bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Palestinian Question in Turkish Foreign Policy from the 1950s to the 1990s
Authors: Aykan Mahmut Bali
Published: April 2009

Since the 1950s Turkish foreign policy toward the Middle East has centered on the question of support for the Arab position on the Palestinian question. Ever since the U.N. General Assembly resolution of November 1947 that partitioned Palestine between the Palestinians and Israelis, all the Arab countries—even though diversity of regime has prevented them from otherwise acting as a unit in Middle Eastern politics—have consistently supported the establishment of an independent Palestinian state (in opposition to the Israelis and the United States) as a condition for stability in the Middle East. In November 1973, the heads of the Arab states declared the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)—created in 1964 through the initiative of the Arab League—to be the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and they have supported its efforts to establish an independent Palestinian state in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip ever since.
Islamic Opposition to the Islamic State: The Jamaʿat-i Islami, 1977–88
Authors: Nasr Seyyed Vali Reza
Published: April 2009

Islamic revivalism is often believed to be solely committed to the Islamization of society, viewing politics as merely an instrument in the struggle to realize its aim. The record of Islamic revivalist movements—as exemplified by one of the oldest and most influential of them, the Jamaʿat-i Islami, or Islamic party of Pakistan—however, brings this presumption into question. The nature of the linkage between Islamic revivalism as a particular interpretive reading of Islam and politics is more complicated than is generally believed. Political interests, albeit still within an Islamic framework, play a more important and central role in the unfolding of revivalism—even overriding the commitment to Islamization—than is often ac knowledged. Participation in the political process eschews a blind commitment to Islamization and encourages adherence to organizational interests, and as is evi dent in the case of Pakistan, to the democratic process, characteristics that are not usually associated with Islamic movements. The dynamics and pace of this pro cess are controlled by the struggles for power within an Islamic movement as well as vis-à-vis the state. It is through grappling with these struggles that the commit ment to Islamization is weighed against the need to adhere to organizational and political interests; this is the process that governs the development of Islamic re vivalism. Beyond this general assertion, the manner in which the struggle for power unfolds, the variables that influence it, and the nature of its impact on the development of revivalism need to be explored further.
Perception of Legal Inequality in Deeply Divided Societies: The Case of Israel
Authors: Zureik Elia , Moughrabi Fouad , Sacco Vincent F.
Published: April 2009

When commentators discuss the Israeli political system, they invariably single it out as the exception in a region otherwise lacking in democratic and representative regimes. Although political philosophers and theorists remind us that the test of de mocracy hinges on, among other things, the way a society treats its minorities and guarantees them civil and political rights in the face of majority opposition, the de bate over what constitutes justice, equality, and freedom is unlikely to be resolved in a discussion centered on abstract principles and their absolute meanings. It is one thing for a society to profess egalitarian values and another to measure the extent to which these values are perceived and experienced by those immediately affected by them. This does not mean that there are no universal standards of justice against which to measure performance of the law. Our point is that the experiential dimen sion of the law is equally relevant, for it mediates between the meaning of the law as derived from abstract principles and the way it is implemented in daily life.
Translation and Philosophy: The Case of Averroes' Commentaries
Authors: Butterworth Charles E.
Published: April 2009

Those experienced in translating difficult philosophic texts from one language to another with some degree of literal and stylistic accuracy know well how demanding such a task is. When they strive in addition to represent the thought of the author rather than their own presuppositions about that thought, the task becomes all the more arduous. To avoid prejudging the author, they take the text as it appears, on its own terms, and try to make sense of what the author actually says. They do so because they start from the premise that the author in question knows what he or she wishes to communicate and they thus set as their goal understanding what the author intends.
Printing, Publishing, and Reform in Tsarist Central Asia
Authors: Khalid Adeeb
Published: April 2009

Scholars have long noted, often with disapproval, the tardiness of the introduction of printing to the Muslim world, but the consequences of that introduction on the production, reproduction, and transmission of knowledge in Muslim societies are only now beginning to be understood. For instance, the numerous movements for modernist reform that arose in the Muslim world in the 19th century were all propagated through the medium of print, yet the connection between those movements and the availability of printing seldom has been investigated. This neglect is all the more surprising in view of the fact that historians of early modern Europe have long emphasized the signal role played by printing in Europe's transition to modernity. In her influential work, Elizabeth Eisenstein has written of a “printing revolution” unleashed by the invention and rapid dissemination of the technology in 15th-century Europe. There is, for Eisenstein, something inherent in the very nature of printing that revolutionizes the intellectual outlook of individuals and cultures with which it comes in contact. In a different vein, Benedict Anderson has pointed to the importance of “print capitalism” in creating a sense of shared community in the 19th century that made possible the rise of national ism in many parts of the world.
The Rise of Arab Nationalism Reconsidered
Authors: Haddad Mahmoud
Published: April 2009

