Maqdisi. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1997. 292 pp., £50

THE SIRDAR: SIR REGINALD WINGATE AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN THE MIDDLE EAST. By M. W. Daly. American Philosophical Society, 1997 xvii + 345 pp.

ISLAM: A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION. By Malise Ruthven. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997. 162 pp., 14 illustrations, 3 maps, £5.00.

THE QURAN: A NEW INTERPRETATION — TEXTUAL EXEGESIS. Muhammad Baqir Behbudi translated by Colin Turner. Richards Curzon Press, 1997. 720 pp.

THE FORMATION OF THE SUNNI SCHOOLS OF LAW, 9–10TH CENTURIES CE. By Christopher Melchert. (Studies in Islamic Law and Society, No. 4). Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1997. 244 pp.

HISTORY OF ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY. Edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman. London, Routledge, 1996. 1211 pp.

THE SELF‐DISCLOSURE OF GOD: PRINCIPLES OF IBN AL‐'ARABI'S COSMOLOGY. By William C. Chittick (SUNY Series in Islam). Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1998. XL + 483 pp., $24.95 (pb).

‘AZIZ NASAFI. By Lloyd Ridgeon. (Curzon Sufi Series.) Richmond, Curzon Press, 1998. xiv + 234 pp., £35 (hb), £14.99 (pb).     

The alla franca dandy; modernity and the novel in the late 19th-century Ottoman Empire

ABSTRACT

In the late 19th-century Ottoman novel, an iconic character draws attention: the alla franca dandy; a man who admires the Western culture to the point of mindless imitation, and who stands aloof from his own society as he condemns the Ottoman/Islamic culture in aesthetical terms. He was born out of the Ottoman intellectuals’ ideas of and anxiety over Westernization, who sought to modernize the society without subverting the traditional foundations. As the Ottoman/Islamic and Western cultures collided, the alla franca dandy figure became the embodiment of Westernization gone astray and served the intellectuals’ objective to educate the masses by setting a bad example to be avoided. However, though the alla franca dandy figure was brought forth, in this manner, to circumscribe the proper limits of modernization, he ironically evolved, through the novels of different authors, to express individualistic attitudes, and put forth a modernist critique of the Ottoman/Islamic tradition as the intellectuals’ epistemological assumptions eroded and the society’s present is questioned and problematized as in need of intervention.     

Risk factors for and protective factors against adolescent suicidal behavior in Turkey

This study investigated the possible role of depression, self-esteem, problem solving, assertiveness, social support, and some socioeconomic factors on adolescent suicidal behavior in youth in a small city located in the southwestern part of Turkey. Participants in the study were 805 (367 girls) first-year high school students between the ages of 13-18 years. Some 23% of participants reported having thought of killing themselves during the past 12 months or their lifetime. The percentage of students who said that they had attempted to kill themselves was 2.5. Suicidal ideation during one's lifetime or during the past 12 months was more frequent among girls than among boys but suicidal attempts were equally common in girls and boys. Girls scored significantly higher on depression and the Suicide Probability Scale (SPS) but also on assertiveness and perceived social support from friends than boys. Boys tended to score higher on self-esteem than girls. Depression and low self-esteem were the most consistent and independent predictors of suicidal thoughts, attempts, and SPS scores in both girls and boys. The results are discussed in terms of relevant literature with special reference to developmental and sociocultural issues. The implications of findings for the assessment and treatment of suicidal youths are highlighted.     

Naqshbandi Sufis and their conception of place,time and fear on the Turkish-Syrian border and borderland

The employment of diverse forms of security and control on territorial borders have led to the production of numerous events of border crossings, smuggling, banditry and death along with stories of separation, loss, mourning, pain, and yearning in the everyday life of border people. The Naqshbandi Khaznavi order has an expansive interpersonal social network across the political borders of Turkish and Syrian nation-states. This work analyzes the ways in which Sufis dealt with diverse aspects of the Turkish-Syrian border by unbinding shackles and orders of political system that were fabricated constantly from the 1920s to the early 1980s. The life stories and narratives of the Sufis document the existence of a religious-cultural landscape, diversifying the perception of place, time and fear which have transcended political borders for decades, contradicting official cartographic imagination and the modern-secular understanding of place and time. Besides, in addition to analyses of religious orders as social, economic and political entities, this work aims to elucidate emotional aspects of relations and faith that coexist between Sufis and their Sheikh in the context of spatial distance, political border and fear of death.     

The Oslo Talks: Revealing the Turkish Government's Secret Negotiations with the PKK

This article explores the extent to which the secret talks influenced the path of official negotiations toward ending Turkey's Kurdish conflict, which the scholarly literature has yet to assess. Utilizing interviews with key political actors, this article aims to close this gap by assessing the Oslo talks (2006–2011) as the most comprehensive secret contact between the Turkish government and Kurdistan Workers' Party. It demonstrates that the secret track is not merely a “pre-negotiation” stage aimed at de-escalating the violent conflict ahead of official talks, but also a crucial part of the negotiation stage aimed at establishing a final political agreement.     

Her Majesty's Protected Subjects: The Mishaqa Family in Ottoman Damascus

The protégé system that the Ottoman Empire encountered as the result of diplomatic relations with European powers later became a clear threat to the very existence of the empire. Among these powers, Britain, until the nineteenth century, executed its consular affairs via the Levant Company in the Middle East, but later employed local people, mostly non-Muslim Ottomans, as dragomans, consular agents and vice-consuls to execute its services in the region. The dragomans not only translated treaties and official documents, but also commented on the messages to and from the authorities and this gave them much more important roles. In this regard, members of the Mishaqa family served the British and later American interests under different posts ranging from dragoman, to consular agent and vice-consul. As they gained confidence, they were accorded British consular protection which provided them considerable privileges, and passed their duties to their sons. Unlike similar Levantine families who assumed dragomanship in the imperial centre as a household tradition, members of the Mishaqa family were deeply embedded in the local society and therefore could give insights on social and political changes in the Ottoman province of Damascus. After attaining British protection in 1840, members of the family served in British and American consulates until the beginning of the First World War. However, the protégé status of the family members paved the way for continued debates over their nationality and citizenship. This article attempts to present the basic codes of consular protection and Ottoman responses within the context of the story of Mishaqa family.