bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Archeology in a Medieval City of Islam
Authors: Redman Charles L.
Published: March 2016

The systematic study of historic civilizations is now attracting the attention of a growing number of anthropologically trained archeologists. The objectives of these investigators are not simply to repeat or to verify what is already known from textual evidence, but to extend the scope and fullness of our understanding of these important cultures (Moore, ed., 1974; Sabloff & Lamberg-Karlovsky, eds., 1975; Redman et al. ed., 1978). The study of historic civilizations offers a series of unique opportunities that equal and sometimes surpass those provided by the more commonly studied prehistoric cultures. First, the existence of historical documentation often facilitates the formulation of absolute chronologies for excavated material. By correlating archeological episodes with historically dated events, it is frequently possible even to assign lengths of duration to particular occupations. Second, the architectural and artifactual remains of historic civilizations are usually abundant in quantity and more readily identifiable than prehistoric material. Since many of the excavated tools, decorative objects and buildings are known from texts, art work or their continued use in recent times, identification and functional interpretation are more reliable, having been made by homology rather than by analogy. Third, and finally, the societal organization and processual relationships of historic civilizations are of considerable interest to anthropologists. Relatively sophisticated behavioral questions can be addressed because of the above two interpretive advantages and the fact that the historic record often provides general insights into the political and economic patterns of the era that aid in model building.
Suppression of Information or Publisher’s Error?: Kermit Roosevelt’s Memoir of the 1953 Iranian Countercoup
Authors: Gallagher Nancy E. , Wilson Dunning S.
Published: March 2016

In Iran, in 1953, CIA agent, Kermit Roosevelt, helped plan a coup d’état, which had been plotted and prearranged by British and American interests. According to Roosevelt, the objective, successfully achieved at a cost of only $75,000, was to force Prime Minister Mossadegh out of power and return the Shah, who had fled the country, to his throne. In a recent memoir, Countercoup: The Struggle for Control of Iran (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979), Roosevelt details his Iranian escapades: the dinner parties, the political plotting sessions, the unobtrusive contacts with the Persian military, the manipulated mass appeal, and demonstrations. For such a serious matter, Roosevelt is surprisingly candid in his effort to recreate the feel of the times, the dialogue of the participants, the sequence of events, and the ease with which Great Powers, through their agents, could control events. It is a circus atmosphere in which the author himself is at the center of attention and power.
Manuscript Libraries in Istanbul
Authors: Kut Günay
Published: March 2016

Manuscript libraries, the items collected in them, their location, and something of their history can be classified as follows (previous work on this subject was described in Lütfü Eroğiu’s “Istanbul Kütüphaneleri”):

1.

Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s libraries under the auspices of the General Directorate of Libraries.

2.

Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s libraries under the auspices of the General Directorate of Monuments and Museums.

3.

University libraries.

4.

Public libraries.

5.

Libraries under the auspices of the General Directorate of Foundations.

6.

Private libraries, such as those associated with banks or newspapers.
Presidential Address 1984 Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association
Authors: Lapidus Ira M.
Published: March 2016

Since this is my last gesture as President of the Association I should like to thank you all warmly for the honor you have done me in electing me as President and for the opportunity of working with the Board of Directors and with the Secretary, Michael Bonine, on your behalf. It also happens that I am just about to finish a book on the history of Islamic societies. In a very different way this project has also been a special privilege. I have been able to branch out from my basic and abiding interest in the Arab Middle East and from my studies in early Islamic history to learn something about Muslim peoples all over the world. To learn so much and to work out a way of presenting such a large subject in a coherent way has made this a wonderfully rewarding project. Like a great puzzle, it has occupied my mind for seven years. I hope that the book I am writing will return the rewards of this learning to the reader.
History of Mathematics in the Islamic World: The Present State of the Art
Authors: Berggren J. L.
Published: March 2016

In Recent Years, many discoveries in the history of Islamic mathematics have not been reported outside the specialist literature, even though they raise issues of interest to a larger audience. Thus, our aim in writing this survey is to provide to scholars of Islamic culture an account of the major themes and discoveries of the last decade of research on the history of mathematics in the Islamic world. However, the subject of mathematics comprised much more than what a modern mathematician might think of as belonging to mathematics, so our survey is an overview of what may best be called the “mathematical sciences” in Islam; that is, in addition to such topics as arithmetic, algebra, and geometry we will also be interested in mechanics, optics, and mathematical instruments.
Middle Eastern and North African Studies: Development & Needs
Authors: Berger Morroe
Published: March 2016

