Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East recent issues

Introduction: State and Society: Neither Lovers nor Haters

Turam, B., Ringer, M. M. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:14 PST

In both media accounts and scholarship, contemporary Turkey draws much attention as a hotbed of contestation between Islamists and secularists. Indeed, the ban of the popularly elected Islamist Welfare Party and of the headscarf in universities in 1998 reinforced an already predominant dichotomy between the repressively secular state and the Muslim actors. What deserves more attention, however, is the transformation in state-society relations since the late 1990s.

From a state-society perspective, the recent secularist backlash remains understudied. Why does the secularist discontent peak at a time when Muslim actors in Turkey seem to have secularized and integrated into the secular polity and capitalist market? The answer lies in the shifting patterns of interaction between the secular state and Muslim actors. While Islamists abandoned their radical edge and integrated into the secular system and free market, the ability of the Turkish state to accommodate religion has likewise expanded. Put differently, through its nonconfrontational interactions with Islamists, the Turkish state has experimented with greater capacities for accommodating religious piety and politics. While admittedly this increased tolerance has not always been smooth or unilinear, the long-term trend has been toward "the politics of engagement"—that is, everyday negotiations and cooperation between Muslims and the secular state.

The Dynamic Nature of Educational Policies and Turkish Nation Building: Where Does Religion Fit In?

Bayar, Y. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:14 PST

This article looks into how religion was situated within the educational policies of the early republican era (1920–38) in Turkey. The existing literature on Turkish nation building treats the educational policies of the time as solely and unchangingly directed toward the Westernization and secularization of the newly built nation. The present work is critical toward these works, and its aim is twofold. First, it demonstrates that while the direction and content of the republican elite's educational policies included the aims of Westernization and secularization, they also went beyond and above these two goals. More specifically, religion occupied a central place in educational policies. Second, the present article also demonstrates that the content of educational policies shifted throughout the Kemalist era and that these shifts signified a redefinition and reinterpretation of the role of religion in the education system.

Islam, Nation-State, and the Military: A Discussion of Secularism in Turkey

Gurbey, S. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:14 PST

In comparative and theoretical discussions, Turkey—where secularism is imposed from above as one of the irrevocable founding principles of the constitution—is criticized for being religiously hostile, aiming to repress religion in the public sphere in a coercive manner. This view is faulty on two grounds. First, it essentializes religion by assuming that religion is an objectively identifiable concept and that as such it can be separated from the realm of the secular and become an object of state power. The separation between the secular and the religious, as this article argues, is premised on particular definitions of religion, the roots of which are historically contingent and intimately linked to the rise of the modern nation-state. As the article argues, a particular conception of Islam is integrated into the nation-state's projects of rationalization, homogenization, and disciplinization, and as such it is turned into a disciplinary tool through which new citizens are created. Second, the claim that the state represses "religion" relies exclusively on legal and constitutional machinery that restricts the use of religion for political purposes and consequently misses how a particular conception of religion is disseminated by state institutions in the private realms of culture and education in order to form new Islamic selves that agree to put the nation's "sacred" interests above all "particular" interests. The article problematizes the way military service is normalized in defending the secular constitution through an appeal to the Islamic conception of martyrdom, wherein "good" citizens are promised to be rewarded not in the secular time but in the hereafter.

A Transformed Kemalist Islam or a New Islamic Civic Morality? A Study of "Religious Culture and Morality" Textbooks in the Turkish High School Curricula

Turkmen, B. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:14 PST

This article discusses the meaning of the formulation of a new Turkish civic morality infused with Islam in contemporary Turkey through a content analysis of the 1995 and 2007–08 editions of Religious Culture and Morality course textbooks used in high school curricula. I argue that this course, while maintaining continuity with the republic's diffusion of national religious morality through a revised version of Islam, referred to as "Kemalist Islam," concretizes in its recent syllabus the consequences of the re-Islamization of the Turkish public sphere since the 1990s.

This article asks questions about the relationship between secularism, citizenship, and Islam in contemporary Turkey. I argue that the "privatized religious belief" that Kemalist secularism tried to propagate did not result in reinforcing individualism in Turkish society. Rather, it was thought to provide a basis for a civic morality reinforcing the holistic spirit of Turkish nationalism, which subordinates the individual to society. My research tries to figure out in what sense the content of Kemalist Islam, once the only legitimate religiosity taught in national education, changed with the modifications and whether Kemalist Islam loses its centrality in the definition of citizen identity, to the advantage of a new Islamic morality with the re-Islamization of the Turkish public sphere.

Christian and Turkish: Secularist Fears of a Converted Nation

Ozyurek, E. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:14 PST

In the past twenty years, around three thousand Turkish Muslims converted to a Turkish-speaking Protestant movement. Despite their small number, they have been physically and ideologically attacked by Turkish nationalists. This article asks why it is so difficult for Turkish secular nationalists to accept that one can be a Turk and a Christian at the same time. Based on eight months of ethnographic research among Turkish Christians in Istanbul and Ankara and discourse analysis of popular antimissionary literature in Turkey, it argues that the nature of the campaign against Christian missionaries and Turkish converts to Christianity is first and foremost nationalist and etatist, not religious. Spokespeople and the gunmen of the antimissionary and anti-Christian campaign fear and loathe Turkish Christians primarily because they believe that by converting to Christianity they are being disloyal to their nation and their state.

Does Secularism Face a Serious Threat in Turkey?

