The Dhofar insurgency (1963–1976) is one of the forgotten conflicts of post-1945 Middle Eastern history, and throughout this war the United Kingdom provided military assistance to the Sultan's Armed Forces of Oman. The Thames TV documentary series This Week provided a rare contemporary report on Dhofar with its December 1972 film ‘Britain's Other War’. This article examines the making of this documentary and its findings, concluding that although ‘Britain's Other War’ had gaps in its coverage, it presented an accurate appraisal of the nature of the Dhofar conflict and the UK's role in aiding the Omani royal regime.

ABSTRACT The field of medieval Middle East history has seen a renewed attention to the use of documentary sources in recent years. These sources have long seen some neglect, and their interpretation has suffered from a stubborn narrative of paucity that has tended to relegate them to the fringe of this history. With the impact of other scholarly trends in the historical field at large, such as the “archival turn” and an emphasis on materiality, they are now being revisited with new and creative approaches. This article outlines this “documentary turn” in the medieval history of Egypt and Syria, focusing on three scholarly approaches which may have special potential and import for the field: the rejuvenation of history “from below,” the foregrounding of the lives of documents themselves, and the discovery of “new” document corpora.

Abstract The study of Middle Eastern manuscripts requires an understanding of provenance, materials, and techniques, as well as the history and philosophies of the Middle East. The removal of many manuscripts from their context, along with transcription errors and language differences, creates barriers to understanding the origins and significance of traded manuscripts. This paper examines the methods for contextualising and attributing provenance to a copy of Silsilat al-Zahab by Nūr al-Dīn ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān Jāmī (1414–1492) from The University of Melbourne Library collection. While the library catalogue estimates the manuscript’s publication date between 1800 and 1899, an analysis of the colophon, marginalia, and ownership notes suggests a possible publication date of 1751, when it was part of the Indian Mughal library during the reign of Aḥmad Shāh Bahādur. This book entered the English book market before moving to its current location. Examining textual marginalia and linking this to provenance and the trade in manuscripts expands knowledge of this volume and provides perspectives for those interested in tracing manuscripts and recording their transmissions.

Abstract This paper explores the theoretical and analytic possibilities of the concept of gharīb to offer a new understanding of regional displacement in what we know as the modern Middle East. The concept of gharīb (pl. ghurabāʾ) has accrued a wide range of meanings across time and space, including stranger, outcast, and exile, as well as pauper. By occupying the space between estrangement and poverty, the gharīb allows for an intersectional understanding of inequality, experienced by a growing number of marginalized and displaced communities in the Middle East. This paper honors the gharīb while making an analytic shift away from the category of the “refugee,” which has long been the dominant framework for personhood in the study of displacement. Combining genealogical analysis of the word gharīb with ethnographic accounts of displaced and impoverished communities in post-2011 Lebanon, I argue that legal binaries such as refugee versus citizen, and internal versus external displacement, have been further blurred against the backdrop of ongoing and interlocking forms of structural violence, inequality, and lack of protection for marginalized groups. The right to belong, therefore, is less about citizenry and more about a mode of social and economic poverty. This is particularly the case in the margins, where the repercussions of the ongoing crises are first and foremost felt. The gharīb, in contrast to such legal binaries, can be an analytic tool that allows us to delve deeper into the complexities of belonging, futurity, and rights without falling into the traps of methodological nationalism and top-down regional demarcations.