The following report was prepared by Morroe Berger, professor of sociology and director of the Program in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University (and president of MESA), at the request of the assistant secretary for education in the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare. It is one of the series of reports on the world’s regions in connection with the implementation of the International Education Act. This report reflects, of course, Professor Berger’s views which are not necessarily those of the agency which requested the report or of MESA. The Bulletin Invites comment from MESA members on the report and on any of the issues raised in it. Readers should bear in mind that Professor Berger prepared and submitted the report early in May 1967, before the outbreak of war in the Middle East.
Sharī‘a Court Registers and Land Tenure around Nineteenth-Century Damascus
Authors: Reilly James A.
Published: March 2016

The importance of sharī‘a law-court registers as sources for the social and economic history of Syria/Bilād al-Shām in the Ottoman period has been recognized for some time. A number of studies based on them have appeared, but the registers are so vast that scholars have in fact barely begun to investigate them. The Historical Documents Center (Markaz al-Wathā’iq al-Tārīkhīya) in Damascus holds over one thousand volumes. Additional originals exist in Israel/Palestine and a large collection of Syrian and Palestinian registers is available on microfilm at the University of Jordan (Amman). Although it is difficult to use the Lebanese registers nowadays (and those of Sidon may have been destroyed) a volume of the Tripoli registers from the seventeenth century has been published in facsimile by the Lebanese University. Dearth of material, therefore, is not a problem. One obstacle facing researchers, however, is unfamiliarity with the manner in which the registers present information. Persons whose native tongue is not Arabic have the additional problem of language to overcome. Therefore, an orientation to the registers is helpful, and this article is written with that purpose in mind.
Fulbright Influx: Critical Issues in the Middle East
Authors: Graham Michael B.
Published: March 2016

American Academic Exchange with the Middle East through the Fulbright Program is nearly as old as the U.S. government fellowship program itself. Yet even now, after nearly four decades of exchange, there remain many obstacles to academic exchange with the Middle East. For example, during the past three years there has been a declining interest on the part of American scholars in Middle East Fulbright sojourns. This lack of interest is found not only among scholars in disciplines unrelated to the Middle East but among Middle East specialists as well. American scholars seem to look more toward the rest of the world than the Middle East when considering a Fulbright experience.
Current Bibliographical Work: The Middle East
Authors: Albin Michael W.
Published: March 2016

My Purpose in this brief presentation is to offer a summary of developments in the field of Middle Eastern and Islamic bibliographic studies. Examples (and they are only examples of what is a widespread recognition of the importance of bibliography in the scholarly enterprise) are drawn from various fields of activity, from the immense Library of Congress to the efforts of a lone bibliographer at her PC in Denver. I have also tried to give an international flavor with an example of the important work being done in Istanbul. I have appended the names and addresses of the bibliographic projects to which I refer in this presentation.

The jewel in the crown, so to speak, of the bibliographic effort of the Library of Congress is the Near East National Union List, a catalogue of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish language books and serials in libraries in the United States and Canada.
New Indigenous Sources for the Socio-Economic History of Transjordan during the Mandate
Authors: Amawi Abla , Fischbach Michael R.
Published: March 2016

Many works on Transjordan during the Mandate period are based almost exclusively upon British, American and Israeli archival material, as well as reports published by the Mandatory government, such as those sent annually to the League of Nations from 1921 to 1938. These records are important; however, they should not be used in isolation from indigenous Jordanian records. Such records do exist, are accessible, and are absolutely essential for a thorough study of the country. We herewith offer details of two relatively unknown and under-utilized bodies of Jordanian documents from the Mandate period, the records of the central office of the Jordanian Department of Lands and Survey and those of the Amman Chamber of Commerce, as examples of the types of indigenous sources which are available in Jordan today.
The Present Situation of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies in Korea (South)
Authors: Rew Joung Yole
Published: March 2016

Although the first contact between Korea and the Middle East dates back to the ninth or twelfth century, academic interests in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies began in 1965 with the establishment of the Department of Arabic Language and Literature at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul.

The birth of the Third Republic of Korea in 1961 signaled a new diplomatic move into the non-aligned world, particularly the Arab Middle East as it gained in importance in the international political and economic community. At the same time, the Korean economy began to expand and her trade found markets in the Middle East. These developments are some of the important factors which gave birth to the Department of Arabic Language and Literature.
Defining the State in the Middle East (A report on the third of three workshops)
Authors: Mitchell Timothy , Owen Roger
Published: March 2016

Three papers were presented: A. Hess, “Revolution in a Haggard Land: State, Society and Technology in Saudi Arabia,” T. Mitchell, “The Object of Development: Egypt in the Discourse of the World Bank and USAID,” and H. Islamoglu-Inan, “Transformation of the Ottoman Political Discourse.” The workshop concluded with a general discussion led by T. Asad.
Some Recent Thinking on Slavery in Islamic Africa and the Middle East
Authors: Philips John Edward
Published: March 2016

Slavery and its effects will probably long remain among the most contentious of topics. Outlawed universally only recently, the institution is one of humanity’s oldest and most widespread forms of domination. It still exists, despite laws to the contrary, in some societies around the world. Social disabilities suffered by former slaves and their descendants are important legacies. And the lessons which the history of slavery can teach us have still not been fully elucidated or absorbed. It thus remains a topic of importance to teachers and researchers in every branch of humanities and social science.