The debate over the origins of early Arab nationalism in geographical Syria before World War I revolves around a twofold thesis presented two decades ago. Its first and most influential part advances a social explanation, maintaining that it was a traditional intra-Arab elite conflict: “those members of the Arab elite who had a vested interest in the Ottoman state were Ottomanists. Those who were without such a stake were Arabists.”
Inner Truth and Outer History: The Two Worlds of the Ahl-i Haqq of Kurdistan
Authors: Mir-Hosseini Ziba
Published: April 2009

A principal belief of the Ahl-i Haqq, an esoteric sect centered in Iranian Kurdistan, is that the Divine Essence has successive manifestations in human form. The Ahl-i Haqq religious universe comprises two distinct yet interrelated worlds: the inner world (ʿālam-i bāṭin) and the outer world (ʿālam -i ẓāhir), each with its own order and its own rules. We as ordinary human beings are aware of the order of the outer world, but our life is governed by the rules of the inner world, where our ultimate destiny lies.
Kuwait's Migration Policy since the Gulf Crisis
Authors: Russell Sharon Stanton , Al-Ramadhan Muhammad Ali
Published: April 2009

Kuwait has long been one of the most demographically self-conscious countries in the world. Since 1965, Kuwaitis have been a minority in their own country, outnumbered by migrants who had come there to find work and flee adversities elsewhere in the region. Between 1957 and 1985, Kuwait conducted a census at least once every five years. Even before its independence in 1961, Kuwait had constructed, and has since reworked, a complex set of policies and regulations for the control and management of migration, albeit with varying and often limited degrees of success.
Mahfuz's “Zaʿbalāwī”: Six Stations of a Quest
Authors: Elad Ami
Published: April 2009

The writings of the Egyptian novelist Najib Mahfuz (b. 1911) in the 1960s illustrate the new literary trends that were then emerging in Arabic fiction. Among his works, the volume of short stories,Dunyā Allāh(God's World, 1963), was the first and perhaps the most important collection within the corpus of his creative works. These short stories are striking for the themes they pursue and the poetic universe they depict, and they reveal in particular his and the Egyptian reaction to progress. In this essay only one of these short stories, “Zaʿbalāwī,” will be discussed. My aim is to show Mahfuz's adept manipulation of mythic themes together with specific Egyptian cultural and Islamic elements in his exploration of the dilemma modernity poses for Egyptian society. “Zaʿbalāwī” was published at the beginning of a new period in his creative development when Mahfuz had begun to pursue his concerns using new and innovative literary techniques.
The Ideological Significance of theDār al-Adlin the Medieval Islamic Orient
Authors: Rabbat Nasser O.
Published: April 2009

Medieval Islamic architecture presents the scholar with a fascinating set of histo-riographical problems. Some are methodological; others are related to the nature of the sources, and they are shared by various other branches of research in medieval history such as urban history, topography, and the history of arts and crafts whose inquiries depend on the same sources. Still others are peculiar to the specific domain of architectural history. These last are the most challenging, for they require particular strategies that take into account the disparities in our knowledge of the two basic components needed to reconstruct the history of any architectural object: the physical remains and the contemporary documents related to them. There are three possible kinds of disparity: in the best cases, buildings that are still standing and in fairly good shape can be studied in light of relevant contemporary documents. In more difficult cases, the structures still exist, but supportive documents, written or otherwise, do not. Most difficult of all is when we have documents describing, or referring to, a structure or a group of structures for which we have no visible trace.
Ibn Khaldun on Economic Transformation
Authors: Weiss Dieter
Published: April 2009

A number of Arab countries have been exposed to structural adjustment programs. Under the guidance of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, these programs are aimed at making various kinds of Arab socialist and mixed-economy regimes more “market-friendly,” a policy that started in the 1950s and 1960s in countries like Algeria, Tunisia, Syria, and Egypt. Considering the mounting social tension that results from continuing population growth, urban agglomeration, and unemployment, it would be naive to expect—with Fukuyama—an “end of history” as most countries try to adopt market regimes and to strengthen civil society and parliamentary democracy. As Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) well knew, economic and social change is a never-ending process. In the search for viable and sustainable strategies it may be stimulating to consider the insights of this great scholar of the Arab world who wrote 600 years ago.

IBN KHALDUN'S SOCIAL SYSTEMS THEORY

Ibn Khaldun was born in Tunis into an influential clan of South Arabian origin with substantial influence in Islamic Spain and, after the fall of Seville in 1248, in north-western Africa. He was exposed to the turmoils of his time. He held his first position in 1352 at the court at Tunis at the age of 20 and then went on to high political, administrative, diplomatic, and judicial posts in the service of various rulers in the Maghrib, Spain, and Egypt.
The Military Household in Ottoman Egypt
Authors: Hathaway Jane
Published: April 2009

