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Sadik Al-Azm is one of today's foremost Arab public intellectuals, who offers innovative, often controversial challenges to conventional narratives on Islam and the West, secularism, Orientalism, and the Israel-Palestine issue.Is Islam Secularizable? includes essays on: Civil Society and the Arab Spring, Orientalism and Conspiracy, Ground Zero Revisited, Islam and Secular Humanism, Time out of Joint: Western Dominance, Islamist Terror, and the Arab Imagination, Trends in Arab Thought, Palestinian Zionism, and Orientalism and Orientalism in Reverse.

Sadik Al-Azm is one of today's foremost Arab public intellectuals, who offers innovative, often controversial challenges to conventional narratives on Islam and the West, secularism, Orientalism, and the Israel-Palestine issue.Islam - Submission and Disobedience includes essays on: Salman Rushdie, Is the Fatwa a Fatwa?, The Tragedy of Satan, Satanic Verses Post Festum: The Global, the Local, the Literary, and Universalizing from Particulars.

Sadik Al-Azm is one of today's foremost Arab public intellectuals, who offers innovative, often controversial challenges to conventional narratives on Islam and the West, secularism, Orientalism, and the Israel-Palestine issue.On Fundamentalisms includes essays on: Islamic Fundamentalism Reconsidered, Islam and the Science-Religion Debates in Modern Times, The Struggle for the Meaning of Islam, What is Islamism?, and The Takfir Syllogism.

Sadik al-Azm's Critique of Religious Thought set off one of the the great Arab intellectual uproars of the twentieth century, leading to the author's imprisonment and trial for mocking religion and inciting sectarian conflict. As in his earlier Self-Criticism after the Defeat, Al-Azm takes on the taboos of the age and their sponsors: the religious elites. In this book, he attempts to awaken the Arab mind from its dogmatic slumber, leading it out of the Middle Ages and into a modern world characterized by science and rationality. Critique of Religious Thought is one of the most controversial and influential books about the role of religion in Arab politics. This is the authorised translation of Sadik Al-Azm's work, Naqd al-fikr ad-dini, originally published in Arabic in 1969. The 2014 edition includes an introduction by the author and translations by George Stergios and Mansour Ajami.

The study of Islam and of Islamic history is enjoying something of a revival with an emphasis on intellectual history and a greater concern with the 'subaltern' with that. Why does religion continue to hold significance in our times? Are humans better off, adaptable, less violent, consistently unpredictable? How can we understand the course of our political history and the seeming dominance of democracy and its discontents, not least the legacies of coloniality and empire? While nationalist historiographies prevail in many contexts as well as Marxist and other approaches, the trend seems to be towards connected histories, the transnational and the global. Much of this constitutes intellectual history, which as one leading expert puts it, "seeks to restore a lost world, to recover perspectives and ideas from the ruins, to pull back the veil, and explain why the ideas resonated in the past and convinced their advocates." (Richard Whatmore) Ideas are expressive of cultures and norms, practices and dispositions, of actions and events that lie at the very core of human experience such as sovereignty and power, mind and matter, profanity and spirituality. There are noticeable differences of approach in the various chapters presented but what brings them together is a careful study of texts, not in a reductively philological manner derided quite often these days but in the way in which we recognise that texts are forms of speech acts and lie alongside other forms of self-expression that can elucidate and illuminate as well as occlude.

It has been a decade since people across the Arab world rose up in revolt against their governments in 2010/11, demanding political empowerment, social reform and economic improvement. Pro-democracy protests, as they were called in common parlance, which spread rapidly through the mobilisation of social media calls, ended up overthrowing long-standing authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya. That gave rise to hope for a more representative future, as well as economic reforms, after decades of mismanagement and stagnation. However, such hopes were quickly dispelled, as the political vacuum created by the elimination of regional dictatorships deepened fractures in many of these societies along ethnic, religious and tribal fault lines. As Islamists and secularists jockeyed for power, Egypt's brief alliance with democracy was halted by a neo militarist, counter-revolutionary takeover. Tunisia is a notable exception, where both factions in political society have resolved to settle their differences through dialogue and set the tone for democratic politics, while the country is struggling with economic growth and transformation. Very little if anything, has changed in Yemen, Libya and Syria, where long-drawn and bloody civil wars are raging. The monarchies of the Gulf have not been untouched, but remain markedly unchanged

Are the Middle East's two heavyweights, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, friends or foes? What are the main drivers behind their rivalry or cooperation? The nature of their relationship has region-wide repercussions, affecting the calculations of both regional and global actors. This book is the first to offer a comprehensive and nuanced examination of the main drivers in the complex relationship between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, focusing on the role of domestic, regional and international dynamics. Three decades are examined: the 1990s, the 2000s and the 2010s. Thus a review of the recent history of the relationship outlining the background dynamics goes on to identify the key turning points in the post- 2011 Middle East, in which the two states have frequently found themselves on a collision course due to their widely differing domestic, regional and international agendas.