The literature on slavery has been dominated by the study of plantation slavery in the Western world, especially the Caribbean, Brazil and the United States. Studies of slavery in other areas and times have often been colored by biases and preconceptions based on American chattel slavery. Even when the intent of a scholar has been to contrast slavery in other societies with that in the Americas, the questions posed and the methods used have too often been shaped by the questions and methods of scholars working in the Americas. This has vitiated attempts at comparison.
PROTA: The Project for the Translation of Arabic
Authors: Allen Roger
Published: March 2016

In 1993 I taught an NEH summer seminar for high-school teachers on the Arabic novel in translation. As I went through the listing of translated novels that are available in the 1990s and also made a choice from translations of other genres as back-up materials, I became newly aware of the wealth of material that we now have available. To be sure, it is not of the size and variety that is available for many other literary traditions, but there are now sufficient published novels and anthologies of poetry, drama and short-stories to devote entire courses or at least significant segments of them to individual genres and themes. I could not help thinking back to the start of my teaching career in 1968.
Musics of Algeria: Selected Recordings
Authors: Reynolds Dwight
Published: March 2016

Algeria holds a singular place for Arab culture as a region in which the musical traditions of Islamic Spain, the Ottoman Empire, the eastern Arab countries (the Mashriq), Saharan and West Africa, Berbers, Bedouin and Europe have all interacted to various degrees. Morocco to the west was never as directly exposed to Ottoman and eastern Arab musical traditions; Tunisia and Libya to the east have had far less contact with sub-Saharan and West African musics and far more direct contact with the musics of their eastern neighbors. To simplify this complex musical landscape to some degree, the many distinct musical traditions of Algeria can be roughly divided into five groups: 1) Andalusian traditions, 2) Urban popular traditions, 3) Arabic-language folk traditions, 4) Berber and Saharan traditions, 5) the modern rai, or “pop-rai,” phenomenon. Recordings listed below have been selected for their representativeness and availability in the United States and Canada.
Middle East Studies On-Line
Authors: Anderson Jon W.
Published: March 2016

Materials of Middle East studies and not just for Middle East studies are increasingly appearing on-line. The ‘Net (Internet) that brought file archives, newsgroups and mailing lists devoted to regional issues and material has become a publishing medium in the Web (World Wide Web) with more and more of the output of Middle East studies themselves. The Bulletin now has a site, or “homepage,” on the World Wide Web at http://www.cua.edu/www/mesabul with select articles from recent issues and connections to material on the MESA Bulletin Gopher.

The World Wide Web has been the breakthrough technology for making the Internet user-friendly and mainstream. WWW hides the “computery” aspects of the Internet behind snappy graphics and an easy-to-use interface that together have fostered much recent press and commercial enthusiasm over “the Net,” such as:

It’s similar to what the library was 100 years ago, or the telegraph. It will be bigger and better than television. We’re not talking about a 500-channel medium. We’re talking about 250,000 channels that speak across all borders It represents who we are, how we act, transact business and engage in relationships. The Internet is about information empowerment. I think it will change world culture. (Michael Wolff in Investor’s Business Daily 21 Sep 95, p. A8)

This summer, the number of commercial Internet sites passed those of educational institutions. The Internet, in a sense, has graduated.
Islamic Art and Archaeology
Authors: Grabar Oleg
Published: March 2016

Like most other fields, the study of Islamic art is both the beneficiary and the victim of its own past. Like many fields, it is affected in various more or less successful ways by developments and needs in related areas of learning. Like all fields, it is tied to the quality and idiosyncrasies of the men who practice it. Inasmuch as bibliographical surveys according to traditional lines of techniques and periods are available (Pearson, Index Islamicus with supplements, London, 1958, 1962, 1968; especially K.A.C. Creswell, A Bibliography of the Architecture, Arts and Crafts of Islam, Cairo, 1961) and current works are listed with a fair degree of completeness in the yearly Abstracta Islamica published by the Revue des Etudes Islamiques, my concern in this paper will be to review the state of the field, the ways in which one can find out about it, and the work being done according to three major categories: traditional techniques and documentation; new problems and solutions; light and dark areas of research.
Goodbye, My Friend - Shalom Chaver. CDI & NMC Music, Ltd., Israel. Distributed by NMC Marketing, 1995. NIS 55.00 METRIX 20197-2
Authors: Flam Gila
Published: March 2016

