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Islam in Saudi Arabia
The common image of Saudi Arabia portrays a country where religious rules dictate every detail of daily life: where women may not drive; where unrelated men and women may not interact; where the latter veil their faces; and where banks, restaurants and cafes have dual facilities: one for families, another for men. Yet life in the kingdom, contrary to perception, is not so clear cut as simply obeying dogma. David Commins challenges the stereotype of a country immune to change by highlighting the ways that urbanization, education, consumerism, global communications and technological innovation have exerted pressure against rules issued by the religious establishment. He places the Wahhabi movement in the wider context of Islamic history, showing how state-appointed clerics built on dynastic backing to fashion a model society of Sharia observance and moral virtue. But beneath a surface appearance of obedience to Islamic authority he detects currents that reflect Arabia's heritage of diversity (where Shi'i and Sufi tendencies survive in the face of discrimination) and the effects of its exposure to Western mores.
Islamic Reform
Religious community and nation have long been the chief poles of political and cultural identity for peoples of the modern Middle East. This work explores how men in turn-of-the-century Damascus dealt, in word and deed, with the dilemmas of identity that arose from the Ottoman Empire's 19th-century reforms. Muslim religious scholars (ulama) who advocated a return to scripture as the basis of social and political order were the pivotal group. The reformers clashed with their fellow ulama who defended the integrity of prevailing religious practices and beliefs. In addition to two conflicting interpretations of Islam, Arabism comprised a new strand of thought represented by young men with secular educations advancing Arab interests in the Ottoman Empire. Religious reformers and Arabists shared a political agenda that shifted focus from constitutionalism before 1908 to administrative decentralization shortly thereafter. Using unpublished manuscripts and correspondence, inheritance documents, and Ottoman-era periodicals, this work weaves together social, political, and intellectual aspects of a local history that represents an instance of a fundamental issue in modern history.
Transformations of Tradition
Transformations of Tradition probes how the encounter with colonial modernity conditioned Islamic jurists' conceptualizations of the shari'a. Focusing on the jurisprudential writings of Muhammad Bakhit al-Muti-i (1854-1935), Mufti of Egypt for a time, Junaid Quadri locates a remarkable series of foundational intellectual shifts that throw into doubt the possibility of reading the modern trajectory of Islamic law through the lens of a continuous tradition. Through close readings of complex legal texts and mining archives oft-neglected in the field, this carefully researched study uncovers a shari'a that is neither a medieval holdover nor merely a pragmatic concession to the demands of a new world, but rather is deeply entangled with the epistemological commitments of colonial modernity.
The Origins of Syrian Nationhood
The ‘Syria idea’ emerged in the nineteenth century as a concept of national awakening superseding both Arab nationalism and separatist currents. Looking at nationalist movements, ideas and individuals, this book traces the origin and development of the idea of Syrian nationhood from the perspective of some of its leading pioneers. Providing a highly original comparative insight into the struggle for independence and sovereignty in post-1850 Syria, it addresses some of the most persistent questions about the development of this nationalism. Chapters by eminent scholars from within and outside of the region offer a comprehensive study of individual Syrian writers and activists caught in a whirlwind of uncertainty, competing ideologies, foreign interference, and political suppression. A valuable addition to the present scholarship on nationalism in the Middle East, this book will be of interest to many professionals as well as to scholars of history, Middle East studies and political science.
The Rise and Fall of the Hashimite Kingdom of Arabia
The Hashemite Kingdom of Arabia was forged in the crucible of the Arab Revolt in 1916, during World War I. Its leader, Sharif Husayn ibn 'Ali, struggled to put together a tribal confedereacy. This study examines Husayn's efforts at state formations, efforts that eventually failed.
Guardians of Faith in Modern Times
This collective volume provides an integrative historical and contemporary discussion of Sunni EulamaE3/4 in the Middle East in both an urban and a semi-tribal context. The various chapters reinforce a renewed interest in the position of the EulamaE3/4 in modern times and offer new insights as to their ideological vitality and contribution to the public discourse on moral and sociopolitical issues.
From Orientalism to Postcolonialism
This book uses a historical and theoretical focus to examine the key of issues of the Enlightenment, Orientalism, concepts of identity and difference, and the contours of different modernities in relation to both local and global shaping forces, including the spread of capitalism. The contributors present eight in-depth studies and a substantial theoretical introduction, utilizing primary and secondary sources in Turkish, Farsi, Chinese, not to mention English, French and German in the effort to engage materials and cultural perspectives from diverse regions. It provides a critical attempt to think through the potentialities and limitations of area-studies and ‘civilizational’ approaches...
Saddam's Word : The Political Discourse in Iraq
This is the first serious attempt to understand modern Iraq through a close examination of the political discourse used by the Ba'th regime and its leader, Saddam Hussein. By analyzing political terms, concepts, and idioms as disseminated through the official Iraqi mouthpieces, author Ofra Bengio illuminates Iraq's political culture and the events that these expressions have both reflected and shaped. Not only does this study add to our understanding of the "Saddam enigma;" it also offers a more universal truth: that under any regime, political culture is built on public discourse. Saddam's Word will be of much interest to students of the contemporary Middle East, as well as to all other observers of Saddam Hussein and his regime.
Lightning through the Clouds
Lightning through the Clouds is the first English-language life-and-times biography of ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam, a preeminent figure who helped to reshape the political and religious landscape of the region. A Syrian-born, Egyptian-educated cleric, he went from the battlefields of World War I to join the anticolonialist fight against the French in Syria. Sentenced to be executed by the French military, he managed to escape to Palestine, where he became an increasingly popular presence, moved by the plight of the poor and disenfranchised. Outraged by British rule and the encroachment of Zionism, he formed a secret society to resist the colonization of Palestine first by the British and then by...
The Politicization of Islam
Combining international and domestic perspectives, this book analyzes the transformation of the Ottoman Empire over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It views privatization of state lands and the increase of domestic and foreign trade as key factors in the rise of a Muslim middle class, which, increasingly aware of its economic interests and communal roots, then attempted to reshape the government to reflect its ideals.
