Modern Middle East Research Articles

Modern bodies in the modern Middle East

Modern bodies in the modern Middle East

Martin Thomas and Richard Toye. Arguing about Empire: Imperial Rhetoric in Britain and France, 1882–1956.

In Arguing about Empire: Imperial Rhetoric in Britain and France, 1882–1956, Martin Thomas and Richard Toye tackle “the most divisive arguments about empire” between and within Britain and France, from Tunisia and Morocco in the early 1880s to Suez in 1956 (1). Their aim is to examine how British and French elites justified imperial activity in cases of both competition and collaboration between the two states. They argue that claims of exceptionalism and superiority on both sides mask and indeed contribute to commonalities in rhetoric, reflecting, in part, the significance of their common project of “co-imperialism” (10). The argument is developed through a series of case studies largely taken from North Africa and Western Asia, chosen as instances where both states were involved and where much discussion was generated (4). These are, unsurprisingly therefore, mostly familiar “crises.” The book starts by examining Tunisia 1881 and Egypt 1882 as the advent of a rhetorical struggle that was very much part of broader, clashing imperial agendas in which strategies of “othering” were pursued by both sides. Shared assumptions about the “civilizing” effects and the complementary existence of the two empires were later tested in Fashoda, but the containment of the crisis of 1898 is held to be “a harbinger of twentieth-century Anglo-French co-imperialist cooperation” (82). Their assessment of events in Morocco in 1905 and 1911 highlights jockeying for imperial advantage within the context of the Entente Cordiale, and the significance of the triangular relationship with Germany, in which “rhetorical posturing supplanted intergovernmental negotiation” (121). The theme of co-imperialism is explored further through Chanak in 1922, which they argue severely strained collaboration, establishing the rancor of subsequent Anglo-French relations in the modern Middle East. World War II as imperial crisis is examined at length, culminating in discord over Syria. Differing domestic contexts feature prominently in the treatment of Suez, cast as “a crisis of prestige for Britain . . . [and] a fatal crisis of regime for France” (229).

Review: Seizing Jerusalem: The Architectures of Unilateral Unification, by Alona Nitzan-Shiftan

Alona Nitzan-Shiftan Seizing Jerusalem: The Architectures of Unilateral Unification Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017, 376 pp., 8 color and 129 b/w illus. $39.95 (paper), ISBN 9780816694280 Seizing Jerusalem elegantly entwines the history of modern architecture with nation building and state policy. In particular, it weaves the history of architecture together with the history of Zionism after the 1967 Six-Day War and the unification of Jerusalem, when the city's population tripled in size. This book is not the first to examine the development of modern architecture in Israel and its connection to sociopolitical issues. The controversial 2003 publication A Civilian Occupation is perhaps the most familiar to architectural historians, yet a number of important books have tackled this subject.1 What makes Alona Nitzan-Shiftan's study unique, however, is her thorough exploration of “the agency of architecture” (3). She underscores the impact of architecture on sociopolitical formations, as opposed to the reverse, and explains that she views architecture “neither as a mere reflection of the agenda of individual architects, nor as a spatial technique representing meaning beyond its confines” (3). Echoing observations by many architectural historians of the modern Middle East, in chapter 1 Nitzan-Shiftan considers the evident tensions between modernist architecture's investments in history and its orientation toward the future.2 After World War II, while the Israeli nation aspired to be modern, it was at the same time deeply invested in its ancient roots. In chapter 2, Nitzan-Shiftan traces works by a generation of architects who were mostly born and raised in Israel, commonly known as the sabra (Israeli-born) architects. Through analysis of select examples, such as housing in Giloh by Ram Karmi and Ma'alot Dafna by the Sho”p Team, she shows how sabra architects appropriated Palestinian vernacular and religious sites understood to have links to a Jewish past. She argues that this approach was rooted in Israeli nationalism, but it also owed much to the contemporaneous global embrace of phenomenological approaches to architecture, widely known …

Between Christ and Caliph: Law, Marriage, and Christian Community in Early Islam. By Lev E. Weitz