A double CD album characterized as “a charity compilation of love and peace songs by Israel’s top artists in memory of Yitzhak Rabin,” has been issued by NMC Music Ltd., 1995. The title on the cover is taken from the eulogy of President Bill Clinton: Shalom Chaver [Goodbye, My Friend]. It appears with two doves in green and blue symbolizing peace. On the back cover there is a picture of Yitzhak Rabin next to the flag of Israel and a list of the songs. Next to their titles in Hebrew, the names of the singers appear in Hebrew and English. There are 17 numbers on each CD.
Swimming Against the Tide Personal Passions and Academic Fashions
Authors: Fawaz Leila
Published: March 2016

A New Academic fashion in the disciplines of history, anthropology, and cultural criticism is to “foreground” authors in works of scholarship. But it is not in imitation of what is currently fashionable that I have chosen to make my address autobiographical. I am a historian who enjoys writing narrative history and who elsewhere has argued that the narrative remains as valuable and as legitimate in modern scholarship as theory. So here I wish to tell a story that may hold some lessons for those scholars who seek freedom from the constraints imposed both by the norms of Middle Eastern societies and by the rules of the western academy. In our post-modern, post-structural, post-colonial world, all the certitudes have been shaken, and the narrative might well be the only kind of story that we can relate to with any kind of authority.
Expanding Kurdish Studies: A Review Essay
Authors: Watts Nicole
Published: March 2016

The Failure to Implement the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres thwarted Kurdish hopes for their own state, but it did not write the Kurds out of history. From Sheikh Said’s rebellion against the Turks in 1925 to the legendary Mulla Mustafa Barzani and his son Massud, Kurds have grabbed the occasional headline and challenged central authorities more or less continually throughout the 20th century. Conversely, and in less chronicled fashion, they have also played powerful roles in consolidating state rule. Only after the Gulf War in 1991, however, did Kurds begin receiving sustained western attention and, in the last three years in particular, a new flood of articles and books by academics and journalists has swelled periodicals and library shelves. The Middle East Studies Association’s annual conferences from 1995 to 1997 all featured panels devoted to Kurds and Kurdish politics; at the MESA conference in San Francisco last December, papers concerning Kurds were also presented on thematic panels dealing with such diverse subjects as nationalism in the Middle East and youth in Turkey.
Western Consortium Multi-Language Conference
Authors: Schulte-Nafeh Martha , Ercetin Gulcan , Galindo Karen , Gousseva Julia
Published: March 2016

The Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona hosted the first multi-language conference in April 1998, which brought together innovative teachers of Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish to share new technologies, instructional strategies, and materials. The organizers, Karen Galindo and Amy Newhall, assumed that teachers of these less commonly taught languages faced similar challenges and that exchange among them could be mutually beneficial. This report summarizes selected presentations.
Introducing Students to Middle East Political Activists Through the World Wide Web: One Political Scientist’s Approach
Authors: Langohr Vickie
Published: March 2016

Particularly Since the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism, the issue of representation has loomed large in the consciousness of many Middle East scholars as we ply our trade. While this issue is undeniably important in our research, it may be even more crucial in our teaching. Encountering students whose only exposure to the Middle East has come through the evening news places a heavy burden on a teacher to respond to prevalent stereotypes about the region and replace them with a more complex, contextualized picture. One way to do this is to supplement the use of standard scholarly works on the region with primary documents in which a wide range of Middle Easterners “speak for themselves.” As scholars have pointed out in the Bulletin, the World Wide Web (www) provides many opportunities to do this in new ways. As a political scientist I chose to provide students in my Government and Politics of the Middle East course with these types of primary sources by designing a project in which students studied the strategies and goals of political activists of many stripes, and the responses of governments to them, by consulting the websites of political movements and newspapers.
The Changing Face of Medieval Near Eastern Studies: Challenges and Strategies
Authors: Meri Josef W.
Published: March 2016

As we Embrace the new millennium, the debate concerning the ever-changing role of area studies in the humanities curriculum and in funding and academic policies continues. Middle Eastern Studies is facing a new policy and funding agenda, which is forcing institutions and departments to impose changes in teaching, research and funding and meant to bring Middle Eastern Studies in line with what are perceived as more relevant fields of study. Accordingly, some Near Eastern Studies programs, which have continued to experience a decline in funding levels, have over the past decade placed greater emphasis on interdisciplinary classes in comparative literature, history and religion. Sometimes these changes have led to the marginalization of early and medieval Islamic history, culture and religion at public institutions. Why offer a class in medieval Islamic history, while classes in the modern Middle East, comparative literature, or world history might attract higher undergraduate enrollment? Faculty have not always succeeded in convincing university administration of the need to offer undergraduate seminars on various aspects of Islamic history, or devised ways of making pre-modern Near Eastern history and religion more appealing to undergraduates.
For a “Foreign” Audience: The Challenges of Teaching Arabic Literature in the American Academy
Authors: Al-Nowaihi Magda M.
Published: March 2016