For over 350 years, Egypt was the largest province of the Ottoman Empire, which had captured it from the Mamluk sultanate in 1517. It is well known that the Ottomans retained key Mamluk usages, above all in subprovincial administration, and that a number of the defeated Mamluks who were willing to cooperate with the new regime were allowed to join the Ottoman administration. In consequence, a number of practices of the Mamluk sultanate survived the Ottoman conquest. Critical administrative offices such as those of pilgrimage commander (amīr al-ḥajj), treasurer (daftardār), and deliverer of the annual tribute to Istanbul (khaznadār) were analogous to offices of the Mamluk sultanate, and the grandees whom the Ottomans installed in these offices were analogous to the Mamluk amirs of the sultanate. Above all, the practice of recruiting boys and young men from the Caucasus as military slaves, or mamluks, and training them as soldiers in households geared to that purpose appears not only to have survived but to have flourished in Ottoman Egypt. By the time of Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt in 1798, in fact, the province's military elite was dominated by Caucasian, and above all Georgian, mamluks. In the face of such apparent similarities with the Mamluk sultanate, it is tempting to define the military society of Ottoman Egypt as a continuation or revival of the sultanate.
Arab Unity Schemes Revisited: Interest, Identity, and Policy in Syria and Egypt
Authors: Kienle Eberhard
Published: April 2009

From the day in April 1946 when the last French soldiers left and Syrians were finally able to run their own affairs, their policies toward other Arabs have differed significantly, although decreasingly over the years, from the policies pursued by Egyptians. Within their country, Syrian legislators used to privilege Arab over non-Arab foreigners in various respects, including the investment of capital as well as the acquisition of citizenship and political rights, while fewer, if any, advantages of this sort were granted in Egypt Such differences in the treatment of noncitizen Arabs at home have been paralleled by different policies toward other Arab states. Unity schemes, a prominent feature in inter-Arab relations generally, are one key area where approaches diverged quantitatively as well as qualitatively and where favorable attitudes in Syria often contrasted with considerable reluctance on the Egyptian side.
The Medieval Arabic Geographers and the Beginnings of Modern Orientalism
Authors: Tolmacheva Marina
Published: April 2009

European Orientalism of the 19th and 20th centuries has been the subject of a heated and vigorous debate ever since the publication of Edward Said's monograph. By contrast, the study of the early stages of academic and cultural Orientalism has been neglected. For the beginnings of Oriental studies in Europe one still largely relies on institutional histories and archival research, or even V. V. Barthold's 80-year-old study. The birth of academic Orientalism in the 17th century was occasioned by three major factors: a renewed interest in Islam, major advances in travel and exploration, and the emergence of modern approaches to science and education. Among important background developments were the decline of the perceived Arab threat followed by the rise of a very real Ottoman Turkish one, the geographical shift in hostilities from the European West to the East, and the realignment of European alliances and attitudes in the wake of the Protestant Reformation.
Iranian Constitutional Exiles and British Foreign-Policy Dissenters, 1908–9
Authors: Bonakdarian Mansour
Published: April 2009

In recent Middle Eastern history, the experience of political exile has become a prevalent theme, as large numbers of Palestinians, Kurds, Iranians, and Afghans, among others, have sought refuge in various countries. Although the earlier numbers would pale in comparison with the present size of the Middle Eastern diaspora scattered around the globe, it was in the 19th century that the first noticeable groups of exiles from the Middle East began taking sanctuary in European countries, among other locations. Perhaps the best known of these exile communities were the Young Ottomans in France in the late 19th century.
The Political Economy of Economic Liberalization in Syria
Authors: Hinnebusch Raymond A.
Published: April 2009

When the Arab world's authoritarian-populist/;etatist regimes first emerged, they were perceived by Marxist and modernization theorists alike as potentially forging the strong states needed by late developers to pursue national development. Three decades later, the conventional wisdom sees these states as obstacles to development and statism is in retreat. Even in Syria, where the Baʿth institutionalized statist ideology more effectively than elsewhere, economic liberalization has proved inescapable.
The Celestial Sphere, the Wheel of Fortune, and Fate in the Gazels of Nâʾilî and Bâkî
Authors: Feldman Walter
Published: April 2009

The poet known as Bâkî (d. 1600), the “King of Poets” of Sultan Suleiman I (1520–66), is generally acknowledged as the leading figure of the so-called “classical age” of Ottoman poetry (roughly from the mid-15th to the beginning of the 17th century), while the poet known as Nâʾilî (d. 1666) was a pivotal figure in the break between this classical age and the “post-classical age,” roughly the early modern era extending from 1600 to 1800. On the broadest level this break was signaled by a change in the use of metaphorical language. This paper will contrast the treatment of one series of metaphors common in the lyric gazels within the divâns of both poets, although further examples could be found within other poetic genres, especially the panegyric kasîde. It will also attempt to interpret the significance of these metaphors in Nâʾilî's poetry and to demonstrate their distance from the usage of the classical Ottoman period, exemplified by Bâkî.
Parameters and Strategies of Islam–State Interaction in Republican Turkey
Authors: Sakallioğlu Ümit Cizre
Published: April 2009

