Animals appear in different kinds of sources in medieval Islam, from the Quran to animal fables and works of belles-lettres. This article benefits from previous research on Islam’s attitude towards animals, specifically from the viewpoint of the ascetic-mystical stream of Islam during its classical stage. It examines animals in early Sufi narrative material from three perspectives. The first is the theological-ethical perspective that both questions Sufi morals in approaching animals and animality as well as the allegorical use of animals to portray the human psyche. The second perspective is the narrative angle that examines narrative tropes that use animals as a literary device to enhance human piety. The third perspective is ontological and it examines animals as active agents and practitioners of Sufi piety who share bonds and cosmic interconnectedness with human devotees. This cosmic interconnectedness implies an encompassing unity of the universe in which both human and non-human beings are able to obtain God’s love and intimacy.

After an introduction that places the topic within a broader framework of studying animals in Islamic culture, the article approaches stories as a substantially significant source for Sufi thought. It then discusses the three proposed perspectives using birds, lions and dogs as case studies.

The right of the accused to a timely trial is a fundamental aspect of the right to a fair trial, regarded as a cornerstone of criminal justice systems worldwide. This article explores how this right can be enforced through writ jurisdiction, with a particular focus on Sri Lanka. By comparing writ jurisdiction in Sri Lanka with that of the United Kingdom and Australia, the article examines how developments in these jurisdictions have recognised delays in proceedings as a form of procedural unfairness, thereby establishing it as a valid ground for invoking writ jurisdiction. While the right to a timely trial is an implied fundamental right in Sri Lanka, the article highlights how the rich Indian jurisprudence on this matter could guide in more precisely defining its scope and developing a legal framework for its protection. Furthermore, the article discusses how the intersection of writ and fundamental rights jurisdictions in Sri Lanka has enabled judicial review of violations of the right to a timely trial by inferior courts. Overall, the article offers valuable insights into expanding writ jurisdiction to ensure the timely resolution of criminal trials in other Commonwealth jurisdictions that, like Sri Lanka, follow English legal principles in judicial review.

Environmental education is being reconfigured in this era of runaway economic growth and social and environmental unravelling. The aim of this article is to articulate interconnected challenges confronting education in a time of polycrisis by articulating new conceptions of technology and technological progress, hopefully leading to a more refined critique of growth-based economics and technocratic solutionism. We begin by synthesising research related to the Anthropocene and post-growth discourses, presenting two simple heuristics that we have found useful in designing educational responses to the metacrisis and unravelling. Afterwards we discuss these heuristics in relation to disaster studies, land- and stratification-economics, as well as ancient/long-standing practices of resource/wealth redistribution (e.g., potlatch), highlighting implications for future research.

This article offers an original discursive analysis of the construction of terrorism within travel advice published by the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). It argues that this advice positions terrorism as a very specific – omnipresent, Islamist, and non-state – security threat from which British nationals will never be safe. Three contributions are made. First, empirically, the article offers a descriptively rich exploration of terrorism’s production in an entirely neglected site of discourse. Second, analytically, it details the work done by specific rhetorical mechanisms within FCDO guidance, including the recycling of generic claims relating to terrorism, quantifications of risk, and the imagination of hypothetical attacks. Third, conceptually, it demonstrates the contingent and precarious character of this discourse by highlighting important exclusions that cohere and constitute terrorism as constructed in travel advice. These exclusions – notably the violences of right-wing actors and of states themselves – contribute to a very specific construction of terrorism that helps foreclose discussion of UK responsibility for, or involvement in, terrorism.

Many political science theories posit empirical relationships that are conditioned by some moderating variable, which scholars model using a multiplicative interaction term in a regression. In recent years, scholars have begun using such terms in dynamic regression models with time series data. However, the lack of guidance on adding multiplicative interactions to these workhorse models exposes problems with the consistency of the estimator, model restrictions, and interpretation. This paper provides theoretical and practical guidance to address these problems. First, we define the conditions under which scholars can ensure consistent estimates when estimating relationships conditioned by a moderating variable in dynamic models. Second, we introduce a general model that makes no theoretical assumptions about precisely how conditional relationships unfold over time. Third, we develop a flexible approach for interpreting such models. We demonstrate the advantages of this framework with simulation evidence and an empirical application.

As East–West détente flourished in the early 1970s, discussions on pan-European economic trade and cooperation revived. Yet an ‘EC question’ soon arose as socialist countries saw the European Community as an expanding protectionist entity that hampered pan-European trade and insisted on denying it recognition, let least a role in it.

This article argues that, facing this predicament, the EC endeavoured to assert itself in the continent through a careful action aimed at becoming embedded in pan-European economic cooperation and shaping its features. It explores the EC’s tactics to gain its own place and weight in the two major fora of East–West discussions on the matter in the 1970s – the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) – and shows its contribution to defining the agenda and proposals on trade and economic cooperation. In investigating the EC’s manoeuvres and the people instrumental in these efforts, the article reveals the EC’s collaboration with the UNECE Secretariat, sheds new light to the socialist states’ evolving policy towards the Community and provides an unprecedented study into UNECE’s life in the 1970s and its connection with the Helsinki process. By weaving these aspects together, this article characterises the EC as one of the key makers of pan-European cooperation decades before the European Union came to dominate it.