Recently Mary Louise Pratt suggested that we expunge the term ‘foreign’ as it applies to non-European languages and literature, and that we replace it with the term ‘modern,’ thereby “put[ting] an end to another lexical legacy of the Cold War.” I want to argue that, at least for the time being, replacing the term ‘foreign’ would be a dangerous masking, a denial of the realities of the encounters that, from my vantage point as an Arab and a professor of Arabic literature in the American academy, are still characterized by power inequalities, ignorance, and outright racism and hostility, encounters with ‘foreignness’ that must, at the very least, be apprehended as such.

Arabic literature is primarily taught in this country in departments of Middle or Near Eastern Studies. Almost everyone in the humanities today is aware of how institutional structures of limited funding and resources, the distinctions between tenured, non-tenured, and adjunct faculty, the politics of publication and advancement, and so on affect the production of the knowledge that our students and readers are exposed to. In the case of Area Studies departments the problems are more acute. It is not simply that the resources are less, the support from the administration weaker, and the prestige at the bottom of the academic food chain, all of which are true. It is also that, when it comes to Area Studies, it becomes almost impossible for the American academy to be an arena of opposition and contestation. Edward Said traced the history of Area Studies departments in Orientalism over twenty years ago, and exposed the ways in which the knowledge they produce has served the interests of some at the expense of others, and has functioned to consolidate a world order, ‘new’ or ‘old’ does not seem to make much difference, of a privileged few, and a disenfranchised majority.
Shedding Some Light on Contemporary Musicians in Palestine
Authors: El-Ghadban Yara
Published: March 2016

I talked to my wife in Ram Allah a few hours ago, and I was wondering why I should continue playing music,…but then I realized that this instrument can be a weapon too.

With those Words, Samir Joubran plucked the first note on his ‘ud. His comments are echoed by many of his Palestinian peers, who seize every opportunity to bring awareness to Palestinian suffering through their music. His first solo improvisation or taqsim immediately set the mood for a truly captivating evening of music and song, ranging from classical instrumental to nationalist to Arab folk and Palestinian repertoire. His performance was one of a series of events that took place in mid-October 2000, in Montreal, Canada, as part of “Rhythms from Palestine,” a cultural event organized by MAP, or Medical Aid for Palestine, a non-profit organization based in Montreal.
Studying Palestinian-Israeli Relations at the Vanderbilt Television News Archive (VTNA)
Authors: Wheeler Deborah L.
Published: March 2016

For the Past Five Decades, media texts, broadcast over television air waves, have created a shared identity among viewing audiences. John B. Thompson notes that if culture is understood as “the ways in which meaningful expressions of various kinds are produced, constructed and received by individuals”, then mass media can be understood as central to the creation and maintenance of culture (pp. 122-23). The words and images that construct a media culture are the very building blocks of collective identity. As Michael Schudson observes, “news is part of the background through which and with which people think” (p. 16).
Studying Middle Eastern Societies: Imperatives and Modalities of Thinking Comparatively
Authors: Bayat Asef
Published: March 2016

Current debates about the status of middle east studies are informed by an assumption that separates ‘area studies’ from ‘global studies,’ and ‘area specialization’ from disciplinary or theoretical orientation. Arguing against such separation, I propose that a resort to comparative perspectives may help bridge the divide. To this end, I discuss imperatives and modalities of thinking comparatively in the context of the Middle East, and their implications for bringing other areas into comparative inquiries. Focusing on illustrations from Middle East social studies, I attempt to think through my own, albeit limited, experience of comparative research within the Middle East region.
History in Contemporary Practice: Syria’s Music Canon
Authors: Currey Nancy E.
Published: March 2016

A consideration of the contemporary musical soundscape in Syria provides unique insights into how Syrians of multiple classes and generations discriminate between critical points in their own past, who they perceive they are today, and how they might think about their future. This review, based on fieldwork in Syria conducted between 1997 and 2001, suggests that people in Syria can use music to negotiate the following complex issues: 1) the struggle between an identity rooted in the modern nation-state of Syria and one rooted in the more traditional concept of ‘Bilad al-Sham’ (roughly ‘the lands governed from Damascus,’ a region that included all of modern Lebanon, as well as portions of Turkey, Palestine, and Jordan); 2) the struggle between a Syrian identity and an Arab identity; and 3) the maintenance of a strongly Arab and necessarily anti-Western canon.
The Thomas Cook Archive for the Study of Tourism in North Africa and the Middle East
Authors: Hunter F. Robert
Published: March 2016