Against a historical background marked by “the most radical secular revolution of any state in the Muslim world,” the Turkish state over the past decade has faced an Islamic fundamentalist challenge to its secular basis. The Turkish version of radical Islam, like that elsewhere in the Middle East, has asserted itself effectively in all aspects and at all levels of society, making a stark contrast between the sixty years of the republic and the period since 1980. It is not surprising, therefore, that the causes for the emergence of Islamic political radicalism, its nature, and its possible effects on the system have aroused scholarly interest.
Authors: Kushner David
Published: April 2009

The closing decades of Ottoman rule in Palestine (the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries), a crucial period in the history of the area, have already received vast attention from scholars and other writers. They have used an abundance of source material, including documents belonging to individuals and institutions, consular reports, memoirs, travel books, and newspapers. But in contrast to earlier periods in Ottoman Palestine, very little has been done, as yet, to bring to light and utilize official Ottoman documents. This, of course, is absolutely necessary if the views and actions of the ruling power are to be described and analyzed, and—because the authorities must have had direct and reliable knowledge of the conditions of the land—if a more complete and balanced picture is to be drawn of the history of the country.
Muhammad and the Medinan Jews: A Comparison of the Texts of Ibn Ishaq'sKitāb sīrat rasūl Allāhwithal-Waqidi's Kitāb al-maghāzī
Authors: Faizer Rizwi S.
Published: April 2009

This article is based on the assumption that Ibn Ishaq (704–67) and al-Waqidi (747–823) were responsible for my main sources, the compilations entitledKitāb sīrat rasūl AllāhandKitāb al-maghāzī, respectively. Such an assumption is justifiable. To take Ibn Ishaq'sBiographyin the recension of Ibn Hisham (d. 834), we know that the Ziyad ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Bakkaʾi (d. 798) text used by Ibn Hisham was authorized by Ibn Ishaq himself, and indeed had been confirmed by the use of bothsamʾandʾarḍtechniques as a correct version. At the same time, Ismail K. Poonawala confirms that the redaction of Salama ibn al-Fadl (d. 807) compares closely with the text of Ibn Hisham, indicating that the text of Ibn Ishaq had probably been fixed: Salama's redaction was based on a papyrus manuscript of Ibn Ishaq transmitted by Muhammad ibn Humayd ibn Hayyan al-Razi, and was used by al-Tabari in his narration of the Prophet's life, which forms a part of his compilationTaʾrīkh al-rusul waʾl-mulūk. As for the text of al-Waqidi, evidence indicates that it had been established by al-Waqidi himself from beginning to end, for he not only prefaces his work with the names of his chief transmitters of tradition but also provides the basic chronology of all the events that are discussed in his work.
The Crisis of the Imamate and the Institution of Occultation in Twelver Shiʿism: A Sociohistorical Perspective
Authors: Arjomand Said Amir
Published: April 2009

The formative period of Imami Shiʿism from the mid-8th century to the mid-10th century remains obscure in many respects. This study is an attempt to organize the historical information about the period around a central problematic: the twin crisis of the nature of the Imamate and the succession to this office. The crisis of the Imamate and the efforts to resolve it serve as a focal point for constructing a conceptually coherent overview of these two formative centuries from a sociohistorical perspective. This perspective requires that the endeavors to create a stable system of authority in Imami Shiʿism be considered in the context of the social change and politics of the early ʿAbbasid era: ʿAlid–ʿAbbasid relations, massive conversion of the population of Iran to Islam, and the dialogue and competition between Shiʿism and other contemporary religious and intellectual trends and movements. Our approach suggests a new periodization of the early history of Imami Shiʿism.
Ethnic Kurds in Turkey: A Demographic Study
Authors: Mutlu Servet
Published: April 2009

It would scarcely be an overstatement to say that the realism of the political demands of an ethnic group within a polity is largely determined first by size, both absolute and relative to other groups, and second by its geographical distribution. The current demands ranging from autonomy to independence by some Kurds in Turkey are no exception to the rule; hence their number and geographic pattern deserve careful study.
Western Science and Educational Reform in the Thought of Shaykh Rifaʿa al-Tahtawi
Authors: Livingston John W.
Published: April 2009

At the cultural heart of the intellectual awakening, oral-Nahḍa, that arose with Egypt's modernization movement in the 19th century was the endeavor to legitimize the innovations which came in the train of military, scientific, technical, and educational imports from the West. The vanguard of this movement, unlike that of the one taking place at the same time in Istanbul, came from leading religious shaykhs in the government's employ. It may seem remarkable that graduates and teachers of such a conservative religious institution as al-Azhar took the lead as spokesmen for change, particularly when models of this change came from the Christian West, the traditional antagonist of Islamdom for more than a millennium. It becomes less remarkable when we realize that there was no other possible source of intellectual leadership in Egypt. Egypt had no imperial state service with its own traditions of education as did the Ottomans. Thus, conservatively reared shaykhs and Azhar graduates were obliged to play the role that was filled in the Ottoman Empire by reforming grand viziers and their ambassadors to European capitals, who were often assisted by converts from the West seeking employment in the sultan's service—“secular” Muslims who were identified with the state and not the educated ulema. In Egypt, the reasoned voice advocating change came from the very custodians of conservative tradition. Accordingly, that voice would speak throughout the century with great caution, often tentatively and sometimes in contradictory ways.
Neo-Tribalism in Iraq: Saddam Hussein's Tribal Policies 1991–96
Authors: Baram Amatzia
Published: April 2009