Heper, M. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:14 PST

Since 2002, the year the Justice and Development Party (JDP) formed a majority government in Turkey, the bulk of secularists in that country have felt that Turkey would soon drift toward a state based on Islam. The secularists in question are of the opinion that the JDP government has been engaged in dissimulation (takiyye) and that, in the first opportune moment, would attempt to Islamize the state. In a related manner, the secularists think that there has been a gradual increase in the number of turbaned women and that the latter would exercise a moral pressure on uncovered women and oblige them to sport turbans. Thus it is presumed that the bulk of the people in Turkey long for a state based on Islam. This article takes up the question of whether indeed a great majority of the people in Turkey are inclined toward a state based on Islam, for they oppose the secular republic, they have little or no tolerance toward the secularists, and they insist that everybody in that country should practice and live Islam as they themselves do. The article draws on findings from reliable nationwide surveys conducted in Turkey since 1999.

The Urban Dynamism of Islamic Hegemony: Absorbing Squatter Creativity in Istanbul

Tugal, C. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:14 PST

The transformation of urban space constitutes one of the most dynamic aspects of the Islamist movement. Prevalent models have accounted for this phenomenon by referring to the rural immigrants' capacity for autonomous network building or their creative subjectivities. This article analyzes Islamization by studying the interactions between Islamists and the residents in a poor district in Istanbul. It demonstrates not only that the urban poor are indeed active in forming communities and subjectivities but also that their agency is shaped (and ultimately absorbed) by the Islamist project. It is Islamism as political practice and not solely the dynamism of civil society that lies at the root of the city's religious transformation. Nevertheless, Islamism becomes influential because it is able to link civil society and urban subjectivity to its project. These arguments are based on a two-year-long ethnography and fifty interviews.

The Synergy between Neoliberalism and Communitarianism: "Erdogan's Third Way"

Patton, M. J. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:14 PST

What distinguishes the Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP) from previous Islam-oriented parties is its ability to create a comfortable fit between neoliberal economic policies and conservative communitarian ideas. This article explains this convergence by exploring how a certain articulation of communitarianism by the AKP government lends itself to deepening neoliberalism and by drawing comparisons to experiments in Third Way politics elsewhere by modernizing social democrats. It suggests that the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has formulated a Turkish variant of the Third Way that accommodates Islamist values while privileging the neoliberal capitalist economic order.

Women's Choices of Head Cover in Turkey: An Empirical Assessment

Carkoglu, A. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:14 PST

Despite its political significance, not much is known about the behavioral and attitudinal bases of different head cover practices in Turkey. The article makes use of two nationwide representative surveys, one carried out in 1999 and the other in 2006, to expose the characteristics of "covered" women in contrast to "the uncovered." Three different types of head covers are distinguished: (1) the more traditional but relatively more colorful head cover allows for the hair, neck, and shoulders and much of the face to be seen; the turban, paler in color, covers all hair, the neck, and the shoulders and leaves only a smaller portion of the face uncovered; and the veil, in dark brown or black, leaves only the eyes uncovered. Several hypotheses are made on an a priori conceptual level, variables are operationalized, and proper tests are conducted. A detailed series of questions concerning attitudinal traits and the social and political preferences of covered and uncovered women, together with demographics, are used to determine Turkish women's choices for different types of religiously meaningful head covers. Among the various hypotheses, the political significance of turban wearing, as opposed to purely private-sphere religious beliefs as the guiding motivation behind turban use, is contrasted and tested.

The Secularization of a Faqih-Headed Revolutionary Islamic State of Iran: Its Mechanisms, Processes, and Prospects

Matsunaga, Y. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:14 PST

This article examines the secularization thesis of Iran's faqih-headed revolutionary Islamic state, as put forward by Sa'id Hajjarian (1954–), against the institutional and political developments in the post-Khomeini period. His thesis posited that the religious state in postrevolutionary Iran, with its official doctrine of the absolute mandate of the jurisprudent, serves as the most important accelerator in the two-part process of secularization of the traditional institutions and jurisprudence of Shiism as well as of the faqih-headed Islamic state. The article finds that the developments in the post-Khomeini period have generally confirmed the logic and insights of Hajjarian's thesis and suggests that the secularizing trends will likely continue as long as this particular state is in place.

Shiite Peasants and a New Nation in Colonial Lebanon: The Intifada of Bint Jubayl, 1936

Abisaab, M. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:14 PST

Studies on colonial Lebanon explain social change and the engagement with the state from the perspective of the rural landed elites and urban notables. Lebanon is usually investigated as a place for exhibiting or reconciling diverse sectarian cultures that ultimately develop a Libanist or Arabist national identity of some sort. Studies on Lebanon have rarely attended to the voices from below, or class and provincial engagements with colonialism. My article focuses on Shiite peasants and rural workers in the south struggling against a wide range of dislocations and civil disruptions brought by colonialism and the nascent Lebanese nation-state. The article also explores the connections among sectarian dynamics, colonial discipline, and peasant militancy. Shiite peasants used tools of collective organization, bargaining, and revolts against the French and drew critical alliances with a sector of the landed notables and religious intellectuals. The peasants were less amenable to Libanist national projections and not readily mobilized on the basis of a Shiite sectarian identity. Rather, their demands in the petitions they sent to the French and the slogans they raised during the revolts reflected suspicion of nationalist politics and a concern for local economic empowerment and political representation.