This unique volume explores the role that Grand Strategy has played in the shaping of the Middle East and why, conceptually, its core principles still have traction in explaining the shifting alliances and dispensation of power across the region. When so much of the spatial as well as the geo-political boundaries of the Middle East are in flux, it is now time to revisit the very ideas that inform Grand Strategy that once again, are enjoying a wider intellectual renaissance in world affairs. Through a longitudinal method that embraces international history, regional security, and international relations, leading scholars from Europe, North America and the Middle East offer original and timely insights into how Grand Strategy has shaped not only Great Power involvement, but the designs of regional actors in their perennial search for security.

Over the last two decades the relations between the countries of the Gulf and Asia have expanded beyond the economic domain to include political and even security arrangements. While oil and non-oil trade are still the fulcrum of their association, 'strategic' partnerships are fast becoming the norm. The contributors of this book argue that, along with economic diversification, the Gulf countries have also diversified their foreign policies, especially with China, India, Japan and South Korea, among others. Together with Russia, this could eventually alter the current US-centric security paradigm. This opens up the prospect for a 'collective' security architecture in the Gulf, which is key to regional and global stability.

'Subaltern studies' refers to the importance of 'subordinate' groups in the making of history. The latter are usually defined as encompassing the urban and rural underclasses, the majority in any society, although generally the term is said to refer to all non-elites, including women. Most often the discourse concentrates on instances of social protest as points whereat the 'subalterns' make their 'voices' heard in response to, or even independent of, manipulations by the elite. The book draws on wide-ranging sources to be explored for direct and indirect access to these voices, and include elite Persian diplomatic and political-economic (court-level) materials but also those drawn from such a broad range of 'cultural' spheres as, for example, art and architecture (including cinema, for the modern period), prose, poetry and other media and religious materials (Sunni, Shi`i and Sufi) of all genres in all relevant languages. The overall project seeks also to explore attitudes toward the subaltern by the authors of these sources. Finally, the project aims also to identify problems in accessing/using the sources and questions/avenues for further research across Persianate history and, in the process, to establish an on-going network to chart pathways for further associated research projects and support for these.

This book offers a number of innovative studies on the three main communities of the East Mediterranean lands--Muslims, Jews and Christians--in the aftermath of the seventh-century Arab conquests. It focuses principally on how the Christian majority were affected by and adapted to their loss of political power in such arenas as language use, identity construction, church building, pilgrimage, and the role of women. Attention is also paid to how the Muslim community defined itself, administered justice, and regulated relations with non-Muslims. This book will be important for anyone interested in the ways in which the cultures and traditions of the late antique Mediterranean world were transformed in the course of the seventh to tenth centuries by the establishment of the new Muslim political elite and the gradual emergence of an Islamic Empire.

First English translation of La Galilee, an account of Pierre Loti's travels in the Holy Land from Jerusalem to Beirut, via Damascus and many other interesting places, in 1894. Pierre Loti (1850-1923) was born Louis-Marie-Julien Viaud into a Protestant family in Rochefort in Saintonge, South-West France (now Charente Maritime). He was an officer of the French Navy and a prolific author of considerable note in 19th-/early-20th-century France, publishing many novels and numerous accounts of his travels around the world. He was a member of the French Academy. Apart from his literary talents, Loti was a pioneer photographer and this translation of his journey from Jerusalem to Beirut in 1894 is greatly enhanced by the reproduction of some of the photographs he took at the time.. Volume includes a number historic photos taken by Pierre Loti and 1 map.

In the past decade, Qatar has emerged as one of the world's most proactive mediators in the international arena. It has also experienced a number of domestic changes to its economic infrastructure, welfare system and political system, along with material improvement in its citizens' standard of living. Nonetheless, despite such radical and rapid advances, political reform in Qatar has proved to be relatively tentative. This book examines political reforms in Qatar from an analytical, normative, ideological and empirical perspective. It applies the main concepts and theories found in the literature on democratic transition. The book also presents different aspects of political reform in Qatar, including those prior to the formation of the state. Five elements are discussed as the reason of why the political reform process in Qatar has stagnated in the political "Grey Zone": Absolute power of the ruler over the political institutions; tribal social structure in Qatar; rentier style social contract; lack of public demand for reforms and politically apathetic society; new regional and international atmosphere, emerging after Arab Spring.