The intention of this article is to show that, when applying his tribal policies, Saddam Hussein altered the Baʿth Party's most central tenets of faith, how and why he did this, and what it meant for Iraqi society and for the ruling party. Saddam Hussein's tribal policy started soon after the party came to power in July 1968, but it went through a quantum leap in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. First, rather than eliminating the tribal shaykh as a sociopolitical power, as dictated by party doctrine, he endeavored to manipulate the shaykhs and, through a process of socialization (or “Baʿthization”), turn them into docile tools in the service of the regime. Second, and a far sharper departure from party tradition, he turned the tribal shaykhs into legitimate partners for power-sharing; he tribalized the regime's Praetorian Guard; and he worked to reawaken long-suppressed and often forgotten tribal affinities in that part of Iraqi society which is no longer tribal and to graft onto it tribal values, or what he considered to be such values. Furthermore, he even took some steps to tribalize the party itself, and tribal customs, real or imagined, permeated the state's legal system. Kinship was legitimized as a principle guiding the selection of party leaders, and leaders' tribal roots were played up; tribal honor became a legitimate guiding principle behind foreign-policy decisions; and at least once, the president even called the Baʿth Party itself “a tribe.”
Abortion, Islam, and the 1994 Cairo Population Conference
Authors: Bowen Donna Lee
Published: April 2009

The International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in September 1994 focused world attention on the interplay of religion, family-planning methods, and women's status. The most hotly debated topic of the conference was abortion. Before the conference convened, newspapers in the West and in the Middle East reported “a growing religious furor” that spurred an alliance between Muslim nations and the Vatican based on a common belief in the prohibition of abortion and concern for Western sexual mores. At the conference, Muslim delegations abandoned their slogans and moved away from the Vatican position by denouncing abortion as a method of family planning but leaving open its use under specific circumstances. Although a majority of Muslims worldwide agree with the stance taken at the population conference, and most would state that Islam forbids abortion, the Muslim theological position on abortion does not approximate the Roman Catholic condemnation of the practice. A full prohibition of abortion represents neither the sophisticated Muslim jurisprudence literature on abortion nor current practices of some Muslim women. Discussion with Muslim women and Muslim religious scholars (ʿulamāʾ) about the intricacies of the issues that abortion raises tells us that the question is not simple, consensus is far from being reached, and political concerns further complicate understanding of the paradoxical issues involved.
Two Women, One Man: Knowledge, Power, and Gender in Medieval Sunni Legal Thought
Authors: Fadel Mohammad
Published: April 2009

Many Muslim feminists have argued that at the core of Islam lies a gender-neutral belief system that has been obscured by a centuries-long tradition of male-dominated interpretation. Although this gender-neutral system of belief had been almost entirely suppressed by the ruling Islamic discourses, according to Leila Ahmed, marginalized discourses such as Sufism and the antinomian Carmathians were able to preserve Islam's message of the ethical equality of men and women. Amina Wadud-Muhsin argues that the traditional verse-by-verse method of Qurʾanic exegesis, along with its domination by male practitioners, marginalized female experiences in understanding revelation. In her view, these two factors ultimately led to the suppression of the Qurʾan's message of gender equality. Fatima Mernissi, inThe Veil and the Male Elite, instead argues that the religious scholars of Islam, because of their fear of subjectivity, were content with a purely empirical science of religion—a methodology that left the door wide open to the manipulation of revelation through interpretation. Unlike Ahmed, however, she recognizes that even within the dominant discourse of the Sunni scholars, not all spoke of women in the same monotonously misogynistic voice.
Fragile Frontiers: The Diminishing Domains of Qajar Iran
Authors: Kashani-Sabet Firoozeh
Published: April 2009

Long before the French Revolution, an anonymous geographer of the 10th century had already imagined the “boundaries of the world”—(ḥudūd al-ʿālam)—as comprising distinct regions. According to this unknown figure, each territory varied from another “First, by the difference of water, air, soil, and temperature (garma-va-sarma). Secondly, by the difference of religion, law (sharīʿat) and beliefs (kīsh). Thirdly, by the difference of words (lughāt) and languages. Fourthly, by the difference of kingdoms (padshāʾī-hā).” These criteria, as well as natural barriers—mountains, rivers, deserts—allowed the author of this work to divide the world into tracts much like nation-states today.
A Sufi Legacy in Tunis: Prayer and the Shadhiliyya
Authors: McGregor Richard J. A.
Published: April 2009