The aim of Between Christ and Caliph is to examine the diverse social order of the early medieval Middle East by asking two pivotal questions: how does the history of the Middle East appear if historians accept that non-Muslims were as much a part of the complex tapestry of the Umayyad and Abbasid empires as Muslims? What was the role of the household and construction of a distinct form of family life in (re)creating the identities of Christian religious communities? Lev Weitz focuses primarily on the conscious construction of family law by the Church of the East in the seventh through tenth centuries. He explains the creation of eastern Christian family law through the community’s inherited resourcefulness from being a minority faith under the Zoroastrian Sassanian Empire, as well as from demand, to some extent, by Muslim rulers who expected each religious community to govern itself. Weitz also posits that the creation of laws to govern family were inspired by an effort to keep Christians from using Muslim courts. The author attributes the attention paid to marriage, inheritance, and a uniquely Christian family ideal in post-conquest canon law to an effort by bishops and other Christian elites to cement a sense of communal integrity through the social institution of a specifically Christian household. Though the main focus remains on the Church of the East, the monograph covers other Christian communities as well, skillfully comparing the post-conquest legal literature of the East Syrian, West Syrian, and Melkite Christians.

Russia and the Modern Middle East

Contemporary international relations are undergoing profound structural changes. A polycentric system is replacing the unipolar world. New centers of clout are being strengthened, while the traditi...

Cultural tensions in the late Ottoman Empire: a romantic nationalism model

In the 19th century, Romantic Nationalism provided an alternative to rational visions and universal strategies for mankind. Doing so involved affirming that cultures are products of their heritage and that people are emotionally connected to them. As a result, alternative ways of life should not be forced upon people. By adapting Romantic Nationalism in order to analyse of tensions in the later years of the Ottoman Empire, a widely understood paradigm of cultural stability and change is applied to a crucial era in Middle Eastern history.

Cultural tensions in the late Ottoman Empire: a romantic nationalism model

In the 19th century, Romantic Nationalism provided an alternative to rational visions and universal strategies for mankind. Doing so involved affirming that cultures are products of their heritage and that people are emotionally connected to them. As a result, alternative ways of life should not be forced upon people. By adapting Romantic Nationalism in order to analyse of tensions in the later years of the Ottoman Empire, a widely understood paradigm of cultural stability and change is applied to a crucial era in Middle Eastern history.