As one of the greatest and fastest-growing industries of our time, one with significant impacts upon societies and economies almost everywhere, tourism (mass travel for pleasure and recreation) merits serious historical study. In the Middle East and North Africa, the turning point in travel for trade, exploration, adventure, and religious inspiration to travel primarily for leisure occurred in Egypt and Syria/Palestine during the 1880s. Tourism, however, is not only intrinsically important. Its origins and development also shed light upon the great themes of Middle East history: (1) modernization (the introduction of Western techniques, methods and materials), and (2) colonial expansion and empire.
The Historian on Language: Ibn Khaldun and the Communicative Learning Approach
Authors: Osman Ghada
Published: March 2016

Long regarded as a landmark historian, sociologist and philosopher, Ibn Khaldun has entered Islamic tradition as a giant figure of learning. His Muqaddimah marked the earliest attempt by any historian to build a framework to explain the political and social structure of civilization. While much has been written about his views on history and society, very little recognition has been granted to his writings on the Arabic language. Ibn Khaldun dedicated the last third of his Muqaddimah to the study of language, yet this portion of his work has been barely examined by scholars. This is all the more unfortunate since an examination of his work reveals a remarkable depth of knowledge and learning. A study of Ibn Khaldun's views on language exposes a “cutting-edge” approach, one that is in line with the most current thought on contemporary second language acquisition. Rather than promoting language learning through grammar, Ibn Khaldun projected a vision embraced by linguists today. Advocating learning language through conversation, Ibn Khaldun was one of the earliest supporters of communicative language learning.
An Annotated Bibliography of the Scholarly Works of Solomon Bayevsky
Authors: Sheynin Hayim Y.
Published: March 2016

Solomon Isaakovich Bayevsky was born in 1923 in Mogilev, Belarus, to Isaac Zelikovich Bayevsky, an engraver, and Mera Solomonovna Bayevsky, nee Pevzner, a librarian. His father passed away in 1933, and in 1935 he moved with his mother to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), where he received his schooling. While a student at an elementary school he joined a history study group in the Hermitage museum. Studies in the museum stimulated his interests in Persian artifacts, art and culture.
Lessons for Assistance to Iraqi Libraries Derived from Similar Efforts to Assist Bosnian Libraries after the 1992-1996 War
Authors: Spurr Jeffrey B.
Published: March 2016

The building of a library is a fundamental gesture of hope, if not in the perfectibility of humankind, at least in its mission to affirm and make accessible the legacy of scholars, researchers and creative minds of the past and present and the capacity of that legacy to guide and inspire the future, and thus to advance the prospects of all individuals and society as a whole. No serious education – particularly higher education – is possible without adequate libraries. Those who do not have such access for whatever reason are condemned to the most limited purchase on the possibilities the world has to offer. This essay addresses the fate of Bosnian libraries, efforts to ameliorate their condition, successes and failures in that regard, and reflections upon the state of similar institutions in Iraq and current efforts to address their plight, following a few thoughts concerning libraries and politics.
Historians of the Ottoman Empire: www.ottomanhistorians.com
Authors: Karateke Hakan T.
Published: March 2016

Historians of the Ottoman Empire is an online encyclopedia project whose first articles were recently published. The project aims to provide comprehensive information on the lives and works of Ottoman historians, who spent most, or at least a significant part, of their lives as Ottoman subjects. All articles will be published online as a searchable database and will be available free of charge. Once published, the articles will be kept up-to-date through constant revisions.
Understanding Iran Through Music: A New Approach
Authors: Lucas Ann
Published: March 2016

Within the realm of Iranian studies, music remains mostly outside the purview of larger social and political discussions of the region. At first glance this may seem appropriate, since even musicians often consider their work beyond the reach of sociological discussions. But the behavior of Iranians suggests that music has a broader social and political role beyond narrowly defined musical contexts. Music is a common part of everyday life in Iran. In traditional contexts such as weddings and other family gatherings as well as in modern settings such as the car, the computer, or the concert hall, most Iranians experience music on a daily basis. Music's influential role in Iranian society has made it the target of constant government scrutiny both before and after the Islamic Revolution. The current Islamic government's need to control and approve of every aspect of music making demonstrates a keen understanding of music's influence in the country. Hence whether Iranians are listening to it, dancing to it, performing it, or banning it, the message is the same: music is a powerful force that affects key aspects of Iranian society. For this reason music can offer a unique perspective on a variety of topics relevant to students and scholars of modern Iran.
Music and Mass Media in the Arab Persian Gulf
Authors: Ulaby Laith
Published: March 2016