Who Could Marry at a Time like This? Debating the Mehndi ki Majlis in Hyderabad

Ruffle, K. G. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:14 PST

Networks of trade, scholarship, and pilgrimage have traditionally connected Muslims transregionally, yet these very networks draw into dramatic relief the significance of the local in defining Shi'i religious practices and worldviews. The Shi'i community in the South Indian city of Hyderabad, an important location within the Shi'i cosmpolitan, has strongly resisted campaigns launched by the religious elite of Iran and Iraq to homogenize its "vernacular" Muharram ritual-devotional practices. This article examined the contested nature of the mehndi ceremony of Qasem, who was married and martyred at the battle of Karbala in 680 CE. The mehndi ceremony, or majlis, is steadfastly observed on 7 Muharram by Hyderabadi Shias in defiance of pressures from the ulema in Iran and Iraq to eliminate practices deemed to be unauthentic and un-Islamic. Drawing on archival and ethnographic data, I argue that the participation in the mehndi ki majlis narrates a worldview connecting Hyderabad's Shias to the cosmopolitan Karbala through the vernacular ecology, aesthetics, and values of the local Deccani culture.

Reading the Texture of History and Memory in Early-Nineteenth-Century Punjab

Dhavan, P. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:14 PST

This article examines two early-nineteenth-century Punjabi histories to demonstrate how these texts reflect ruptures in the recording and reordering of Sikh historical memories in the decades prior to colonization. An awareness of the East India Company's interest in the records of the recent Sikh past is reflected in the works of Ratan Singh Bhangu, the author of the hagiographic work Gur Panth Prakash, and Ram Sukh Rao, the court historian of the Sikh kingdom of Kapurthala. The works on these Punjabi authors reveal anxieties about how the recent past would be recorded and understood not only by the colonial state but also by the larger Punjabi-speaking Sikh community. A close contextual reading of both texts reveals the complex impact of colonial rule on local modes of historical narration. Each author crafted competing discourses about the nature of Sikh sovereignty for the new audiences of Sikh courts and the Khalsa warrior community. Reading these two texts together destabilizes our understanding of these two important and widely used sources of Sikh history and raises methodological concerns about how such precolonial sources should be read. In particular, analyzing the expressive and literary forms of such narratives to understand the ways in which they simultaneously created and engaged new audiences in vernacular languages such as Punjabi, mobilizing such groups through the forging of new political and cultural identities, is extremely important.

A Literary and Historical Background of Martyrdom in Iran

Korangy, A. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:14 PST

Martyrdom in Iran and the Middle East is a phenomenon that has been subject to a plethora of religious exegesis. However, scholars, often not having prescribed to the Aristotelian notion of poetics, have not only ignored the literary aspects of this phenomenon in the Middle East but have also failed to realize the poetics that exist within the parameters of religious and Koranic exigencies of martyrdom. This article summarizes and creates reference points for the morphology of a contemporary phenomenon, which finds its prototype not only in the tragic events of Karbala but also in literary occasions that long preceded it in Iran. This paradigm is found to be quite sufficient when dealing with martyrdom in Iran, which with the onslaught of the Safavids was provided with the proverbial "trigger" for its already long-standing literary canons. The importance of a lover-beloved relationship in accordance with a martyr's view of self as pertains to his or her actions in the face of God, country, and man under the rubric of some historical and literary events and productions throughout Iranian history is also epmhasized.

Issues of Power and Modernity in Understanding Political and Militant Islam

Amin-Khan, T. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:14 PST

The article offers an alternative to Eurocentric understandings of political Islam and now militant Islam—the two phenomena are distinguished—as an analysis of modernity, power, and the political is offered in relation to political Islam's characterization by modernists and civilizational theorists. This alternative perspective is useful to grasp the powerful new social reality in the form of militant Islam that has been unleashed since the end of the Cold War: altering culture, language, social, and political policy, while targeting women in many Muslim-majority societies. I argue that political Islam has to be conceived historically as a political phenomenon with a range of diverse manifestations that began to emerge during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as anticolonial movements and national liberation struggles became visible in colonized areas of Asia and Africa. Political Islam's emergence in the colonial context had two distinct responses: first, to engage with ideas of modernity, and, second, to contest and reject Western modernity by positing Islamic revivalism within the ambit of pan-Muslim nationalism. In the current context, the culturalist idiom has been employed equally by the forces of empire and militant/political Islam, but the latter has been more effective in galvanizing support. To make sense of this rise of militant Islam, the article examines the specific histories of political and militant Islam, the Muslim philosophers' engagement with the issue of "power" and the "political" in Islam and the unfolding dialectic of collaboration and resistance between political/militant Islam and the United States. The article's conclusion is that despite using the culturalist terrain of modernity to demonize the two tendencies in contemporary Islam, the United States' imperial drive and the role of client Muslim-majority states remain central in the rise of political and militant Islam.

The Second Empire: The Transformation of the Ottoman Polity in the Early Modern Era

Tezcan, B. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:14 PST

This essay proposes a new framework to study the history of the Ottoman Empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by focusing on the transformation of Ottoman political structures in the seventeenth century. It offers a summary of Ottoman political history up to the sixteenth century, underlines the socioeconomic transformation of the late sixteenth century and its impact on politics, and argues that the rebellions and depositions of the seventeenth century limited the political power of the Ottoman monarch and changed the nature of his relations with other major actors in the polity. This new political dispensation, which the author calls the "Second Empire," came to be remembered retrospectively as a corrupt version of the patrimonial empire that it had replaced mainly because its history was produced by the Ottoman New Order that destroyed the political structures of the Second Empire in the nineteenth century.

Communalism, Globalization, and Governmentality: Some Reflections on South Asia

Heath, D. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:14 PST

Any viable explanation of communalism must go beyond viewing all communalisms as nationalist fragments to delineate the differing natures of these fragments, as well as to study their changing configuration over time, including the ways in which they have been shaped by globalization. But since what distinguishes contemporary global processes from earlier geopolitical formations is that individuals are encouraged to voluntarily seek inclusion in the new global order, this article aims to extend the analysis of the relationship between communalism and globalization not only by exploring the ways in which the globalization of governmental processes that endeavour to fashion "the conditions in which the body is to live and to define its life" has served to shape contemporary communalisms but also by exploring the role of such communalisms in transforming the domain of global governmentality.