This volume revisits archaeological evidence from Syria, Palestine, the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and Egypt describing a variety of land-use patterns and the development of a particular type of settlement across the Near East. 1. Pierre-Louis Gatier, Villages du Proche-Orient protobyzantin (4eme-7eme s.): Etude regionale 2. Henry Innes Macadam, Settlements and Settlement Patterns in Northern and Central Transjordania, c. 550 - c. 750 3. Yoram Tsafrir and Gideon Foerster, From Scythopolis to Baysān - Changing Concepts of Urbanism 4. Ali Zeyadeh, Settlement Patterns: An Archaeological Perspective. Case Studies from Northern Palestine and Jordan 5. Robert Schick, The Settlement Pattern of Southern Jordan: The Nature of the Evidence 6. Donald Whitcomb, The Misr of Ayla: Settlement at al-'Aqaba in the Early Islamic Period 7. George T. Scanlon, Al-Fustāt: The Riddle of the Earliest Settlement 8. G. R. D. King, Settlement in Western and Central Arabia and the Gulf in the Sixth-Eighth Centuries A.D. 9. Mikhail B. Piotrovsky, Late Ancient and Early Mediaeval Yemen: Settlement Traditions and Innovations 10. Michael G. Morony, Land Use and Settlement Patterns in Late Sasanian and Early Islamic Iraq 11. Alastair Northedge, Archaeology and New Urban Settlement in Early Islamic Syria and Iraq This volume presents a much needed addition to the history of the transit from Byzantine to Islamic administration and a welcome survey of recent archaeology of an understudied period (Gladys Frantz-Murphy)

The subject of sorrow (huzn) and how it should be treated is a subject as old as mankind itself. Considered for the most part as something negative, which should be somehow avoided or remedied completely, the real meaning and purpose of its existence have never been explained satisfactorily. The Qur'an, however, claims that nothing is created purposelessly, which implies that sorrow also has its uses. With the aim of unravelling the mystery of its existence, this ground-breaking study aims to tell the story of sorrow in the Qur'an from a Muslim scholarly perspective, with particular emphasis on the theology of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi.

"This volume focuses on the problems researchers face when using (Byzantine) Greek, Syriac and Arabic sources together for the reconstruction of Near Eastern history from 400-c. 800. Contributions to the volume set the stage for a critical re-reading and revisionist interpretations of selected sources in the various cultural and literary traditions. The volume thus brings together neighbouring disciplines in ways that shed new light on this vitally important time in history. 1. MICHAEL WHITBY, Greek Historical Writing after Procopius: Variety and Vitality 2 . AVERIL CAMERON, New Themes and Styles in Greek Literature: Seventh-Eighth Centuries 3. JOHN HALDON, The Works of Anastasius of Sinai: A Key Source for the History of Seventh-Century East Mediterranean Society and Belief 4. G. J. REININK, Ps.-Methodius: A Concept of History in Response to the Rise of Islam 5. HAN J. W. DRIJVERS, The Gospel of the Twelve Apostles: A Syriac Apocalypse from the Early Islamic Period 6. Wadad Al-QĀḌĪ Early Islamic State Letters: The Question of Authenticity 7. Stefan Leder, The Literary Use of the Khabar: A Basic Form of Historical Writing 8. Lawrence I. Conrad, The Conquest of Arwad: A Source-Critical Study in the Historiography of the Early Medieval Near East ""The need for such a project as this has been felt by students ... concerned with the birth of the new faith and the evolution of Islamic society."" (C. Edmund Bosworth)"

The Gulf is in the first rank of potential global flashpoints. It is the largest market for weapons imports in the world, and is considered to be a vital interest of all the great powers. Iran is viewed as an expansionist threat by the Arab states of the Gulf, who have built considerable militaries in a historically short timeframe. Security in the Gulf, however, is a complicated matter. The Arab states of the Gulf have pursued different defense policies as well as different ways of building up their forces. In some instances, the establishment of a strong military is not just a way to ensure security, but also a way to build a national identity. In other cases, great powers (such as the United States) seek to promote cooperation between the Arab Gulf militaries as an interim step to promote political reform and integration. The essays in this volume examine a broad range of issues in Gulf security. Security is a complex and subjective matter--the various perspectives in this volume combine to form a holistic view of a challenging and evolving topic.

