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Full-Text Articles in Near and Middle Eastern Studies

The Mazdakites, The ʿAyyārs And The Mithraists, Parvaneh Pourshariati Apr 2024

The Mazdakites, The ʿAyyārs And The Mithraists, Parvaneh Pourshariati

Publications and Research

No revolutionary movement in Iranian Late Antiquity has attracted as much attention as the fascinating and enigmatic Mazdakite uprising of the late fifth century. The scholarly consensus about these has it that 1) they engaged in ibāḥat al-nisā, sharing of wives; 2) advocated the sharing of property and 3) that their past time was wine imbibing and merrymaking. I shall argue here that, as Shaki correctly suspected but did not pursue the topic, the description of the Mazdakite in our primary sources (the Letter of Tansar, Ibn Qutayba, Ṭabarī, Dīnkard, Shahrestānī), actually follows the praxis of the ʿayyārs, chivalrous men …


Refugee Higher Education & Participatory Action Research Methods: Lessons Learned From The Field, Hadas Yanay, Juan Battle Aug 2021

Refugee Higher Education & Participatory Action Research Methods: Lessons Learned From The Field, Hadas Yanay, Juan Battle

Publications and Research

Refugee access to higher education is devastatingly low. Recognizing the complex barriers facing refugee learners, global educational initiatives are innovating flexible learning models which promote blended online and in-person learning modalities. This article describes the implementation of a five month, online-based internship pilot offered to 21 refugee participants in qualitative and quantitative research methods, through a participatory action research (PAR) framework in five different countries -- Malawi, Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda, and Lebanon. The internship is part of the Global Education Movement (GEM), which brings refugees accredited online college degree and career development opportunities. Through direct engagement, observation of the …


‘Wars Of Others’: National Cleavages And Attitudes Toward External Conflicts, Efe Tokdemir, Seden Akcinaroglu, H. Ege Ozen, Ekrem Karakoc Jul 2020

‘Wars Of Others’: National Cleavages And Attitudes Toward External Conflicts, Efe Tokdemir, Seden Akcinaroglu, H. Ege Ozen, Ekrem Karakoc

Publications and Research

Why do individuals sympathize with others’ wars, an antecedent of the decision to become a foreign fighter? By collecting original public opinion data from Lebanon, in 2015, and Turkey in 2017, about the actors of conflict in Syria, we test the argument that an ethno-religious cleavage at home shapes the proclivity of individuals to support others’ wars. Individuals may perceive a war abroad as endangering political and social balance of power at home – and hence own survival. Therefore, when transnational identities map onto a national cleavage, as in the Sunni–Shia cleavage in Lebanon, and Turk – Kurd cleavage in …


Turkish Public Opinion And Cultural And Political Demands Of The "Kurdish Street", Ekrem Karakoc, H. Ege Ozen Jan 2020

Turkish Public Opinion And Cultural And Political Demands Of The "Kurdish Street", Ekrem Karakoc, H. Ege Ozen

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.


Islam And Buddhism: The Arabian Prequel?, Anna Akasoy Mar 2019

Islam And Buddhism: The Arabian Prequel?, Anna Akasoy

Publications and Research

Conventionally, the first Muslim-Buddhist encounters are thought to have taken place in the context of the Arab-Muslim expansions into eastern Iran in the mid-seventh century, the conquest of Sind in 711 and the rise of the Islamic empire. However, several theories promoted in academic and popular circles claim that Buddhists or other Indians were present in western Arabia at the eve of Islam and thus shaped the religious environment in which Muhammad’s movement emerged. This article offers a critical survey of the most prominent arguments adduced to support this view and discusses the underlying attitudes to the Islamic tradition, understood …


Building Brand Kurdistan: Helly Luv, The Gender Of Nationhood, And The War On Terror, Nicholas S. Glastonbury May 2018

Building Brand Kurdistan: Helly Luv, The Gender Of Nationhood, And The War On Terror, Nicholas S. Glastonbury

Publications and Research

In the early 2000s, the Kurdistan Regional Government hired a US-based firm to begin a public relations campaign called “The Other Iraq.” Since that time, it has worked with a number of PR and lobbying firms to build a cultural, political, and financial apparatus that I refer to as Brand Kurdistan. This apparatus aims to prove to Western audiencesthat the Kurds are a liberal exception in an illiberal Middle East, and to build prospects of KRG’s eventual national independence. This article explores the connections between Brand Kurdistan and the gendering of Kurdish nationalism, focusing particularly on Kurdish pop diva Helly …


Review Of Muslims And Jews In France. History Of A Conflict By Maud S. Mandel, Bryan Turner Dec 2016

Review Of Muslims And Jews In France. History Of A Conflict By Maud S. Mandel, Bryan Turner

Publications and Research

The mood of European scholarship with respect to the recognition and integration of Islam is typically pessimistic. The rise of anti-immigrant and anti-Islam political parties – Golden Dawn in Greece, the Northern League in Italy, Marine Le Penn and the National Front in France, and the English defense league in Britain – have exposed a hitherto hidden or ignored under-current of resentment against foreigners. In the context of these developments, Maud Mandel’s study of Muslims and Jews in France is a welcome corrective to the dominant focus on anti-Islam in the academic literature and in the popular media. The historical …