India Traders of the Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza ("India Book")

Fisher, M. H. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:14 PST

Britain's Declining Empire: The Road to Decolonisation, 1918-1968

Stern, P. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:15 PST

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

Parsons, L. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:15 PST

Rethinking Global Sisterhood: Western Feminism and Iran

Bahramitash, R. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:15 PST

CONTRIBUTORS

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:15 PST

What Happened to the African Renaissance? The Challenges of Development in the Twenty-First Century

Zeleza, P. T. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:43 PDT

The essay discusses the trajectory of the African renaissance as an idea and a project, a task that in essence entails examining Africa's postcolonial development paradigms, performances, and prospects. It is argued that this idea represents a recurrent yearning for a usable future aching deep in the consciousness of a people with painful memories of suffering, struggle, and survival against the historical ravages of slavery, colonialism, and neocolonialism, a longing for sustainable development, for viable African modernities. Recently, the dreams and discourses of the African renaissance have been driven as much by Afro-optimism as by Afro-pessimism, by both the positive and the negative political and economic changes that have taken place in postcolonial Africa. The essay is divided into four parts. It begins with a brief survey of the resurgence of the idea of the African renaissance in the 1990s in postapartheid South Africa. Then it examines Africa's complex and contradictory inheritances of colonialism and nationalism out of which postcolonial Africa was molded. This is followed by an analysis of Africa's development ideologies and experiences since independence characterized by authoritarian developmentalism and authoritarian neoliberalism. The essay concludes by trying to capture the current internal and external challenges facing Africa's efforts to embark on democratic developmentalism.

Sufism and Governmentality in the Late Ottoman Empire

Silverstein, B. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:43 PDT

This article examines transformations in Sufi orders and in the status of Sufis in the late Ottoman Empire and argues that their increasing bureaucratization was an extension of increased rationalization of Ottoman administration and the normalization of the objects of governance into the Islamic sphere. The characteristically modern modes of power that Michel Foucault identified as governmentality and the particular kinds of knowledge and subjectivities associated with them were profoundly rearticulating the nature of Sufism in Ottoman lands by the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The article shows that changes in Sufi discourse and practice reflected the context of broader debates about Islamic traditions, institutions, and society at large in the late Ottoman Empire. This reevaluation of the experiences of Sufis in the later empire is important to an adequate interpretation of the relationship between Sufism and reform and of the concrete circumstances in which the orders were eventually proscribed by the republic in 1925.

Bringing the State Back in, Yet Again: The Debate on Socioreligious Reform in Late-Nineteenth-Century India

Lamba, R. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:43 PDT

This essay seeks to complicate the intellectual landscape of late-nineteenth-century colonial India by probing the manner in which Indian social reformers negotiated the possibilities for social change in the context of colonial rule. Particular attention is paid to the views of the prominent social reformer Mahadev Govind Ranade during the controversy over the Age of Consent Bill. Ranade noted the relevance of the instrumentalities of the state in securing the vital interests of those subject to relations of domination; he was able to do so without neglecting to address the issue that state power in his time vested in a colonial regime. By providing resources to delink state power from colonial power, the conclusions yielded by the analysis in this essay unsettle an influential hypothesis according to which Indian nationalists, from the late nineteenth century onward, did not want the colonial state to intervene in the reform of "traditional" Indian society. Unsettling this hypothesis has at least two implications: it enables a fresh appraisal of the resources of modern Indian political thought, and it creates positive conceptual space for considering the role of state power in alleviating relations of domination in times marked by the advent of neocolonialism.

De-Zoroastrianization and Islamization: The Two Phases of Iran's Religious Transition, 747-837 CE

Khanbaghi, A. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:43 PDT

About a half century after ruling Iran and shortly after conquering Central Asian lands (695–747 CE), the Muslim Arabs introduced political measures to Islamize these regions. Their policies generated discontent, and a period of uprisings followed that lasted nine decades (747–837 CE). This article investigates the sociopolitical upheavals of this period to explain the conversion of Iranians from Zoroastrianism to Islam as a two-stage process. The article argues that the Iranians first distanced themselves from conventional Zoroastrianism and followed insurgent leaders with new religious ideologies. After their leaders were defeated, they accepted the religion of their Muslim rulers.

Yoga in Asia--Mimetic History: Problems in the Location of Secret Knowledge

Alter, J. S. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:43 PDT

On one level, and with reference to a specific frame of reference, embodied forms of practice that have come to be associated with Yoga and Taoist philosophy appear to be very similar if not identical in terms of form, structure, and purpose. However, there is no clear-cut history of communication between eastern and southern Asia concerning the exchange of ideas linked to these practices, and where some scholars presume direct, linear exchange, and obvious congruity, others see radical difference and discontinuity. Taking the inspired work of the Bengali scholar Prabodh Candar Bagchi as a point of departure—and eternal return—the argument presented here is twofold. First, it is highly problematic to conceptualize cross-cultural contact in the premodern period not just in terms of the modern geopolitics of nationalism—which is fairly obvious—but also in terms of a history of ideas that is itself structured by modernity. Second, secret knowledge transforms what is in fact impossible—immortality, transcendence, enlightenment—into a historical vortex that is both local and global. Mimetic history is the recursive pattern, structured through the paradox of secrecy, whereby the impossibility of embodied enlightenment is reflected in forms of practice that, in terms of both time and space, endlessly anticipate perfection.