In the past, the majlis or dıwanıyah a sitting room used for socializing in many Gulf homes, was often a place of music-making. In recent years, however, the ‘ud, duff, and tabl have been supplanted by satellite TV, Wi-Fi Internet connections, and video game consoles. Other long-established music-making contexts in the Gulf have also disappeared, particularly songs associated with maritime occupations that were such an intrinsic part of life in the recent past. Some of these songs were performed as accompaniments to tasks on ships, such as pulling up the anchor or setting the sail, whereas others were songs of supplication, asking God for protection from the perils of the seas (Al-Taee 2005). Traditional music in the region has also suffered from the breakdown of original patronage systems, as wealthy merchants now seek to invest in skyscrapers and artificially created islands rather than support musical ensembles. With the disappearance of these traditional music-making contexts and support networks, mass media has increasingly become the primary mode of experiencing music, both old and new, in the region.
Textual Studies in Iran: A Report
Authors: Irani Akbar
Published: March 2016

Translator’s note: The Written Heritage Research and Publication Center (WHRPC) was established in January 1995 under the auspices of the Office of the Deputy Minister for Cultural Activities at the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance in Iran. It was given the task of researching and publishing important texts of Iranian and Islamic civilizations. The Center concentrates on the editing of texts that have not yet been published, those whose existing editions may be improved by more attentive editorial efforts, and Persian and Arabic works for which better manuscripts have been discovered since the preparation of their original editions. The center’s areas of concentration are: Persian and Arabic literatures, History, Geography, Islamic Sciences, and the Tranoxianian Heritage. Since 2004 this center has increased its cooperation with international organizations that share its goals and interests. More about this institution may be found at its website at: http://www.mirasmaktoob.ir. What follows is a brief description of the activities of the WHRPC in the fields of textual studies and codicology, as presented by Dr. Akbar Irani, the director of WHRPC, in a lecture that he delivered in August of 2007 in the third conference of the Society of Islamic Manuscripts in Cambridge, England. I have taken few liberties with the text in order to transform the narrative from a talk to a report.
Research Facilities in Morocco
Authors: Brown Kenneth , Rollman Wilfrid J. , Waterbury John
Published: March 2016

It is, perhaps, not very useful to generalize about the “climate” for research in Morocco, which quite obviously varies according to the type of research to be undertaken, and the general situation in the country or in the government agency with which the researcher may wish to work. What can be said is that no topic is a priori off-limits, and that, for the time being at least, the visiting scholar probably has a better chance to conduct his research successfully in Morocco than in most of the other Arab countries.
Research Facilities in Tunisia
Authors: Raccagni Michelle
Published: March 2016

Research in the social sciences in Tunisia is stronger than it is in most Arab countries and compares favorably with Lebanon and Egypt. The several reasons for this position include an increasingly favorable attitude by the government toward the benefits of research, strong leadership within the Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (CERES), the long financial support of the Ministry of Education and the Ford Foundation, and the large number of higher degree holders who are motivated for research. CERES, a section of the University of Tunis, is the focus of the social science research with a full and part-time staff of more than sixty professionals. While most of the staff have been trained in France, several have taken higher degrees in North America. Because of the rapid increase in the number of foreign researchers in the past few years, it will only be a matter of time before an incident occurs and the government places conditions or restrictions on all research activities. A serious incident has so far been avoided in large part because of the close communication that most foreigners have maintained with their Tunisian colleagues.. The single most important thing that can be done to maintain the present research climate, in addition to the usual courtesies, is the distribution of both preliminary and final reports of research for comment and publication. Distribution should include the relevant ministries plus those individuals who personally aided the work. The editors of the Revue des Sciences Sociales Tunisiennes, the periodical of CERES, are interested in publishing articles in either French or English, as well as short pieces on the status of research.
Islamic Literature in Translation
Authors: Giffen Lois
Published: March 2016

This course of one semester for undergraduates samples the literature—broadly defined—of the Arab, Persian and Turkish peoples and a time span of from just before the rise of Muhammad to modern times. It is literature-centered, i.e., the attention is on the reading and discussion of certain works or selections from works, rather than on literary history. Conceived more on the style of a Great Books course, its aim is to give the student as much direct acquaintance as possible in a few weeks with the thought, and the literary sensibilities of a great civilization. An alternative title would be Islamic Humanities, taking a cue from the more inclusive Oriental Humanities courses and the successful Western Humanities courses which led the way for them.
Opportunities and Facilities for Research in Syria1
Authors: Humphreys Stephen
Published: March 2016

