Islamic World and Near East History Commons^™

Do Muslims Vote Islamic?, Charles Kurzman, Ijlal Naqvi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Islamic parties have won parliamentary elections in several countries in recent years, leading some observers to speculate that Muslims vote Islamic whenever they are given the chance. However, a review of every parliamentary election in Muslim societies over the past 40 years shows that Islamic parties often compete and rarely win—and the freer the election, the worse these parties perform. In addition, an unprecedented collection of Islamic party platforms shows that Islamic parties have transformed since the 1980s, publicly endorsing democracy and women's rights and de-emphasizing shari'a and jihad. This record suggests that Islamic parties have embraced elections more than …

Kibrisli Rumlarin Turk Kurtulus Savasi'ndaki Etkinlikleri (Greek Cypriots Turkish Liberation Events In War), Engin Berber

Center for Turkish Studies Occasional Paper Series

In this paper, Dr. Engin Berber discusses the history and politics of Cyprus.

The text of the paper is in Turkish.

The End Of The Miḥna, John P. Turner

Faculty Scholarship

Why did al-Mutawakkil end the Miḥna? The usual answer to this question assumes that he was acknowledging the inevitable victory of the ulamā. He is seen to be `cutting his losses' by restoring and enforcing orthodoxy as the traditionalist ulamā saw it. In this article I offer a different answer. Al-Mutawakkil ended the Miḥna as one part of his broader effort to establish his position as sovereign and independent of the individuals and structures that had carried over from al-Wāthiq's reign. Eliminating the Miḥna was one strategy deployed in undermining and eliminating the “kingmakers” who had placed him on the …

Ruling With Rules: Electoral Institutions And Authoritarian Resilience In The Middle East, Andrew Barwig

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

What explains the resilience of authoritarian regimes in the face of regular competitive elections that ostensibly should promote democratic transitions? This dissertation examines both why and how parliamentary elections in Jordan and Morocco have served to reinforce these two Arab monarchies. In doing so, it develops a framework in which the degree of cohesion among incumbent and opposition elites shape electoral system design and, in turn, particular electoral rules structure mass political attitudes and elite configurations. The main argument is that lower electoral thresholds generate unique electoral environments in which patronage politics thrive and opposition-based politics falter, thus producing a …

The Ottoman Gunpowder Empire And The Composite Bow, Nathan Lanan

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

The Ottoman Empire is known today as a major Gunpowder Empire, famous for its prevalent use of this staple of modern warfare as early as the sixteenth century. However, when Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq visited Constantinople from 1554 to 1562, gunpowder was not used by the Sipahi cavalry who stubbornly, it seems, insisted on continuing to use the composite bow that the Turks had been using for centuries. This continued, despite their fear of European cavalry who used “small muskets” against them on raids. Was this a good idea? Was the composite bow a match or contemporary handheld firearms? Were …

The Islamists Are Not Coming, Charles Kurzman, Ijlal Naqvi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Do Muslims automatically vote Islamic? That's the concern conjured up by strongmen from Tunis to Tashkent, and plenty of Western experts agree. They point to the political victories of Islamc parties in Egypt, Palestine, and Turkey in recent years and warn that more elections across the Islamic world could turn power over to anti-democratic fundamentalists.