Spinning without Touching the Wheel: Anticolonialism, Indian Nationalism, and the Deployment of Symbol

Brown, R. M. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:43 PDT

For the nationalist movement in early-twentieth-century India, the practice of spinning each day and the symbol of the spinning wheel served, together, to unify an extremely diverse nation in ways that earlier movements (notably the 1905–11 Bengal-centered swadeshi movement) had not. While certainly both khadi (homespun cloth) and clothing were central for the nationalist movement, this article instead investigates the distinct visual imagery of spinning. It argues that this very particular visual symbol effectively consolidated nationalist discourse in ways controversial khadi could not.

Explaining Social Mobilization in Pakistan: A Comparative Case Study of Baluchistan and Azad Kashmir

Surendra, S. D. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:43 PDT

The striking ethnic and linguistic diversity within Pakistan's highly centralized state makes it a prime target for social mobilization, especially in the form of secessionist movements. However, Pakistan's various states and territories have experienced extreme variation in social mobilization since the nation's creation. This article addresses this variation by looking at two opposing cases: Baluchistan and Azad Kashmir. Baluchistan, a tribal land of distinct culture and tradition, has experienced five ethnonationalist movements since 1947, including the ensuing insurgency. Azad Kashmir, by comparison, has experienced no major anti-Islamabad movements despite its independent culture and ample grievances.

Employing a comparative case study methodology, I argue that social mobilization in the Pakistani state is the result not simply of grievances, as other scholars have argued, but of a combination of unique opportunities that encourage rebellion, including economic viability and organizational advantage.

Lust, Greed, Torture, and Identity: Narrations of Conversion and the Creation of the Early Modern Renegade

Norton, C. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:43 PDT

The motives behind an individual's conversion to another religion are complex and frequently contested. The moment of conversion for the convert symbolizes the beginning of a new life and new opportunities; yet for the community he or she leaves, it is often interpreted as an act of religious and political betrayal, therefore prompting different, and often opposing, narratives of conversion. A number of tropes predominant in early modern English narratives dealing with conversion to Islam are of interest in this regard: the immoral deviant "renegade" motivated by excessive lust or greed who is worse than the "natural Turks," and the practice of violent, involuntary, forced conversion. These tropes, through their rhetorical construction of the renegade, attempt to fashion both individual and communal selves that act to relieve the psychological threat to the collective identity of the English community presented by the renegade's translocation of political, cultural and religious loyalties. It is therefore problematic to uncritically read these narratives as accurate depictions of the reality of conversion in North Africa as some previous studies have done: other contextual evidence and the use of alternative narrative frames portray converts and conversion from a significantly different perspective. In this article, primarily through the study of captivity narratives, I explore how and why these tropes of conversion were employed, the functions they fulfilled, and the contexts in which they were produced and consumed.

French New Orientalist Narratives from the "Natives": Reading More than Chahdortt Djavann in Paris

Nanquette, L. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:43 PDT

This article analyzes a trend in the prose texts of French writers of Iranian origin, based on close readings of Chahdortt Djavann, Comment peut-on être français? (How Can One Be French? 2006), and Ladane Azernour, Les larmes de l'exil: L'Iran confisqué (The Tears of Exile: Iran Confiscated, 2004). The article argues that new orientalism in France comes from the "natives" only, and can thus be considered as "self-orientalism" according to Edward Saïd's term. It uses the term native to point out the paradox of the new orientalist writers' discourse: they proclaim their Iranian origins and their witnessing of contemporary Iran, while they dissociate themselves from other Iranians. The article shows that new orientalism is tied with an "emulative" type of occidentalism, as opposed to a "revisionist" type. Such an emulative form of occidentalism is very close to an interiorized orientalism, erecting the West as a model and reproducing orientalist stereotypes. French new orientalist narratives are characterized by their simplified version of Islam, their construction of a polarized vision of the world, and the proclamation of their preference for the West. Emphatically othering characters and places, these narratives suggest that understanding between Iranian and French peoples has become impossible after the Islamic revolution. The autobiographical literary form helps to construct such a discourse because it makes it almost impossible to question the lived experiences. One of the purposes of this article is to point out the potential danger in publishing more new orientalist narratives, which for now are scarcely represented in the Franco-Iranian literary panorama.

Abolishing the East: The Dated Nature of Orientalism in the Definition and Ethical Analysis of the Hindu Faith

Barton, G. A. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:43 PDT

Historians have tangled with two difficult conceptualizations of Hinduism. One is the use of the term Hinduism, and the other, the relation between environmental ethics and Hinduism. One posits a "merry India" that is diverse, tolerant, and amorphous, impossible to pin down, define, or solidify into a single entity. The other accepts the term Hinduism and ascribes to it a battery of impressive environmental ethics that stand as a model for the West. The attempt to deconstruct the term Hinduism and the ascription of environmental ethics to Hinduism are both romantic expressions of an orientalism increasingly outdated by the new global identity of the large and growing subcontinent middle and upper class elites.

"Lowering Our Prestige": American Cinema, Mass Consumerism, and Racial Anxiety in Colonial India

Sinha, B. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:43 PDT

This article studies the impact of the American cinema on British India in the early twentieth century. Cinema is a valuable lens with which to study the triangular relationship between the United States, Britain, and South Asia because American films were popular and controversial across national and social divisions and dominated over 90 percent of the film industry in colonial India in the 1920s. The discourse around the film industry constituted a locus in which stereotypes about identity and attitudes toward empire and toward the United States were debated if not resolved. The article argues that American films of the 1920s posited an alternative notion of whiteness and the West that stood for democracy and social mobility, clashed with the traditionalism and hierarchy of empire, and undermined the notion of an Indian identity at odds with foreign technologies and entertainment.

