To what extent did a perceived morality crisis play a role in the dramatic events of the last years of the Ottoman Empire? Beginning in the late nineteenth century when some of the Ottoman elites began to question the moral climate as evidence for the losses facing the empire, this book shows that during the course of World War I many social, economic, and political problems were translated into a discourse of moral decline, ultimately making morality a contested space between rival ideologies, identities, and intellectual currents. Examining the primary journals and printed sources that represented the various constituencies of the period, it fills important gaps in the scholarship of the Ottoman experience of World War I and the origins of Islamism and secularism in Turkey, and is essential reading for social and intellectual historians of the late Ottoman Empire.
As in western cinema, cross-dressing is a recurrent theme in Turkish film. But what do these films, whose characters typically cross-dress in order to escape enemies or other threats, tell us about the modern history of the Turkish Republic?This book examines cross-dressing in Turkish films in the context of formative events in modern Turkish political history, arguing that this trope coincides with and is illustrative of trauma induced by Turkey's multiple coup d'etats, periods of authoritarianism, enforced secularism and 'modernization'.Burcu Dabak Ozdemir analyses five case study films wherein she reveals that cross-dressing characters are able to escape persecutors and surveillance - key instruments of oppression during Turkey's coups. She shows how cross-dressing in the films examined become a destabilising force, a form of implicit resistance against state power, both political and in terms of binaries of gender and identity, and a means to register moments of national trauma. Th
Hosting over 30,000 inhabitants and governed by competing militias, 'Ayn al-Hilwe in the south of Lebanon is one of the most contested refugee camps in the Middle East. Known as the 'Capital of the Palestinian Diaspora', the camp has endured a long history of internal power struggles and external influence and intervention. Based on extensive ethnographic research in the camp - focused on the actors who have shaped its modern political trajectory since the rupture caused by the 1993 Oslo Accords - The Palestinian National Movement in Lebanon places the attention on the role of exile leaderships, camp-based militia commanders and shape-shifting networks of patronage in the political landscape of the Palestinian movement in Lebanon. Offering original empirical and theoretical findings, this book will be essential reading for students of the Palestinian movement and refugee politics in the Middle East and beyond.
The influence of the ulema, the official Sunni Muslim religious scholars of the Ottoman Empire, is commonly understood to have waned in the empire’s last century. Drawing upon Ottoman state archives and the institutional archives of the ulema, this study challenges this narrative, showing that the ulema underwent a process of professionalisation as part of the wider Tanzimat reforms and thereby continued to play an important role in Ottoman society. First outlining transformations in the office of the Sheikh ul-islam, the leading Ottoman Sunni Muslim cleric, the book goes on to use the archives to present a detailed portrait of the lives of individual ulema, charting their education and professional and social lives. It also includes a glossary of Turkish-Arabic vocabulary for increased clarity. Contrary to beliefs about their decline, the book shows they played a central role in the empire’s efforts to centralise the state by acting as intermediaries between the government and social
Azmi Bishara’s book on the Syrian Revolution is one of the most comprehensive and profound works on the subject published to date. Translated here into English for the first time, the study examines the complex roots of Syria's political and sectarian conflicts from the day revolution erupted on 15th March 2011 to its descent into civil war in the two years that followed. The book unearths and discusses the very first signs of protests from across Daraa, Hama, Aleppo, Damascus, Raqqa, Deir El Zour, Edlib and Homs, and it deals with Syria's ruralization process and the subsequent economic 'liberalization', which eventually led to the revolt against the Baath party. The work is based on high-level interviews, analysis of the country's socio-economic background, and examination of the Syrian regime's strategy and its political and media discourse. Syria's revolution is chronicled in two stages: the peaceful civil stage and the armed stage. Bishara's analysis first centres on the regime's
When Muslim rule in Kashmir ended in 1820, Sikh and later Hindu Dogra Rulers gained power, but the country was still largely influenced by Sunni religious orthodoxy. This book traces the impact of Sunni power on Shii society and how this changed during the 19th and early 20th centuries.The book identifies a distinctive Kashmiri Shii Islam established during this period. Hakim Sameer Hamdani argues that the Shii community’s religious and cultural identity was fostered through practices associated with the martyrdom of Imam Hussain and his family in Karbala, as well as other rituals of Islam, in particular, the construction and furore surrounding Marak , the historic imambara (a Shia house for mourning of the Imam) of Kashmir’s Shiis. The book examines its destruction, the ensuing Shii-Sunni riot, and the reasons for the Shii community’s internal divisions and rifts at a time when they actually saw the strong consolidation of their identity.The first study dedicated to Shia Islam in
In Turkey, the Justice and Development Party government has introduced new regulations about reproductive rights, and shifted family and gender policies. Women’s central role in reproductive and domestic work was swiftly reaffirmed, and abortion and IVF were newly debated. Taking Turkey as the case study, this is the first book to examine the various ways neoliberal modes of governing women’s bodies interact with conservative and authoritarian measures. The contributions focus on reproduction, maternity and sexuality, to explore the three main areas of governmental interventions into the female body. Topics for discussion include: the expansion of IVF and egg markets, the privatization of gynaecological and obstetrical care, differential treatment of poor and ethnic minority women’s fertility/sexuality, and women’s multiple responses to these shifts. While focusing on Turkey, the book presents analytical tools applicable under rising authoritarianisms and conservatisms worldwide.