Research shows that understanding the nutritional status and eating habits of people with disabilities is essential for creating effective preventive healthcare strategies. Communication barriers in healthcare settings, low health literacy and socioeconomic inequities are among the challenges this community faces. These difficulties can lead to poor nutritional knowledge, food insecurity and chronic diseases. Deaf individuals also experience higher rates of undernutrition, obesity and micronutrient deficiencies, primarily due to limited access to linguistically appropriate nutrition education. This commentary aims to explore the nutritional problems in the Deaf community, their determinants and risks and to offer inclusive solutions and preventive strategies at the individual, community and policy levels to ensure equitable nutrition and health for all Deaf individuals.

This article attempts a first historical periodisation of the checkered history of the French Southern Islands in the Indian Ocean. Beginning with early extractive activities during the 18th and 19th centuries and followed by colonial ambitions during the first half of the 20th century, the article also discusses the more recent efforts of the French government to reinforce sovereignty in the form of permanent bases, especially during the 1950s and 1960s. The most recent period covered of scientific affirmation and ecological restoration (1970s–2006) introduces a solid historical perspective on the still ongoing efforts (from 2006 onwards) of reinforced patrimonialisation and environmental protection of the French Southern Islands. Throughout all periods, our main attention is directed towards various forms of projects. Indeed, the project perspective allows to uncover largely forgotten ambitions and shows that the history of the French Southern Islands is closely connected to larger historical developments in the entire Antarctic and sub-Antarctic region.

Housing issues are a growing global concern and a key topic on the European policy agenda. Across EU, challenges such as immigration, economic stagnation, inequality, and ageing populations exacerbate housing provision issues. This growing concern demands effective solutions, guided by research, data-driven insights, and comparative analysis. This study overviews and compares housing provision in the EU countries. Using OECD and Eurostat data from 2010 to 2021, we examine governments’ roles in housing provision and assess availability, affordability, and adequacy, while exploring their interrelationships. Through hierarchical cluster analysis and cartographic visualization, we identify clusters of countries with similar housing characteristics. The findings reveal significant variation, with some countries struggling with availability, others with affordability or adequacy. Our results highlight a clear divide in housing challenges between Eastern, Western, Southern, and Northern Europe, largely aligning with welfare state regimes.

Loess–paleosol sequences (LPSs) provide valuable archives of Quaternary paleoenvironments. Here we present new data from the Baix LPS, comprising the entire Late Pleistocene. The Baix LPS is located at the western edge of the Rhône Rift Valley, France, in the transition zone from the presently temperate to the Mediterranean region of Europe. This LPS provides a missing link between the analyzed LPSs in the presently temperate regions farther north and those in the Mediterranean region. Reddish Btg horizons of a Stagnic Luvisol at the base of the Baix LPS represent the remains of an MIS 5 pedocomplex formed under warm and, at least temporarily, relatively moist conditions. Two brown Bw horizons of truncated Cambisols have been preserved in the overlying MIS 5a/4 to MIS 3 deposits. The upper Bw horizon is associated with large carbonate nodules, indicating that considerable amounts of calcium carbonate were leached from a former MIS 3 Cambisol and accumulated in the underlying loess unit. This truncated MIS 3 Cambisol is very similar to the MIS 3 paleosol remains in the LPS Collias that we investigated 87 km farther south in the present Mediterranean climate. No paleosols were observed in the late MIS 2 deposits.

This article examines how three nineteenth- and twentieth-century philanthropic organizations – the British Aborigines’ Protection Society (APS), the American Indian Rights Association (IRA), and the Australian Association for the Protection of Native Races (APNR) – functioned simultaneously as opponents of colonial violence as well as instruments of colonial governance. These groups were vociferous advocates for Indigenous rights and welfare, yet they also directly contributed to building administrative structures of empire. The APS worked to generate metropolitan interest in Indigenous affairs, framing protectorates as both economically beneficial and a matter of national security. The IRA positioned itself as a fact-finding body, supplying the US government with on-the-ground surveillance that enabled more precise administrative control. The APNR acted as a public relations arm for Australian settler governments, deflecting criticism of state violence while promoting assimilationist policies. All three organizations reinforced colonial authority by outsourcing key governmental functions to private actors, and their reliance on voluntary labour and philanthropic donations underscores the contingency of imperial rule on non-state institutions. Bridging historiographies of humanitarian activism and colonial governance, this article argues that these groups were not merely critics or collaborators but infrastructural components of empire.

In the post-Brexit world it is generally considered that parliamentary sovereignty is the ultimate Grundnorm of the English/United Kingdom sovereignty. The author contends that this truism is largely borne out by recent decisions of the UK Supreme Court in a series of major constitutional cases (Gina Miller (No 2), Privacy International, Scottish Independence Bill and Re Allister and Peeple’s Application). Yet two of these decision (Gina Miller (No 2) and Privacy International) show that the position is slightly more nuanced than this. The latter case shows that the UK courts will not give effect in practice to legislation which ousts the general judicial review power of the High Court. It is also possible that Gina Miller (No 2) will over time lay the foundation for a new Grundnorm whereby the UK courts can review executive decisions on the ground that they are inconsistent with a higher norm of fundamental democratic principles. By contrast, the Irish example shows in one way how far Ireland has travelled from its original common law constitutional roots. The existence of a Kelsenian-style written constitution with a defined hierarchy of norms and system and an express system of judicial review of legislation has over time produced very different methods of judicial thinking and reasoning, so that popular – and not parliamentary – sovereignty view of the referendum process is now the ultimate Grundnorm in the Irish constitutional system.