What's Morality Got to Do with It? Benevolent Hegemony in the International System of South Asia

Sadiq, K. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:43 PDT

To understand whether ideas matter in international politics and if they can be agents of systemic transformation, one must examine the debate about the "benevolent" hegemony of the United States. Supporters of moral American hegemony claim that the spread of its moral values worldwide will bring about an international transformation. In short, hegemony serves a universal good. A similar claim has been made about the ancient international system of South Asia. The claim here is that the rule of Asoka—the Indian ruler credited with spreading Buddhism and nonviolence to the rest of the world—was committed to the collective good and to the propagation of an ethical code of conduct— dhamma. On this view, Asokan moral hegemony produced a peaceful South Asia. Against this view, this article shows how ideational variables such as dhamma were bound up with material interests to serve the strategic goals of Asokan hegemony in the international system of South Asia. It lends support to the realist conception of the world where strategic deployment of ideational variables and material interests enhance state power, thereby offering the best explanation of seemingly moral behavior.

Reading beyond Jasmine and Stars: Reading More than Lolita in Tehran

Mannani, M. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:43 PDT

Although neither Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books nor Fatemeh Keshavarz's Jasmine and Stars: Reading More than Lolita in Tehran completely lends itself to be discussed with the same tools usually adopted in analyzing Western modes of life writing—in this case, memoirs—both works still raise the valid and universal question in this field: how much of the true self is disguised by the subject, the "I" in each memoir? By drawing on the issues of truth, selectivity, memory, and subjectivity, I argue that "the true self" is disguised by the subject more in Keshavarz's memoir than by Nafisi in Reading Lolita in Tehran, although Keshavarz and a host of other critics, including Hamid Dabashi, hold a different opinion in their belligerent criticisms of Nafisi's book. In this essay, I also explore the concepts of homeland, exile, ultra-patriotism, and anti-patriotism within the context of contemporary Iranian politics and with multiple references to religious issues as they are brought up in both works. Moreover, my comparative essay also deals with the literary style and the literary content in each work from an original perspective.

Being Modern in the Middle East: Revolution, Nationalism, Colonialism, and the Arab Middle Class

Joshi, S. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:43 PDT

Empires of Intelligence: Security Services and Colonial Disorder after 1914

Jacob, W. C. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:43 PDT

The Unending Frontier: An Environmental History of the Early Modern World

Pope, P. E. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:43 PDT

Lines of the Nation: Indian Railway Workers, Bureaucracy, and the Intimate Historical Self

Kabir, A. J. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:43 PDT

In Spite of Partition: Jews, Arabs, and the Limits of Separatist Imagination

Grumberg, K. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:43 PDT

Warring Souls: Youth, Media, and Martyrdom in Post-revolution Iran

Chelkowski, P. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:43 PDT

Of Irony and Empire: Islam, the West, and the Transcultural Invention of Africa

Zachernuk, P. S. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:43 PDT

The Maghrib in the New Century: Identity, Religion, and Politics

Ghazal, A. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:44 PDT

Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation

Papan-Matin, F. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:44 PDT

CONTRIBUTORS

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:30:44 PDT

Introduction: The Thirtieth Anniversary of the Iranian Revolution

Parsa, M. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:07:07 PDT

State, Class, and Ideology in the Iranian Revolution

Parsa, M. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:07:07 PDT

Rethinking Revolutions: Integrating Origins, Processes, and Outcomes

Goldstone, J. A. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:07:07 PDT

What Was Revolutionary about the Iranian Revolution? The Power of Possibility

Selbin, E. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:07:07 PDT

The Islamization of the Social Movements and the Revolution, 1963-1979

Moazami, B. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:07:07 PDT

Women and the 1979 Revolution: Refusing Religion-Defined Womanhood

Moghissi, H. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:07:07 PDT

Lessons (Not) Learned: Reflections on a Failed Revolution

Rahnema, S. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:07:07 PDT

What a Revolution! Thirty Years of Social Class Reshuffling in Iran

Behdad, S., Nomani, F. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:07:07 PDT

The Political Elite in the Islamic Republic of Iran: From Khomeini to Ahmadinejad

Rakel, E. P. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:07:07 PDT

The Iranian Revolution and its Nemesis: The Rise of Liberal Values among Iranians

Moaddel, M. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:07:07 PDT

Neo-Populism in Comparative Perspective: Iran and Venezuela

Dorraj, M., Dodson, M. — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:07:07 PDT

CONTRIBUTORS

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:07:07 PDT

Introduction: Intellectual History in Middle Eastern Studies

Gershoni, I., Singer, A. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

Voices of Protest: Arab Nationalism and the Palestinian Revolution at the American University of Beirut

Anderson, B. S. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

This article examines the student protests of the early 1950s and the late 1960s to early 1970s at the American University of Beirut (AUB) to investigate how the students used the political ideologies dominant in each era to redefine the parameters of the campus arena. In the 1950s, under the rubric of Arab nationalism, students saw Arab solidarity as the key to overturning repression in all its forms, including those perpetrated by the AUB administration. Starting in 1968, students believed the Palestinian fedayeen represented a spirit that would catalyze a wholesale revolution against the continuing failures of the Arab governments and the AUB administration. A study of students at AUB in the twentieth century not only highlights shifting student-university relations but also opens a window onto changing political ideas in the Arab world in this same period.