Abstract The paper argues that a Neoplatonic reading of classical Arabic poetry can help to understand the cosmological implications of its figurative language and provide a new conceptual framework for comparisons between Arabic literature and other literatures, both European and Middle Eastern. It begins with an outline of Neoplatonic cosmology with reference to the Arabic adaptations of Plotinus’s Enneads which appeared in the ninth century CE. The mirroring relationship between microcosm and macrocosm posited by that cosmology is identified as reflected in the metaphorical language which became prevalent in Arabic poetry with the rise of the badīʿ style, in the ninth century. The analysis of an example by Ibn al-Muʿtazz leads the argument to shared features in the Qurʾanic and the Neoplatonic understanding of divine unity which has implications for the concept of “ambiguity” in classical Islam as developed by Thomas Bauer and, with it, for the polysemous use of poetic language. The concomitant dialectic between the one and the many as operative in the Neoplatonic cosmic hierarchy is found to be the objective correlate of the “aesthetics of wonder” identified in classical Arabic poetry by Lara Harb. The paper concludes with comparisons between Arabic and non-Arabic literatures in the light of Neoplatonic poetics. Several examples are given to illustrate its potential as an analytical framework for the transcultural literary history of the Middle East and Europe.

Slavery in the Modern Middle East and North Africa: Exploitation and Resistance from the Nineteenth Century to the Present Day

Selim Güngörürler. <i>The Ottoman Empire and Safavid Iran, 1639–1682: Diplomacy and Borderlands in the Early Modern Middle East</i>.

Abstract Using previously untapped sources, this article demonstrates the indirect involvement of European intelligence services in Mossad’s Operation Wrath of God. It was one of Mossad’s most spectacular assassination campaigns, organised in response to the massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. In Europe, Operation Wrath of God consisted of eight missions to kill Palestinians who were directly or loosely associated with Palestinian terrorism. The article reveals that European intelligence played a vital role in the organisation and execution of the operation. The research is based on archival records from a secret intelligence-sharing group called the Club de Berne. The article advances two arguments. First, European intelligence was crucial for Mossad to organise and carry out its covert actions. Second, because intelligence co-operation was deemed beneficial for all parties, the European agencies let Mossad operate and use their intelligence to assassinate Palestinians. The extensive advantages that the European agencies gained from intelligence-sharing led them to turn a blind eye towards, or even tacitly support, Israeli covert actions on their territories. The article reveals hitherto unknown aspects of the international relations of intelligence services and their wider political cross-regional implications, revealing new facets of European and Middle Eastern history.

Published in 2009, the edited volume Music and the Play of Power in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia represents one of the most important English-language resources for the study of music’s entanglement in the workings of power and power struggles in the modern Middle East and beyond. In the introduction, the editing author and British Iranian ethnomusicologist Laudan Nooshin identifies three “axes of difference” that organize the production of social divisions and hierarchies in the region: (1) gender, (2) religion, and (3) nationhood. 1 Class, although stated as intersecting with these categories, is not explicitly listed. This absence is illustrative of a tendency that can be observed across much of contemporary scholarship on musical cultures in Egypt and the broader Middle East and North Africa (MENA)/Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) region, in which class is regularly mentioned but, in contrast to questions of gender, religion, and nationhood, has remained underexplored.

The decision of the United Nations in 1947 to partition Palestine into two Arab and Jewish states was a landmark moment in the postwar history of the Middle East and also a tough challenge for the communist movement, globally and in the Middle East. The support of the communist movement, including communist parties of Iran and the Arab world, for the partition and their relatively positive posture toward Israel in its early years has usually been studied in terms of the foreign policy machinations of the USSR. I counter this familiar narrative by analyzing the positions of Iranian communists, and their interaction with Arab and Israeli communists, as an instance of attempting to work out an internationalist line in the difficult circumstances of a ferocious national conflict.