Specters Of Kurdish Nationalism: Governmentality And Counterinsurgent Translation In Turkey, Nicholas S. Glastonbury Jan 2015

Specters Of Kurdish Nationalism: Governmentality And Counterinsurgent Translation In Turkey, Nicholas S. Glastonbury

Publications and Research

This essay examines translations of the Kurdish epic poem Mem û Zîn into Turkish, tracing the logics behind these state-sponsored translations and examining how acts of translation are also efforts to regulate, translate, and erase Kurdish subjectivities. I argue that the state instrumentalizes Mem û Zîn’s potent nationalist currency in order to disarm present and future claims of Kurdish national autonomy. Using translation as a counterinsurgent governmental tool, the state attempts to domesticate Kurdish nationalist discourses even as it reproduces them, thereby transforming Kurdish nationalism into a specter of itself. Attending to this specter, however, allows us to see how …


Global Futures And Government Towns: Phosphates And The Production Of Western Sahara As A Space Of Contention, Mark Drury Apr 2013

Global Futures And Government Towns: Phosphates And The Production Of Western Sahara As A Space Of Contention, Mark Drury

Publications and Research

The study of natural resources lends itself to theorizing the politics of nature and the politics of time. The space of Western Sahara, where both remain highly contested, provides an opportunity to consider the ramifications of resources in political conflict at different historical moments. Drawing from environmental histories of North Africa and the Sahara, as well as the anthropology of time, the author focuses on two historical moments. The first, from 1945 to 1972, concerns the discovery of phosphate deposits during the Spanish colonial period and the implications of this discovery for political authority in the Sahara more broadly. The …


Soldiers Of Science--Agents Of Culture: American Archaeologists In The Office Of Strategic Services (Oss), Despina Lalaki Jan 2013

Soldiers Of Science--Agents Of Culture: American Archaeologists In The Office Of Strategic Services (Oss), Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

"Scientificity" and appeals to political independence are invaluable tools when institutions such as the American School of Classical Studies at Athens attempt to maintain professional autonomy. Nonetheless, the cooperation of scientists and scholars with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), among them archaeologists affiliated with the American School, suggests a constitutive affinity between political and cultural leadership. This relationship is here mapped in historical terms, while, at the same time, sociological categorizations of knowledge and its employment are used in order to situate archaeologists in their broader social and political context and to evaluate their work not merely as agents …


Weaponizing Tear Gas: Bahrain’S Unprecedented Use Of Toxic Chemical Agents Against Civilians., Richard Sollom, Holly G. Atkinson Aug 2012

Weaponizing Tear Gas: Bahrain’S Unprecedented Use Of Toxic Chemical Agents Against Civilians., Richard Sollom, Holly G. Atkinson

Publications and Research

The Bahraini government’s response to the early 2011 pro-democracy protests was brutal, systematic, and violent. In addition to birdshot and rubber bullets, government law enforcement attacked unarmed protestors with toxic chemical agents including tear gas. The government’s crackdown on the medical profession was especially harmful, as security forces arrested and detained doctors, raided health facilities, and obstructed patients from receiving necessary care. This report’s findings are based on field research that the authors conducted in Bahrain (April 2012) to investigate excessive use of force by law enforcement officials since June 2011—the end of Bahrain’s state of emergency. The medico-legal team …


Under The Gun: Ongoing Assaults On Bahrain’S Health System, Richard Sollom, Holly G. Atkinson May 2012

Under The Gun: Ongoing Assaults On Bahrain’S Health System, Richard Sollom, Holly G. Atkinson

Publications and Research

In February 2011, the Government of Bahrain began targeting health professionals who treated protesters. In April 2012, PHR's Richard Sollom, Deputy Director, and Holly Atkinson, MD, FACP, past President of PHR's Board and volunteer expert, authored a report showing the devastation on Bahrain's health system that have resulted from the Government of Bahrain’s continued assault on doctors, patients, and the healthcare system.


Alexander In The Himalayas: Competing Imperial Legacies In Medieval Islamic History And Literature, Anna Akasoy Jan 2009

Alexander In The Himalayas: Competing Imperial Legacies In Medieval Islamic History And Literature, Anna Akasoy

Publications and Research

In 1888, Rudyard Kipling published a collection of stories in a volume with the title The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Tales. The collection includes the short story The Man Who Would be King, in which Kipling's alter ego, a British journalist in India, makes the acquaintance of a pair of adventurers, Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnehan, who demand his help as a fellow Mason. The two shady characters have set out to take advantage of divisions among the natives and are determined to install themselves as kings in Kafiristan, a remote region inhabited by pagans in the north of the …


The Man-Made Disaster: Fire In Cities In The Medieval Middle East, Anna Akasoy Jan 2007

The Man-Made Disaster: Fire In Cities In The Medieval Middle East, Anna Akasoy

Publications and Research

Considering the building materials and climatic conditions in the medieval Middle East, fires must have been a major problem. This article provides a first survey of sources which are relevant for studying the impact of fires in urban environments. Evidence can be found, for example, in historiographies such as Ibn Kathīr's The Beginning and the End, or in legal discussions. Most fires mentioned in these sources were caused during riots or war, or by accidents in markets. The article also analyses how far fires fit into the general pattern of discussions around disasters in medieval Arabic literature.