The "Failure" of Radical Nationalism and the "Silence" of Liberal Thought in the Arab World

Schumann, C. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

In the intellectual history of the Arab world, there is a remarkable dearth of literature on liberal thought. In comparison, nationalism and Islamism have attracted much more attention and molded our image of the Middle East. This essay takes a new look at liberal thought by arguing that scholars should not confine themselves to searching for an Arab "liberalism" in the form of intellectuals or organizations that describe themselves as "liberals." It would be more fruitful to investigate the rise and decline of liberal ideas within the framework of ideologies that seem at first glance not to be liberal. Here, liberal ideas rarely develop by adopting Western liberal traditions but, rather, are the result of political struggles and experiences. Hence, liberal thought emerges from the criticism of authoritarian rule, even though some intellectuals may have advocated authoritarianism at an earlier stage. In the empirical part of this essay, I analyze four autobiographies of former radical nationalist activists from Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Although the authors still identify themselves as nationalists, they derived a more liberal outlook by reviewing their concrete political experiences.

Bread, Freedom, Independence: Opposition to Nazi Germany in Lebanon and Syria and the Struggle for a Just Order

Nordbruch, G. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

The rise of the Nazi regime in Germany left clear marks on the Lebanese and Syrian publics. While some were fascinated by the strength of the Nazi movement and its political visions, others vehemently questioned its ideological premises and repressive policies. This article reconstructs the political and ideological reasoning of this spectrum opposed to Nazism in the period from early 1933 until the end of World War II. Represented by various groupings actively engaged in local political and cultural debates, these circles represented a relevant part of contemporary Syrian and Lebanese society. However, hardly any research exists about these ideological currents. The aim of this article is to uncover the political activities of these circles and to highlight their role in local political culture.

"Out of Place": Home and Empire in the Works of Mahmud Ahmad al-Sayyid and Dhu Nun Ayyub

Bashkin, O. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

This essay highlights silenced aspects of Arab-Iraqi nationalism. While scholars of Iraqi nationalism paid great heed to intellectuals affiliated with the state, I explore sources that were written outside of official circles, namely, novels, to rescue a more nuanced understanding of Iraqi nationalism and, concurrently, to reconstruct the richness of the Iraqi cultural field. I focus on two intellectuals, Mahmud Ahmad al-Sayyid (1904-37) and Dhu Nun Ayyub (1908-84), two socialists whose novels critique the state and its elites. I argue that, despite the prominence of Pan-Arabism in Iraqi national historiography, their works reveal the existence of Eastern forms of Iraqi national identity that emphasize the connections among Iraqi, Indian, and Turkish nationalism(s). Such works also complicate our periodization of Iraqi history. Whereas scholars agree that after the end of World War II the Iraqi public sphere was invigorated by radical voices from the Left, these novels demonstrate the early existence of critical and democratic voices in the interwar period.

Mirza Kazem-Bek and the Kazan School of Russian Orientology

van der Oye, D. S. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

"Mirza Kazem-Bek and the Kazan School of Russian Orientology" examines the rise and fall of Kazan University's section of Oriental Letters (razriad vostochnoi slovesnosti), Imperial Russia's most important academic institution for the study of Asia in the early nineteenth century. Focusing on the university's prominent Persianist, Mirza Aleksandr Kasimovich Kazem-Bek, the article argues that in Russia scholars of the East did not always adhere to the Saidian schema of orientalism as inherently hostile to the subject of its study.

Fauzi al-Qawuqji and the Arab Liberation Army in the 1948 War toward the Attainment of King `Abdallah's Political Ambitions in Palestine

Yitzhak, R. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

King `Abdallah's political ambitions in Palestine—the annexation of Palestine to Transjordan under his rule—and his wish to send his army (the Arab Legion) to realize these ambitions, worried leaders of Arab countries. In an attempt to prevent King `Abdallah from realizing this goal, the Arab League decided in December 1947 to establish an Arab volunteer army, known as the Arab Liberation Army, under the command of Fauzi al-Qawuqji. The aim of this irregular army was to fight the Jews and to prevent the Arabs from sending their regular armies (including the Arab Legion) to Palestine.

Al-Qawuqji and King `Abdallah, however, had been very close since 1936, when with the king's help al-Qawuqji escaped from the British to Transjordan. Al-Qawuji was opposed to the former mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Huseini, and therefore al-Qawuji and King `Abdallah were on one side against the mufti and opposed to his political ambition to establish an independent Palestinian state. This political closeness between the two leaders formed the basis of King `Abdallah's aid to al-Qawuqji and to the Arab Liberation Army's entrance into Palestine from Transjordan, in return for Palestine's staying in the Arab territories—the territories King `Abdallah wanted to annex to Transjordan. The Arab Liberation Army soldiers deployed in these territories clashed with the mufti's supporters and diminished the mufti's influence in Palestine, helping King `Abdallah finally to conquer the territories and to annex them to Transjordan.

The (Non)Governance of Divided Territories: A Comparative Study of Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Palestine

Alvi-Aziz, H. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

The cartography of autonomous Palestine, as it has been forming since the peace process, appears to be designed for failure. A sovereign state consisting of fragmented territorial units harbors serious obstacles to effective governance. The national boundaries of such a state alone pose a major challenge in terms of internal and external security, national unity, trade, resource allocation, transportation/mobility, and socioeconomic development. Moreover, these challenges are immensely magnified relative to a newly independent, underdeveloped state, as seen in historical examples. This article analyzes the (non)governance of divided territories, drawing on the analogy of divided Pakistan. The case of East Pakistan/Bangladesh serves as an example of the difficulties embodied in governing geographically separated territories. This article proposes that autonomous Palestine is seemingly at risk of making similar mistakes in attempting to govern divided territories.