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The presence of anime, in addition to functioning as entertainment, often also reflects social structures through depictions of human reality and social identity, one of which is the anime The Journey. This anime presents a story in the context of Middle Eastern history and culture. This study aims to reveal how human facts and collective subjects are represented as a reflection of social structures in Anime. The research data are in the form of scenes, dialogues, and storylines of the anime film The Journey which was released in June 2021. The data collection technique was carried out using the listening and note taking technique. The results and discussion show that the anime The Journey depicts human facts and collective subjects Arab society through the social structure in the film. Through the genetic structuralism, prove that social structures in anime is not only fictional, but also a reflection of Arab society. This finding supports Lucien Goldmann's theory that literary works and popular culture can reflect social group. This study only focuses on two basic concepts of genetic structuralism, human facts and collective subjects. It is hoped that further research can continue research either with the same or different theories.&lt;em&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Keywords &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;– Collective Subject, Genetic Structuralism, Human Facts.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Britain holds significant historical responsibility for the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. Since the late 19th century, Britain occupied Egypt to control the Suez Canal and, during World War I (1914-1918), made contradictory promises to both Arabs and Jews regarding Palestine. These actions laid the foundation for enduring regional conflicts. This study examines how Britain’s role in shaping the modern Middle East is represented in British secondary school history textbooks, particularly in relation to World War I. Despite the multicultural direction of British history education, textbooks generally fail to adequately address Britain’s historical impact on the Middle East. Secondary-level textbooks often omit or superficially cover Britain’s role, while higher-level textbooks provide more detailed accounts of key agreements and policies. However, these narratives frequently lack critical engagement with Britain’s historical responsibility. In classrooms, a (white) British-centric perspective is further reinforced by teachers’ backgrounds, historical consciousness, and World War I centennial commemorations, which emphasize national sacrifice and patriotism from a white British viewpoint. As a result, colonial mobilization, the experiences of colonized peoples, and the destructive impact of British actions on the Middle East risk being marginalized. This trend may further solidify a Western narrative that views the Middle East primarily through the lens of violence and terrorism, hindering a more nuanced and historically informed understanding of the region.

Objectives: This study aimed at highlighting the new rivalry between Great Britain and France over the middle east and the Mediterranean Sea between 1912 and 1916. Method: The researchers used the quantitative method; mainly the inductive-deductive method for analyzing the events in historical texts in the years under study. Results: The study results showed that English ambitions were confronted with a united reaction by the French government and the emerging colonial entities. They also showed that the French policy adopted a number of political, diplomatic and military strategies which did not succeed because of the countermeasures that were taken by Great Britain. Conclusions: The study asserts the notion that the Middle East and the Mediterranean Sea have gained strategic importance in international politics due to the region’s unique geographical location since it links three continents, namely, Asia, Africa and Europe together and it is considered an area where the political and economic interests of many European countries intersect, especially after the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Despite the short-lived military French campaign in Egypt, this campaign is considered one of the most influential events in the history of Middle East and the Mediterranean Sea.

This article explores the Israel/Palestine conflict through the lens of legal history, examining how colonial and postcolonial legal frameworks have shaped land governance and territorial disputes. The study traces the evolution of legal systems in the region, from Ottoman land law to British Mandate policies and subsequent Israeli legal adaptations post-1948. It highlights how British colonial administration facilitated land transfers, favouring Jewish settlements while restructuring legal institutions to align with Western legal traditions. The analysis further investigates Israel's post-independence land policies, including the reconfiguration of Ottoman and Mandate-era laws to consolidate state control over Palestinian lands. A key focus is the transformation of waqf (Islamic endowment) properties, which have historically served religious and social welfare functions. The Israeli state’s legal mechanisms to confiscate and repurpose these lands have led to disputes over religious jurisdiction and property rights. Additionally, the article discusses the role of international organizations, particularly the United Nations, in attempting to mediate the conflict and manage Palestinian refugee rights through bodies like UNRWA. The study also considers the legal and geopolitical complexities of Gaza, an area deeply affected by historical land policies and ongoing territorial disputes. The recent war in Gaza underscores the continuing impact of settler-colonial frameworks and international legal challenges, including accusations of war crimes and debates on the legality of military operations. By adopting a legal-historical approach, this paper offers insights into how successive legal regimes have contributed to the protracted nature of the Israel/Palestine conflict. It concludes by assessing potential pathways for resolution, emphasizing the significance of historical legal legacies in shaping contemporary political realities.