How and why did Muslims first come to write their own history? The author argues in this work that the Islamic historical tradition arose not out of idle curiosity, or through imitation of antique models, but as a response to a variety of challenges facing the Islamic community during its first several centuries. In the first part, the author presents an overview of four approaches that have characterized scholarship on the literary sources, including the source-critical and the skeptical approaches, then it discusses historiographical problems raised by the Qurʾān and ḥadīth. In the second part, the work analyzes major themes in historical narratives and presents formal and structural characteristics of early Islamic historiography. The monograph concludes with the proposition of a four-stage chronology regarding the evolution of historical writing in Arabic. ... this book ... deserves to become the first that teachers introduce to students. (Richard Bulliet)

What are the ideological motives behind Iran's foreign policy? This new study examines Tehran's twin desires to protect national interests and to project real power. Factors determining Iran's foreign policy include: -Potential economic leader of the Middle East region -Key player in the oil and gas market -Centre of resistance against global Western domination -US and Israel policy -Syria as the bridge to Lebanon and Palestine There is a strong focus on primary sources, as well as interviews with EU, Russian and Middle East experts, supported by field trips to Iran, Turkey and GCC countries. Political, economic, religious and cultural aspects of Iran's influence abroad are covered. The final chapter covers most recent events and implications of Trump's rejection of the JCPOA.

Britain's hasty departure from Aden and South Arabia after 138 years has often been presented as a humiliation at best and a disaster at worst. London's hopes of handing power and sovereignty over to a friendly federal regime collapsed in the face of a nationalist uprising backed that enjoyed the support of Egypt. Five decades after the final British troops left Aden, academic experts and former British officials directly involved in the events that unfolded critically reflect on British withdrawal from South Arabia, the post-colonial problems in South Yemen that still resonate today, and how the United Kingdom learnt from its experience in stabilising Oman while overseeing the formation of the United Arab Emirates.

The bitter confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran is not only stoking conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, but now threatens the stability, security and well-being of the whole Gulf region. All the major global powers have significant interests in this area, and the pursuit of these interests adds further layers of division and conflict. This book goes to the heart of this issue, examining the critical modalities whereby the "Gulf Cold War" can be brought to an end. What is needed, the contributors argue, is the creation of a security community among the states of the Gulf. The processes through which this could be achieved are carefully examined. All those interested in the future and well-being of the Gulf region should give consideration to the perspectives advanced. This volume is based on a workshop held at the Gulf Research Meeting organized by the Gulf Research Center Cambridge in summer 2016.

Josef Horovitz (1874-1931) wrote this classic monograph a century ago in two parts in German. The editor added footnotes, corrections and the preface, and it is now a book in its own right. The translation was prepared by Marmaduke Pickthall (d. 1936). Lawrence I. Conrad, who re-edited the articles also presents a slightly corrected textual version, expanding and updating the notes and bibliography and adding a new introduction dealing with Horovitz's and other orientalists' work on early Islam in the early 20th century. Horovitz deals with thirteen early scholars who transmitted traditions or compiled sīra or maghāzī works, such as ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr (d. ca. 713), Ibn Isḥāq (d. 767) and al-Wāqidī (d. 823). 1. Maghāzī Authorities among the Tābi'ūn 2. The Early Medinans 3. The Students of al-Zuhrī 4. Maghāzī under the Early 'Abbāsids

Sadik Jalal Al-Azm was an internationally respected scholar and political commentator who offered innovative, often controversial challenges to conventional narratives on issues surrounding Islam and the West, secularism, Orientalism, and the Israel-Palestine issue. He was recognised as a principled defender of human rights and has been the main ethical reference for the Syrian revolution. Al-Azm was educated at the American University Beirut, and at Yale in modern European philosophy and has taught at Damascus, Harvard, Princeton, Williams, Brandeis, Oslo, Sendai, Leiden, Antwerp, Hamburg, Bonn, and Berlin, his academic specialization being Immanuel Kant and the critique of religious thought. Professor Al-Azm was the recipient of the Dr. Leopold-Lucas Prize 2004, the Erasmus Prize 2004, the Mahmoud Darwish Award for Freedom and Creativity 2013, and the Goethe Medal 2015. This 4 volume set includes the fourth and final volume of essays on Islam and politics written by the author, a foreword by the publisher and a table of contents of all four volumes.