Reading and Analyzing Ottoman Manuscripts: 3–8 September 2018, Ankara

Reading and Analyzing Ottoman Manuscripts 3–8 September 2018, Ankara Matthew Ghazarian Archives are powerful but seductive; they inform and misinform. These were ideas broached at the “Reading and Analyzing Ottoman Manuscripts,” workshop hosted in Ankara in September 2018. The program aimed to show participants the pleasures and pitfalls of Ottoman archives. It follows two similar programs in Amman (2016) and Beirut (2017). At the 2018 edition, participants compared experiences, learned about dozens of manuscript collections, and critically contemplated their contents. The bulk of the program was comprised of talks, reading groups, and tours of archives and libraries. The program opened with panels and talks, which were also peppered throughout the following days. Speakers addressed two major questions—“Where do I start?” and “How can we trust archives, anyway?” Yonca Köksal talked about the contents of the Presidential State Archives (Cumhurbaşkanlık Devlet Arşivleri, formerly the Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi), especially collections pertaining to nineteenth-century Ottoman reforms and their ramifications in the provinces. Mark Aymes, Norig Neveu, and Metin Atmaca, meanwhile, formed a panel to discuss the collections available to researchers in Greece and Cyprus, Jordan, and Iraq, respectively. Other speakers also offered their takes on how to use specific collections. Mustafa Alkan described sources available in the archives of the General Directorate of Pious Foundations (Vakıflar Müdürlüğü), and Evgeni Rad-shev presented on tahrir and other sources from the early modern Ottoman Balkans and Bulgaria. Others focused on method. Özer Ergenç presented on approaches for using Ottoman primary sources, and Oktay Özel gave a broad overview of the kinds of archives available in Turkey and how to utilize them. He discussed at length the trap of collections that appear open but are in fact redacted. All of the speakers offered anecdotes, tips, and basic information about researching in, traveling to, and accessing collections relevant to Ottoman and Middle Eastern history. [End Page 245] Although they also questioned the archive’s constitution and authority, earlier talks were geared more toward describing where and how to conduct research. Later talks dwelled more on questions than answers. Füat Dündar, Christine Jungen, and Abdul-Hameed Al-Kayyali, for example, raised issues of power, memory, and identity when dealing with state collections. What makes Arab archives Arab, and what kinds of Ottoman pasts can we find within them? What Armenian or Palestinian histories can emerge from archives constructed and policed by Turkish or Israeli officials? How does the presence of such archives continue to shape the possibility of writing histories of Turkey, Israel, and the Middle East? They also raised questions about the kinds of knowledge production—oral, for instance—that are rarely captured and preserved in the archive. The reading groups formed the bread and butter of the program, meeting for six separate hour-long sessions spread across three days. Split into ten-person sections with a few instructors, they provided a space for participants to compare experiences reading, translating, and analyzing Ottoman documents. Discussions touched on everything from paleography to poetics. These reading groups offered a chance for participants to glance at and discuss, even briefly, a broad sampling of documents from former Ottoman realms. Participants looked at fifteenth-century letters, sixteenth-century poetry, and seventeenth-century pious foundation registers (vakıf defterleri), in addition to eighteenth and nineteenth-century state papers. Unfortunately, these were brief encounters, not committed engagements: the summer school was five days, not five weeks. Holding the program in Ankara offered the chief advantage of the city’s many archival collections, which include a digital copy of Ottoman collections held in Istanbul’s Presidential State Archives. With over forty million sorted documents, and over forty-five million unsorted documents, it is by far the largest collection of Ottoman materials in this country and likely anywhere in the world. Still, the summer school made a convincing case for all researchers—not just those of the Turkish Republic—to take a trip to Ankara for the collections held only there. Some of these were run by state-funded institutions including: • State Archive General Directorate (Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü) • General Directorate of Pious Foundations (Vakıflar Genel...

Competition in the Mid-20th Century Saudi Education System

The formation of the Saudi education system in the middle of the 20th century, with its parallel religious and modernizing authorities, represents a form of institutional gestation that is quite distinct from the dominant models of modern Middle Eastern history. In Saudi Arabia, unlike elsewhere in the postcolonial Arab world, a religious ideology (Wahhabism) was made a centerpiece of the nation-building enterprise. This paper examines that nation-building process through the lens of the competition between the modernizing authorities of the Ministry of Education (Wizārat al-Ma‘ārif), which controlled the bulk of the kingdom’s new educational institutions, and the Wahhābī religious establishment, which was placed in autonomous charge of religious high schools and universities, as well as girls’ primary schools. This paper explores the opposing strategies of modernizers and ulama as they worked to imprint their priorities on the education sector. I look closely at contests over vocational education, resource allocation and authority, and private religious schooling initiatives, through which I map some foundational aspects of the institutionalization of ulama and technocratic authority in the Saudi education sphere. I argue that competition over the future of education was the impulse for cross-pollination between religious and modernizing educational institutions, and that this competition helps to explain the particular nature of the modern Saudi educational system.

Trauma: Social Realities and Cultural Texts

This special issue aims to contribute to a deeper and critical understanding of trauma in the societies, cultures, and histories of the Middle East and North Africa. The collection of essays brings together perspectives from the social sciences, humanities and literary studies, not least by exploring the narrativization of suffering, its performative and its non-verbal expression both in social reality and cultural production. In presenting explorations of literary texts, theatre, social realities and theoretical reflection, we hope to contribute to a more comprehensive, nuanced and inclusive view on trauma and memory production both as a cultural and social materiality and as a political formation. The diverse array of different approaches, topics, and disciplines expresses our concern to include and map the diversity and multiplicity of current trauma studies research related to the MENA.