Afghanistan: A Legacy of Violence? Internal and External Factors of the Enduring Violent Conflict

Mishali-Ram, M. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

Afghanistan has been the scene of enduring violent conflict for three decades, yet the sources of its conflict date back to the establishment of the Afghan state in the eighteenth century. The American-led military intervention in October 2001 ended the extremist Taliban rule in the torn country and facilitated democratic elections but did not terminate the Afghan turmoil and the threat of its regional spillover effects. Six years after the invasion, hopes for renovation, peace, and stability are entwined with great challenges and fears of continuing insecurity. Alongside efforts to advance social, economic, and security reforms, the Afghan government, assisted by international forces, faces escalating insurgency by Taliban and al-Qaeda militants. This complex and dangerous situation questions the possibility of imminent peace and stable democracy in a country where violence and enduring conflict have been instrumental throughout its history.

The central thesis of this essay is that to understand the Afghan conflict we must take into account a variety of interrelated factors from the global, regional, and internal cycles of analysis, none of which can be isolated or seen as satisfactory in itself. More specifically, it is contended here that efforts made by external powers to manage ethnic conflicts and establish a nation-building process in foreign countries should be based on broad consent of the parties involved.

The Truman-Churchill Proposal to Resolve the Iran-U.K. Oil Nationalization Dispute

Pirouz, K. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

After becoming prime minister for the second time, and having won the oil nationalization case at the World Court, Muhammad Musaddiq was hopeful that the British would be more compromising in their approach toward the oil nationalization issue. He was also hopeful of the American support in the dispute.

President Truman and Secretary of State Dean Acheson were both sympathetic toward Iran. At the same time Churchill, who had just become prime minister, was concerned about maintaining American support in this crisis. The mutual efforts of the British and Americans to reconcile their objectives finally led to a joint proposal issued by Truman and Churchill. This proposal spelled out the basis for a new agreement regarding the oil nationalization dispute. This proposal was rejected by Musaddiq's government. The two leaders subsequently issued a second proposal that was also rejected by Musaddiq's government. With this second rejection the Americans and British concluded that they could not resolve the oil issue through negotiation with Musaddiq.

Where Will I Dwell? A Sociology of Literary Identity within the Iranian Diaspora

Vahabzadeh, P. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

By offering a comprehensive survey of the theories pertaining to the literature produced by Iranian expatriate communities, this essay argues that the many faces of "emigration literature" indeed reflect the immigrants' varied experiences of their departure and their host societies. Furthermore, the essay pursues the points of divergence of this genus of literature to show how, ironically, various strands and different works in Iranian emigration literature contribute to the diversity of literature in their host societies. This "dual function" characterizes emigration literature: on the one hand, as a literature of departure from a homeland that vanishes in memory, this strand of literature narrates the existential dilemmas of the loss of a past in one's homeland; on the other hand, the existential settlement in the host land drifts such narrative into an ever-expanding future not necessarily bound by a place. Emigration literature dwells in this terra nulleum.

Martyrdom and the "Good Life" in the Iranian Cinema of Sacred Defense

Partovi, P. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

This essay investigates the place of cinema in the formulation and maintenance of an Iranian popular civil religion—reworking older ideas and practices largely taken from Islam to articulate with modern social and political change in Iran. Of particular interest is the theme of martyrdom in the Iranian cinema of sacred defense, originally conceived to depict the spiritual dimensions of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88). I explore the foundational role of this genre in the postrevolutionary Iranian cinema and its development in concert with television. I then argue that representations of martyrdom in the Cinema of Sacred Defense, born of a complex history, are attempts to make the divine manifest in film and in real life. While the Cinema of Sacred Defense is often claimed to be a marked departure from previous Iranian films, some of its preoccupations remain much in line with the now-banned popular commercial cinema of the Pahlavi era, often referred to as filmfarsi (Persian film). The film chosen as the case study, Layli ba man ast (Leily Is with Me; Kamal Tabrizi, 1996), is of particular interest not only because it is among the most popular releases of the Sacred Defense genre but also because it is a parody of the genre. The film also provides an incisive critique of new forms of social organization, social aspirations, and personal success (the "good life") that the revolution and the war engendered. Finally, I turn to how Leily Is with Me and other popular titles of the past decade may indicate the reconstitution of the much-maligned filmfarsi genre.

How Newness Enters the World: The Methodology of Sheldon Pollock

Gould, R. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

This essay aims at a methodological interpretation of Sheldon Pollock's oeuvre from the perspective of comparative literary history. Part 1 focuses on his recent magnum opus, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men. Part 2 compares the Sanskrit cosmopolis in Pollock's elaboration with cosmopolises of the 'ajam world. I argue that Pollock's analysis of culture and power in premodernity lays the groundwork for a philosophical critique of modern forms of government, the outlines of which are traced in part 3. Premodernity is conceptually necessary to critical and postcolonial theory, in spite of its seeming empirical absence from contemporary thought.

The Ottoman Balkans, 1750-1830

Antov, N. A. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

The Ismailis in the Middle Ages: A History of Survival, a Search for Salvation

Jamal, Z. N. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

The Colonial Staged: Theatre in Colonial Calcutta

Mitra, S. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

The Scandal of Empire: India and the Creation of Imperial Britain

Bose, N. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

Turkey: From Empire to Revolutionary Republic; The Emergence of the Turkish Nation from 1789 to Present

Brockett, G. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

Bazaar and State in Iran: The Politics of the Tehran Marketplace

Mahdi, A. A. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

New Media and the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere, 2nd ed.

Postill, J. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

Contemporary World Cinema: Europe, Middle East, East Asia, South Asia

Gow, C. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST

CONTRIBUTORS

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:29 PST