Winner of the 2022 Dan David Prize for outstanding scholarship that illuminates the past and seeks to anchor public discourse in a deeper understanding of history In Middle Eastern cities as early as the mid-8th century, the Sons of Sasan begged, trained animals, sold medicinal plants and potions, and told fortunes. They captivated the imagination of Arab writers and playwrights, who immortalized their strange ways in poems, plays, and the Thousand and One Nights . Using a wide range of sources, Richardson investigates the lived experiences of these Sons of Sasan, who changed their name to Ghuraba’ (Strangers) by the late 1200s. This name became the Arabic word for the Roma and Roma-affiliated groups also known under the pejorative term ‘Gypsies’. This book uses mostly Ghuraba’ -authored works to understand their tribal organization and professional niches as well as providing a glossary of their language Sin. It also examines the urban homes, neighborhoods, and cemeteries that
Jobymon Skaria, an Indian St Thomas Christian Scholar, offers a critique of Indian Christian theology and suggests that constructive dialogues between Biblical and dissenting Dalit voices – such as Chokhamela, Karmamela, Ravidas, Kabir, Nandanar and Narayana Guru – could set right the imbalance within Dalit theology, and could establish dialogical partnerships between Dalit Theologians, non-Dalit Christians and Syrian Christians. Drawing on Biblical and socio-historical resources, this book examines a radical, yet overlooked aspect of Dalit cultural and religious history which would empower the Dalits in their everyday existences.
This book explores the genealogy of the concept of ‘ Medz Yeghern’ (‘Great Crime’), the Armenian term for the mass murder and ethnic cleansing of the Armenian ethno-religious group in the Ottoman Empire between the years 1915-1923. Widely accepted by historians as one of the classical cases of genocide in the 20th century, ascribing the right definition to the crime has been a source of contention and controversy in international politics. Vartan Matiossian here draws upon extensive research based on Armenian sources, neglected in much of the current historiography, as well as other European languages in order to trace the development of the concepts pertaining to mass killing and genocide of Armenians from the ancient to the modern periods. Beginning with an analysis of the term itself, he shows how the politics of its use evolved as Armenians struggled for international recognition of the crime after 1945, in the face of Turkish protest. Taking a combined historical, philological, l
Ahmad bin Yahuya al-Baladhuri's History of the Arab Invasions is perhaps the most important single source for the history of the great Arab conquests of the Middle East in the sixth and early seventh centuries. The author, who died in 892, was a historian working at court of the Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad. He had access to a wide variety of earlier writings on the conquests and has preserved accounts that are not found anywhere else. But the book is much more than a series of accounts of battles. Baladhuri was very interested in the origins of the Islamic state and its institutions. His work contains a wealth of information about government, land-holding and economic developments. It is, in short, a key text for anyone interested in the formation of the Islamic world.In this new modern translation, fully annotated with a scholarly apparatus and commentary on the places, events and individuals mentioned, a key source on the Arab conquests is made available in English. It will be essen
What we understand by the ‘Middle East’ has changed over time and across space. While scholars agree that the geographical ‘core’ of the Middle East is the Arabian Peninsula, the boundaries are less clear. How far back in time should we go to define the Middle East? How far south and east should we move on the African continent? And how do we deal with the minority religions in the region, and those who migrate to the West? Across this handbook’s 52 chapters, the leading sociologists writing on the Middle East share their standpoint on these questions. Taking the featured scholars as constitutive of the field, the handbook reshapes studies on the region by piecing together our knowledge on the Middle East from their path-defining contributions. The volume is divided into four parts covering sociologists’ perspectives on:· Social transformations and social conflict; from Israel-Palestine and the Iranian Revolution, to the Arab Uprisings and the Syrian War · The region’s eco
The Cyclades are the quintessential Greek isles, renowned for the beauty of their seascapes, their historical monuments, and a unique way of life deeply rooted in the remote past of the Aegean. Over t
Ernest Hemingway was 'a man who lived it up to write it down' and his life became the root from which his novels grew. At the age of 18 he was awarded a medal for bravery in the First World War; he ho
Storm on Horseback is both a dramatic history and, uniquely, a traveller’s guide to the extraordinary heritage of the Seljuks in Turkey.Who are the Turks and where did they come from? The successive e
This is the tragic story of the short-lived Iraqi monarchy. The first king of Iraq, Faisal I, was installed by the British in 1921. Faisal, who had led the Arab Revolt and fought alongside T.E. Lawren
In 1912, a young D.H. Lawrence traveled to northern Italy. He spent nearly a year on the shores of Lake Garda, lodged in elegantly decaying houses set amid lemon groves and surrounded by the fading li
With its vibrant cities and breathtaking landscapes, Scotland has captivated writers and visitors for centuries and inspired a diverse range of literature, from the religious poems carved on the rocks
David Pirie’s acclaimed 'A Heritage of Horror'? was the first book on the British horror movie, and the first to detect and analyse the roots of British horror, identifying it as 'the only staple cine
Remarkably Georgia, no larger than Switzerland, ranks in the world's top twelve for geographical diversity. It contains the heart of the Caucasus mountains--larger and more dramatic than the Alps--sub