Malaysia: Roof of a Democratic Society

In discussing democratic transitions in the Muslim world, many turn to episodes in the history of the Middle East, Andalusia, the Ottoman Empire and Mughal Empire for inspiration. By comparison, Southeast Asia is often neglected. Looking back at Malaysia’s rich history, however, evidence of democratic leanings situated within a specifically Muslim cultural and religious context are clearly evident. This paper briefly discusses six such leanings, namely: the fourteenth-century Terengganu Inscription Stone (Batu Bersurat Terengganu), which hints at notions of a social contract, rule of law and limits to a rulers authority; the Malay Annals (Sejarah Melayu’s) story of King Sangsapurba and its concept of a social contract; the unquestioned loyalty to authority demonstrated in the famous story of Hang Tuah; the 1656 text called the Laws of Melaka (Undang-undang Melaka), which reveals an understanding of legal, economic and philosophical concepts that were first expounded in Europe only during the Enlightenment; Johors Kangchu System, where Temenggong Daeng Ibrahim practiced the issuing of surat sungai, granting leases to planters to cultivate river banks; and, lastly, the key concepts of Negeri Sembilans ancient adat pepatih, which have been adapted to serve present-day Malaysia. The democratic developments that occurred in these explicitly Malay Muslim examples provide an alternative to the authoritarian modes of thinking often advocated by modern-day proponents of a supposedly more Islamic society. Without a renewed national consensus affirming these underlying principles of the nation, involving all parties and a cross-section of citizens, these centuries-old roots of democracy may yet be poisoned and eradicated in Malaysia.

Islamist Movements and the Arab Spring

The Arab uprisings of 2011, popularly known as the Arab Spring, were first initiated by a broad range of movements shaped primarily by a non-ideological sense of civic identity. As the uprisings gained momentum, however, Islamist groups were able to utilise their organisational strength and mobilisation capabilities to position themselves at the centre of this watershed moment in modern Middle Eastern history. This article examines the role Islamism came to play in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, notably in the reformulation of the norms of regional governance as authoritarian rule appeared poised to be replaced by a system rooted in democratic legitimacy, independent institutions, and a redefined relationship between the state and its citizens. The article begins with a consideration of the evolution of political Islam in the Arab world, from its origins as a significant social movement actor to its various attempts at political engagement with the state. The articlethen proceeds to a more explicit examine of both political Islams role in the Arab Spring and its apparent intentions for the post-authoritarian order. It is argued that, since the Arab uprisings took place, many Islamist groups have abandoned abstract slogans in favour of coherent political platforms concerned with, amongst other things, the role of Islam in a revised constitution and determining the powers and responsibilities of state institutions. Looking ahead to long-term trends, the interpretation of Shariah, understanding the nature of the civil state, and the shape of democratic participation appear set to become crucial issues within Islamist discourse. The realities of rule, requiring pragmatism and compromise, will almost certainly challenge the ideological orientation of political Islam in the coming years, as Islamists come to realise that political survival is predicated not on ideological purity but on practical results.

Popular politics in the Medieval Middle East

AbstractPremodern Middle Eastern regimes were in general despotic, yet various social groups and communities did take part in the politics of their societies. Incidents of urban protest in Egypt and Syria in the late Mamluk period allow us to see some of their politics in practice, to understand some of the dynamics that operated in medieval Middle Eastern cities and the alliances between various groups and the social and political transformations that were taking place from the 15th century onwards. Recent research has added more nuance to understanding urban protest, not simply as reflexive reactions to economic strife but more as part of the dynamic that maintained city life and integrated various communities and which reflected new ideas of shared values and expectations of power. In riots, crowds of common people allied with and protested against military elites, religious scholars, merchants, and craftsmen. Recent studies have highlighted various roles of non‐elite urban groups in politics, analyzed urban politics in a regional and global context, and revised assumptions about unchanging autocratic Middle Eastern political culture. Some attention has also been given to the roles of peasants in rural politics. Studying popular politics allows us a better understanding of the role of various communities in pre‐modern Middle Eastern history.