In the following article, I present an account of the legacy of the famous saintly mystic Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili (d. 1258). The parameters of the study will be narrowed geographically to Tunis and thematically to prayer. Tunis played an important role in the formation of the saint'sṭariqa(mystical order or brotherhood, pi.ṭuruq), and the city today still has a branch of the brotherhood and a number of sacred sites. The theme of prayer as used here includes prayer texts and a wide variety of activity, from popular devotions to spiritual discipline. As will become clear, this is a central element in any discussion of theṭariqa'sorganization, ritual, and literature. In addition to the brotherhood and the sites, there is a Tunisian edition of the only recordedcompositions of the saint, his prayers—known asaḥzāb(sing,ḥizb). This study will thus reflect the saint, his brotherhood, and the use of theaḥzābas integrated elements of the living Shadhili legacy in Tunis. This presentation will go beyond the usual academic treatments of Sufism, which rarely enter the modern period and are concerned mostly with the larger Sufi treatises. I hope not only to bring to light the importance of some lesser known liturgical and ritual practices, but also to begin to appreciate the “lesser tradition,” as it were, of Sufi prayer texts.
Clothing Laws, State, and Society in the Ottoman Empire, 1720–1829
Authors: Quataert Donald
Published: April 2009

In 1826, Sultan Mahmud II orchestrated the slaughter of 6,000–7,000 janissaries and, in order to incinerate any janissary remnants that had taken refuge there, burned the Belgrade Forest outside Istanbul. During his reign (1808–39), the sultan attacked many of the other bases of the ancien régime, such as thetimarsystem, the lifetime tax farms, and the political autonomy of provincial notables. He also centralized the pious foundations, brought them under a special ministry, and expropriated their revenues. Such stories of Sultan Mahmud's dramatic and violent policies, as well as their 18th-century origins and their 19th-century legacies, are familiar ones in Ottoman and Middle Eastern history. It is a commonplace that Sultan Mahmud aimed to dismantle the power of the military and religious classes in favor of a new bureaucracy of administrators and scribes. And it is also known that his efforts had a major impact on the subsequent evolution of the Tanzimat reform programs during the later 19th century.
The Mihrab: From Text to Form
Authors: Khoury Nuha N. N.
Published: April 2009

Discovering the mechanisms that invested particular forms with meaning and created Islamic systems of signification is of major concern in the study of Islamic architecture. Although we know that these mechanisms exist, and that they produce meanings as complex as those of other cultural traditions, we do not yet know how they operate or even how they were manipulated at specific moments in response to particular aesthetic or practical needs. These mechanisms were most critical at the earliest stage of the Islamic architectural tradition, when forms were often taken over from a variety of contexts but transformed in ways that altered their cultural associations and re-created them as patently Islamic. This creative process is exemplified by that most Islamic—and problematic—architectural feature, the mihrab.
Jewish–Christian Relations in Aleppo as Background for the Jewish Response to the Events of October 1850
Authors: Harel Yaron
Published: April 2009

On Wednesday evening, 17 October 1850, at the height of ʿId al-adha, the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice, riots broke out in Aleppo in northern Syria, starting with Muslim riots in the Christian quarters of Judayda and Saliba. For two days, Muslim rioters looted homes and churches in these and other Christian quarters in the city, killing and wounding a number of the inhabitants. Only on Friday did the riots cease, but the insurgents then presented a list of demands to the authorities as a pre-condition for the restoration of order to the city. Their principal demands were that the authorities‧ intention to impose military conscription on Muslims be revoked, that the ringing of church bells and the carrying of crosses in public religious processions be banned; and that the owning of Muslim slaves by Christians be prohibited. The Ottoman governor, Mustafa Zarif Pasha, at first consented to the demands of the rioters, and even took certain steps to restore calm to the ruffled atmosphere, such as declaring that the firda head tax, one of the inflammatory factors that had contributed to the riots, would be transformed into a property tax.
Escalation or Containment? Egypt and the Palestine Liberation Army, 1964–67
Authors: Sayigh Yezid
Published: April 2009

Three decades later, the circumstances that led to the Arab–Israeli war of June 1967 bare again the subject of scholarly attention as the end of the Cold War and the release of official documents in the United States, Soviet Union, Britain, and Israel have allowed surviving participants to compare notes and made possible the detailed reconstruction of decision-making in those states. Much of this historiography has focused on the critical two months immediately preceding the start of hostilities, giving rise to broad agreement that Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser “stumbled into the crisis rather than provoking it deliberately,” through miscalculation and ill-advised brinkmanship. However, there is still no consensus regarding the relationship between Nasser's decisions in spring 1967 and his policy toward Israel in the preceding three years, partly because the dearth of official documents from the Egyptian side has made it difficult to substantiate his real intentions and “historicize” his crisis behavior. Most recent studies tend to skim over the earlier period, if they cover it at all, or now accept the view that Egyptian strategy before 1967 was essentially defensive, based on deterrence and containment, and that Nasser ultimately shifted course due to perceptions of threat that steadily heightened in the course of the previous three years due to the revival of the Arab “cold war,” fear of Israeli nuclear power, and deteriorating relations with the United States, all set against a background of the debilitating military entanglement in Yemen and economic malaise at home
The Command of the Faithful in al-Andalus: A Study in the Articulation of Caliphal Legitimacy
Authors: Safran Janina
Published: April 2009