Syria, its contemporary life as well as its long history, presents immensely rewarding possibilities for the student of the Middle East. Moreover, there is a great deal of published material on Syria’s geography, ethnography, and social and political institutions, but — as one would expect in view of the modern history of the Levant — the overwhelming majority of these studies have flowed from the pens of French scholars. Indeed, most Americans, even those highly conversant with Middle Eastern affairs, regard Syria with befuddlement if not consternation. As a result, Syria is truly a neglected area in American scholarship. There have been few attempts to investigate the country seriously even from the outside, let alone to conduct research within its borders. On the other hand, those Americans who have worked in Syria, including the present writer, have found it a good place to carry out scientific research, so long as one observes certain commonsense rules. In the following paragraphs, I shall try to sketch the areas where research is permitted, research facilities available in Syria, the varying procedures necessary to gain research permission, and living conditions. Because of the nature of my own work there, most of my comments refer specifically to Damascus unless otherwise stated. Likewise, all the data presented in this paper was gathered before the outbreak of fighting on October 6, 1973, and may thus be only partly valid as of this writing.
The Middle East in American High School Curricula a Kansas Case Study
Authors: Suleiman Michael W.
Published: March 2016

This report summarizes the results of a survey of Kansas high school teachers of World History conducted in the Spring of 1972. Though the data were gathered in the state of Kansas, the textbooks used in the World History course are “national” in the sense that (1) the authors are not local or even regional and (2) the books are widely used in various parts of the country.
Introductory Courses in Middle Eastern Religion Two Model Syllabi
Authors: Denny Frederick M.
Published: March 2016

Judging from the programs of the MESA meetings over the past several years and the contributions to the Bulletin and IJMES the preponderance of research and teaching thus far in our history in the religious studies field has been in connection with Islam. That is not surprising, given the dominance of Islam in the Middle East. The syllabi received by the Headquarters and Secretariat dealing with religion for the ongoing syllabus project all treated Islam exclusively.
Research Facilities in Turkey
Authors: Tachau Frank
Published: March 2016

In a report on the climate for social science research in Turkey published some seven years ago, Edwin J. Cohn noted that there had been a considerable intensification of interest and activity in the social sciences in Turkey, spurred both by the training of Turkish social scientists and by the increased interest of European and American scholars in Turkish experience with rapid social, economic, and political change. At the same time, Cohn reported, “the climate for research, especially research by Americans, has deteriorated…” This assessment remains basically accurate. Of course, in the intervening years, there have been further developments. Two in particular will be dealt with here: continued increase in institutions, facilities, and trained personnel on the Turkish side; and greater formalization of official rules governing the conduct of research by foreigners.
Peace Proposals for the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1967–1976
Authors: Jabber Paul
Published: March 2016

In the decade since the Six-Day War of June 1967, a multitude of peace plans and procedural formulas for the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict have been advanced by governments, international organizations, private groups, and individuals. No other international dispute has inspired so many and variegated suggestions on how to proceed toward its settlement. Particularly prolific in ideas have been private sources, which, unlike national governments and their officials, are not fettered by the requirements of diplomatic bargaining or the burdens of political responsibility. The apparent intractability of the complex of problems and issues that have come to be collectively known as The Middle East Conflict, while generally acknowledged, has not dampened the ardor of would be peace-makers. To the contrary, academics and retired diplomats, journalists and jurists, think tanks and study groups have found it a spur to their imagination and a challenge to their ingenuity. The result has been an outpour of literally hundreds of proposals in varying degrees of comprehensiveness and originality, scattered over the pages of books, scholarly journals, popular magazines and the daily press of the Middle East, Europe and North America.
How Social Innovation ‘Came to Be’: Tracing the Evolution of a Contested Concept
Authors: AYOB NOORSEHA , TEASDALE SIMON , FAGAN KYLIE
Published: March 2016

Social innovation is a contested concept with multiple meanings that have implications beyond academia. It is not a new term – its sociological heritage can be dated to the late nineteenth century. However, until the twenty-first century the concept was sparsely utilised, and, despite its current popularity among policy makers in Europe and the United States, remains largely ignored by social policy researchers. Through bibliometric analysis we identify the most influential articles on social innovation and explore how these have conceptualised the term. We show that over time social innovation has taken on a set of meanings far removed from its sociological roots. In particular we identify a weak tradition that sees social innovation as any increase in aggregate individual utility arising from an innovation, and a strong tradition that focuses on the process of collaboration between different groups and the restructuring of power relations. We conclude by outlining implications for social policy research.
Defining Down Sovereignty: The Rights and Responsibilities of Nations
Authors: Etzioni Amitai
Published: March 2016

“Defining down sovereignty” refers to the normative thesis that sovereignty should not grant a state absolute protection against armed intervention in its internal affairs by other states, and that instead the international community should condition such immunity on states living up to particular standards. This essay suggests two modifications to this thesis. First, the international community should spell out the kinds of failures to protect civilians that can justify armed interventions by other states, as well as which agency has the authority to determine when such failures have occurred. In other words, the international community should determine how low to set the bar for intervention, and who makes the rules. Second, the international community needs to establish an additional international responsibility, namely, a responsibility to prevent international terrorism. The essay treats both of these modifications as shared international normative understandings; it does not attempt to translate these changes into international law.