Relations Between Qatar and Saudi Arabia After the Arab Spring

The Arab Spring initiated a new era in the history of the Middle East and significantly shifted regional dynamics. It profoundly marked the history of the region and affected relations between Middle Eastern countries. Qatar–Saudi Arabia relations have likewise been profoundly impacted by it. This study focuses on how the Arab Spring affected relations between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and on how the regional power struggle and rivalry between Riyadh and Doha were exacerbated during that period when disagreements and clashes escalated and deepened between both countries. It also emphasizes the causes of tensions that emerged during the period of the Arab Spring between both states. Using classical realism as a theoretical framework in approaching the issues at hand, the study begins by outlining the historical background to Qatar–Saudi Arabia relations. It then describes the policies of Qatar and Saudi Arabia towards the Arab Spring and explores the problem areas in their bilateral relations. Finally, the sanctions imposed against Qatar are also discussed.

The Bedoun Archive: A Public Archive Created for the Northern Tribes Bedouin of Kuwait

This article describes the creation of the Bedoun Archive at the Australian Data Archive, managed by the Australian National University. The Bedoun are a Bedouin minority comprising stateless members of the main tribes of Kuwait. They have been subjected to “Othering” in scholarly literature, indicative of both Orientalism and neo-Orientalism, approaches that have contributed to their oppression by the state and omission from the official histories of Kuwait and the academic literature. The theory and methodology behind the creation of the Bedoun Archive, based on the principles of humanistic sociology and collaborative research with Indigenous Peoples, are discussed. The archive provides safe storage for data analysed in the project, which can be used by others in future. This article contributes to improving understanding of the impact of Orientalism and neo-Orientalism on perceptions of the people and history of the Middle East in general, and the Arabian Gulf and Kuwait in particular. It also contributes new knowledge regarding the complex situation currently faced by the Bedoun, the role of intellectuals in the Arab Spring social movement and subsequently, their contribution to developing formal systems of knowledge about their own culture.

現代中東における宗派対立とヨルダンの宗派和合戦略：アンマン・メッセージの解析を中心として

現代中東における宗派対立とヨルダンの宗派和合戦略：アンマン・メッセージの解析を中心として

Oriental Neighbors: Middle Eastern Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine

Oriental Neighbors: Middle Eastern Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine

John Chalcraft. Popular Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East.

John Chalcraft. Popular Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East.

The economy by other means: The historiography of capitalism in the modern Middle East

AbstractThe history of modern political economy, a major subfield within Middle Eastern Studies, is largely considered to have been eclipsed by the growing interest in the history and politics of identity in the 1990s. In this article, I explain the newfound academic interest in engaging with capitalism as a historical object in relation to the modern Middle East. I argue that the new rubric of “History of Capitalism,” which was forged in the context of the contemporary crisis of capitalism, has allowed historians to approach the economy anew with analytical tools drawn mainly from cultural history. Based on surveying this new body of scholarship on the modern Middle East, I suggest organizing it around three main themes: Economic Thought, Consumerism, and Infrastructure. After discussing the main research questions animating each of these categories, I conclude by highlighting the potential inherent in the historiographical eclecticism of this wave of interest in studying capitalist processes.

Dominican Contributions to Christian Life in Mesopotamia-Iraq (c. 1750–2017)

A community of particular significance in the development of Mesopotamian-Iraqi Christian life in the modern era was (and is) the Dominican Order which has had a sustained presence since the 18th century. This article serves as an overview of Dominican contributions to Syriac Christian life in Mesopotamia and reflects on the Order’s presence as part of the traditional plurality of Iraqi society. Notwithstanding the rise of Da’esh/ISIL since June 2014 multiple religious traditions continue to exist in Iraq. The willingness of wider Iraqi society to accept a Christian presence is easily forgotten in contemporary narratives which focus on sectarian discourses and avoid acknowledging that the Middle East is not dichotomous in perpetuity: there are wider considerations than Jewish-Muslim, Arab-Kurd, Arab-Persian &c. Moreover, while Islam is an ever present reality in the modern and contemporary Middle East, it is not the only reality.