In 929, the eighth Umayyad ruler of al-Andalus, ʿAbd al-Rahman III (r. 912–61) formally assumed the exclusive caliphal prerogatives ofkhuṭbaandsikka. After nearly two centuries of independent Umayyad rule in the Iberian peninsula, ʿAbd al-Rahman III issued a circular to his governors directing them to address him forthwith asamīr al-muʾminīn, or Commander of the Faithful, and to ensure that thekhuṭba, or Friday sermon, in every congregational mosque invoked his name with this designation. With this he reclaimed the Umayyad dynasty's rights to the caliphal title: “We have understood that to continue not to use this title, which is incumbent upon us, is to allow one of our rights to decay and a firm designation to become lost.” Later the same year, he established a mint in Cordoba and ordered the striking of gold dinars in his name (sikka), resuming the minting of gold coins in al-Andalus, which had been suspended since the overthrow of the Umayyad caliphate in Syria.
Confronting the Other: Identity, Culture, Politics, and Conservative Islamism in Egypt
Authors: Ismail Salwa
Published: April 2009

The rise of Islamist groups in Egypt's polity and society is given force through the articulation of a set of competing yet inter-linked discourses that challenge the authority of the post-independence secular nationalist discourse and attempt to reconstitute the field of struggle and domination in religious terms. Concurrently, these discourses seek authoritative status over the scope of meanings related to questions of identity, history, and the place of Islam in the world. The interpretations and definitions elaborated in reference to these questions by radical Islamist forces (the jihad groups and other militant Islamist elements) are often seen to dominate the entire field of meaning. However, claims to authority over issues of government, morality, identity, and Islam's relationship to the West are also made in and through a discourse that can appropriately be labeled “conservative Islamist.” The discourse and political role of conservative Islamism are the subject of this article.
Living Along the Seam: Israeli Palestinians in Jerusalem
Authors: Weingrod Alex , Mannaʿ ʿAdel
Published: April 2009

Deeply divided between opposing national, religious, and ethnic groups, contemporary Jerusalem is a paradigm of urban heterogeneity and dichotomous identities. The social divisions that split Jerusalem are many and deep; to list the more obvious lines of fragmentation, this small city of about a half-million persons includes Muslims, Christians, and Jews; secular and ultra-orthodox Jews; Palestinian refugees; peasants; and old established Jerusalemite families. Although Jerusalem's physical and social landscape is criss-crossed by multiple political and symbolic boundaries, there can be no doubt that the major fault line is between Israelis and Palestinians—or, to use the terms often employed by members of both groups, between Jews and Arabs. This results from Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967 and the forced imposition of Israeli sovereignty over the entire city. Israel holds political and legal control throughout Jerusalem, while the Palestinians, who consider themselves to be in a situation of illegal occupation, continue to be Jordanian citizens who are classified under Israeli law as ‘residents of Jerusalem’ (Romann & Weingrod 1991). As a consequence of this fundamental division, practically every feature of this Holy City—from urban space to everyday consumer products (such as milk, vegetables, bread, and cigarettes) and including buses, buildings, and even sounds and colors—is perceived and identified by members of both groups as either “Israeli” or “Palestinian.” These two basic group identities appear to be totally discrete and mutually exclusive.
The Cyprus Dispute and the United Nations: Peaceful Non-Settlement Between 1954 and 1996
Authors: Bölükbaşi Suha
Published: April 2009

In his landmark book on the problems and progress of international organization, Inis L. Claude wrote:

“Settlement,” lİke “pacific,” is a relative term. In some cases, the realistic ideal may be not to achieve the permanent settlement of a dispute, but to persuade the parties to settle down permanently with the dispute. The agenda of the Security Council and the General Assembly are liberally sprinkled with items that are beginning to seem like permanent fixtures, quarrels which the United Nations has managed to subject to peaceful perpetuation rather than peaceful settlement.

As in several other disputes, the United Nations has in the Cyprus dispute operated on the assumption that Claude described: that the enforced postponement of a showdown between the parties would make the dispute conducive to peaceful settlement. Actually, some disputes, if properly controlled over a period of time, ultimately wither into insignificance or become ripe for settlement. In some other disputes, however, a long cooling-off period may actually lead the parties to adopt more rigid and uncompromising positions, and the prospects for reasonable compromise gradually diminish.
Cognitive science at fifty
Authors: Catania A. Charles
Published: April 2009

Fifty years or so after the cognitive revolution, some cognitive accounts seem to be converging on treatments of how we come to know about ourselves and others that have much in common with behavior analytic accounts. Among the factors that keep the accounts separate is that behavioral accounts take a much broader view of what counts as behavior.
Metacognition is prior
Authors: Couchman Justin J. , Coutinho Mariana V. C. , Beran Michael J. , Smith J. David
Published: April 2009