Although the fifteenth century CE has commonly been recognized as a crucial saddle period in both the history of the Armenian church and the administrative history of the Middle East, which is largely focused on Muslim rulers before the Ottoman-Safavid confrontation, the two topics are usually approached separately. To bridge this gap, the present contribution examines three pivotal moments in the tenure of the Armenian bishop, painter, and poet Mkrtičʻ Nałaš (d. after 1469 CE) in Diyarbakır to argue that his career was inextricably entangled with the trajectory of the Aqquyunlu “Turkmen” rulers who were establishing Diyarbakır as a regional center at the time. Accordingly, I suggest that we should see the processes of Aqquyunlu state formation as including members of the Armenian clerical elite such as Mkrtičʻ Nałaš. I propose to use the concept of synchronisms to reflect the joint and entangled agency of multiple individuals and interpersonal networks of mobilization and patronage. This concept enables the description of entanglements and linkages without attributing primacy to any of the involved parties. I argue that the synchronisms linking Mkrtičʻ Nałaš and early Aqquyunlu rulers of Diyarbakır demonstrate that the histories of Christian clerical elites and the histories of the Muslim etatist and administrative configurations they inhabited must be told together.

While historians have never written about it, in May 1846 the Sultan of Muscat arrived in Weathersfield, Vermont for his first voyage to the United States. This article uses the Sultan’s arrival in Vermont as a platform for augmenting a growing chorus of historians challenging the geographic and disciplinary boundaries that continue to define Middle East Studies. Using archival sources from the US, UK, Zanzibar, and a range of secondary sources, this article addresses a complex centuries-long process of Omani expansion and expropriation that culminated in Zanzibar in the nineteenth century and the height of the Omani Empire as an active participant in shaping the modern world economy. The writing of world history and of Middle East history generally continues to commence from the presupposition of an inevitably ascendant Western-created and led modern world. This article challenges the latter assumption.

This article aims to understand the historical significance of Cilicia within the context of imperial dynamics in the Middle East. Cilicia, a region characterized by shifting borders and contested sovereignty, provides a unique lens through which to examine the interactions between imperial powers, local populations and the lasting effects of conflict. The study draws on a wide range of scholarly sources to explore how Cilicia has been perceived amidst imperial rivalries, focusing on the competing narratives, geopolitical ambitions and humanitarian interventions that have shaped its history. Key themes include the impact of genocide in Upper Mesopotamia and the complexities of French colonial administration and intelligence activities in Syria. By adopting an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates history, political science and humanitarian studies, this research aims to unravel the multifaceted perception of Cilicia and highlight its enduring relevance in understanding the contemporary Middle East. This examination offers new insights into how historical events and policies have influenced the region’s present-day dynamics, emphasizing the critical role of Cilicia in the broader complexity of Middle Eastern history.

ABSTRACT This review article looks at two books, Jonathan Wrytzen’s Worldmaking in the Long Great War: How Local and Colonial Struggles Shaped the Modern Middle East and Hans-Lukas Kieser’s When Democracy Died: The Middle East’s Enduring Peace of Lausanne, and places them in the broader literature on the First World War and the end of the Ottoman Empire. It considers not only how the two books discuss the political formation of the post-Ottoman Middle East but also how they challenge the conventional timeline of the “long Great War,” how and why they include new regions in their discussions about the post-Ottoman Middle East, and how both authors find important lessons in the ways that the post-Ottoman Middle East took shape that are relevant to the present and future of the region.

Abstract This review essay explores the socio-political conditions of Christian communities in Lebanon during the Ottoman Empire’s governance. The study examines the administrative, legal, and social frameworks that shaped the lives of Lebanese Christians under Ottoman rule. It reviews the degree of religious tolerance, the impact of the millet system, and the role of local leaders in mediating relationships between the Christian communities and the Ottoman authorities. By offering a comprehensive historical overview, this work provides a nuanced perspective on the coexistence and conflicts between Christian and Muslim populations, contributing to a broader understanding of interfaith dynamics during this critical period in Middle Eastern history.

Locusts of Power: Borders, Empire, and Environment in the Modern Middle East