Abdel-Hakim Ourghi's Reform of Islam is an open indictment of prevailing conservative Islam which insists on the absolute subjugation of the body and mind of all Muslims. The author seeks a humanist understanding of Islam and aims to interpret Islam in today's terms. He argues against the historical alienation and transfiguration that still shape the collective consciousness of Muslims in the 21st Century. Using critical analysis and logic, the author aims to reveal the true core of Islam. His 40 Theses include: The freedom of the individual to interpret the Qur'an No scholars as mediators between God and man Islam does not claim to possess the absolute truth Only a reformed and open Islam is a religion of peace The Qur'an as the basis of a contemporary humanist ethics

A complete facsimile edition of the previously unedited Samaritan sequel to the Kitāb al-Taʾrīkh by Abī l-Fatḥ Ibn Abī l-Ḥasan al-Sāmirī al-Danafī (d. ca. 1355). The edition of this chronicle photographically reproduces Paris BN Ms. Samaritain 10 (pp. 203-264), which, written in Middle Arabic, seems easily readable but poses a plethora of editorial problems. The editor entitled the work a Continuatio, and translated it into English with full editorial and explanatory annotation. The work describes the local history of the Samaritan people in Palestine up to the 10th century and contains valuable information about major political events presented, according to caliphates up to al-Rāḍī (d. 934). "Il appert que la Continuatio est une important source historique" (Claude Gilliot)

This is the third and final volume of a previously unpublished study by the foremost authority on the subject. The book is based on thorough research in the relevant archives and direct experience of the dispute. As such it will be the standard reference work on this question for all who have an interest in the Gulf Arab states, their territorial origins and its effects on their increasing role in regional and world affairs. The struggle to delineate the boundaries of south-eastern Arabia can claim to be one of the longest running diplomatic disputes of the twentieth century, which has echoes to this day. Volume 3 includes 40 maps and an index covering volumes 1 to 3.

The history of the text of the Qur'an has been a longstanding subject of interest within the field of Islamic Studies, but the debate has so far been focused on the Sunni traditions about the codices of Caliphs Abu Bakr and 'Uthman b. 'Affan. Little to no attention has been given to the traditions on 'Ali b. Abi Talib's collection of the Qur'an. This book examines both Shi'i and Sunni traditions on the issue, aiming to date them back to the earliest possible date and, if possible, verify their authenticity. To achieve this, the traditions are examined using Harald Motzki's isnad-cum-matn method, which is recognised as an efficient tool in dating the early Islamic traditions and involves analysis of both matn (text) and isnad (chain of trans-mission) with an emphasis on finding a correlation between the two.

Yemen is the only state on the Arabian Peninsula that is not a member of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council). It is also the only local state not ruled by a royal family. Relations between Yemen and the GCC states go back for centuries with some tribes in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman tracing genealogy back to ancient Yemen. In this timely volume six scholars analyze Yemen's relations with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Iran with a focus on recent developments, including the conflict after the fall of Ali Abdullah Salih in Yemen. This volume is based on a workshop held at the Gulf Research Meeting organized by the Gulf Research Center Cambridge in summer 2016.

This work investigates available early Arabic ḥadīth and exegetical literature in order to determine the great complexity of how Arabs, Muslims and Arab-Muslims viewed themselves and members of other communities. In particular, it focuses on the relation between definitions of Arabness and otherness with Islamic ascriptions of believers and nonbelievers and endeavors to trace the changing of these views over time. Moreover, this is an in-depth analysis of a series of ḥadīths and isnāds that discusses when, where, why, and by whom traditions were circulated during the 8th and 9th centuries. I. Bedouins and Non-Arabs II. The Impact of the Arab Polity in Retrospect III. The Great Fusion IV. Ambivalent Attitudes V. Apocalyptic Insecurities VI. Summary Discussion and Concluding Notes

This study is a critique of Arabic textual sources for the history of the Arabs in late antique times, during the centuries immediately preceding Muhammad and up to and including the Umayyad period. Its purpose is to consider the value and relevance of these sources for the reconstruction of the social, political, cultural and religious history of the Arabs as they were still pagans, and to reconstruct the emergence of Muhammadan and immediately post-Muhammadan religion and polity. For this religion (including the composition and canonisation of the Qur'an), the label Paleo-Islam has been coined, in order to lend historical specificity to this particular period, distinguishing it from what came before and what was to come later, all the while indicating continuities that do not, in themselves, belie the specificity attributed to this period of very rapid change. This is argued further in Aziz Al-Azmeh's The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allah and His People (Cambridge University Press, 2014), to which this book is both a companion and a technical preface. Al-Azmeh illustrates his arguments through examination of orality and literacy, transmission, ancient Arabic poetry, the corpus of Arab heroic lore (ayyam), the early narrative, the Qur'an, and other literary sources. The work includes a very extensive bibliography of the works cited. This is the first book in the Gerlach Press series Theories and Paradigms of Islamic Studies.