We agree with Carruthers that evidence for metacognition in species lacking mindreading provides dramatic evidence in favor of the metacognition-is-prior account and against the mindreading-is-prior account. We discuss this existing evidence and explain why an evolutionary perspective favors the former account and poses serious problems for the latter account.
Confabulation, confidence, and introspection
Authors: Fiala Brian , Nichols Shaun
Published: April 2009

Carruthers' arguments depend on a tenuous interpretation of cases from the confabulation literature. Specifically, Carruthers maintains that cases of confabulation are “subjectively indistinguishable” from cases of alleged introspection. However, in typical cases of confabulation, the self-attributions are characterized by low confidence, in contrast to cases of alleged introspection.
Non-interpretative metacognition for true beliefs
Authors: Friedman Ori , Petrashek Adam R.
Published: April 2009

Mindreading often requires access to beliefs, so the mindreading system should be able to self-attribute beliefs, even without self-interpretation. This proposal is consistent with Carruthers' claim that mindreading and metacognition depend on the same cognitive system and the same information as one another; and it may be more consistent with this claim than is Carruthers' account of metacognition.
There must be more to development of mindreading and metacognition than passing false belief tasks
Authors: Hernik Mikolaj , Fearon Pasco , Fonagy Peter
Published: April 2009

We argue that while it is a valuable contribution, Carruthers' model may be too restrictive to elaborate our understanding of the development of mindreading and metacognition, or to enrich our knowledge of individual differences and psychopathology. To illustrate, we describe pertinent examples where there may be a critical interplay between primitive social-cognitive processes and emerging self-attributions.
Banishing “I” and “we” from accounts of metacognition
Authors: Huebner Bryce , Dennett Daniel C.
Published: April 2009

Carruthers offers a promising model for how “we” know the propositional contents of “our” own minds. Unfortunately, in retaining talk of first-person access to mental states, his suggestions assume that a higher-order self is already “in the loop.” We invite Carruthers to eliminate the first-person from his model and to develop a more thoroughly third-person model of metacognition.
Carruthers' marvelous magical mindreading machine
Authors: Lewis Charlie , Carpendale Jeremy I. M.
Published: April 2009

Carruthers presents an interesting analysis of confabulation and a clear attack on introspection. Yet his theory-based alternative is a mechanistic view of “mindreading” which neglects the fact that social understanding occurs within a network of social relationships. In particular, the role of language in his model is too simple.
Getting to know yourself … and others
Authors: Mills Candice M. , Danovitch Judith H.
Published: April 2009

Carruthers rejects developmental evidence based primarily on an argument regarding one skill in particular: understanding false beliefs. We propose that this rejection is premature; and that identifying and examining the development of other subcomponent skills important for metacognition and mindreading, such as the ability to assess levels of knowledge, will in fact be useful in resolving this debate.
Introspection and interpretation: Dichotomy or continuum?
Authors: Petty Richard E. , Briñol Pablo
Published: April 2009

Judgments vary in the extent to which they are based on interpretation versus relatively direct access to mental contents. That is, a judgment might require a trivial amount of interpretation (e.g., translating one's immediately accessible “inner speech”) or a rather substantial amount of confabulation. Recognizing this continuum of interpretation underlying judgment could be more fruitful than debating a categorical introspection versus interpretation distinction.
Making a case for introspection
Authors: Zinck Alexandra , Lodahl Sanne , Frith Chris D.
Published: April 2009

Defending first-person introspective access to own mental states, we argue against Carruthers' claim of mindreading being prior to meta-cognition and for a fundamental difference between how we understand our own and others' mental states. We conclude that a model based on one mechanism but involving two different kinds of access for self and other is sufficient and more consistent with the evidence.
Mindreading underlies metacognition
Authors: Carruthers Peter
Published: April 2009

This response defends the view that human metacognition results from us turning our mindreading capacities upon ourselves, and that our access to our own propositional attitudes is through interpretation rather than introspection. Relevant evidence is considered, including that deriving from studies of childhood development and other animal species. Also discussed are data suggesting dissociations between metacognitive and mindreading capacities, especially in autism and schizophrenia.
Propositional learning is a useful research heuristic but it is not a theoretical algorithm
Authors: Baker A. G. , Baetu Irina , Murphy Robin A.
Published: April 2009

Mitchell et al.'s claim, that their propositional theory is a single-process theory, is illusory because they relegate some learning to a secondary memory process. This renders the single-process theory untestable. The propositional account is not a process theory of learning, but rather, a heuristic that has led to interesting research.
A causal framework for integrating learning and reasoning
Authors: Lagnado David A.
Published: April 2009

Can the phenomena of associative learning be replaced wholesale by a propositional reasoning system? Mitchell et al. make a strong case against an automatic, unconscious, and encapsulated associative system. However, their propositional account fails to distinguish inferences based on actions from those based on observation. Causal Bayes networks remedy this shortcoming, and also provide an overarching framework for both learning and reasoning. On this account, causal representations are primary, but associative learning processes are not excluded a priori.