Middle East

The Shi’i clergy are amongst the most influential political players in the Middle East. For decades, scholars and observers have tried to understand the balance of power between, Shi'i ‘quietism’ and ‘activism’. The book is based on exclusive interviews...

In this major contribution to Muslim intellectual history, Andrew Hammond offers a vital reappraisal of the role of Late Ottoman Turkish scholars in shaping modern Islamic thought. Focusing on a poet, a sheikh and his deputy, Hammond re-evaluates the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780307277732Author Yaroslav TrofimovFormat PaperbackPage Count 336Imprint Random House IncPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams) 301gDimensions(mm)...

Focusing on the turbulent twenty-eight months between April 1951 and August 1953, this book, based on recently declassified CIA and US State Department documents from the Mossadeq administration tell the story of the Iranian oil crisis, which would...

This cahier deals with the criticism of three sources: Dinawari's al-Akhbar al-Tiwal, the so-called Sirat Anusharwan, and Firdawsi's Shahnama. The need to examine these sources arises from a re-evaluation of Noldeke's Khuday-Nama hypothesis; a case is...

This innovative study examines patterns of change in Shi'i symbols and rituals over the past two centuries to reveal how modernization has influenced the societal, political, and religious culture of Iran. Shi'is, who support the Prophet Mohammad's...

In a timely reminder of how the past informs the present, Baruch Kimmerling and Joel Migdal offer an authoritative account of the history of the Palestinian people from their modern origins to the Oslo peace process and beyond.Palestinians struggled to...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781905512645Author Seth FreedmanFormat PaperbackPage Count 160Imprint Five Leaves PublicationsPublisher Five Leaves Publications

Using a wide range of archival and written sources, Rudi Matthee considers the economic, social and political networks established between Iran, its neighbours and the world at large, through the prism of the late Safavid silk trade. In so doing, he...

The Ottoman Empire was unprepared for the massive conflict of World War I. Lacking the infrastructure and resources necessary to wage a modern war, the empire's statesmen reached beyond the battlefield to sustain their war effort. They placed...

Following on the British Museum's critically acclaimed exhibition Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam, this volume provides over thirty papers on the history and significance of the Hajj, spanning history, politics, archaeology, pilgrims' journeys, art,...

Poppies of Iraq is Brigitte Findakly s nuanced tender chronicle of her relationship with her homeland Iraq, co-written and drawn by her husband, the acclaimed cartoonist Lewis Trondheim. In spare and elegant detail, they share memories of her middle...

The Ottoman Empire was one of the most significant forces in world history and yet little attention is paid to its rich cultural life. For the people of the Ottoman Empire, lyrical poetry was the most prized literary activity. People from all walks of...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780060594640Author Professor Ronald RadoshFormat PaperbackPage Count 428Imprint HarperCollins PublishersPublisher HarperCollins Publishers IncWeight(grams)...

Southeast Asia is home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the world today. The region has also produced a cohort of reformers who have critiqued the limits of Islamic thought and propounded new lines of thinking with an eye toward constructing a...

The Ottoman empire stood at the crossroads of intercontinental trade at the dawn of the era of capitalism. This volume examines the monetary history of that empire from its beginnings in the fourteenth century to the end of the first world war. Through a...

Thinking and writing about the past has always been of critical importance to the way that any culture or civilization views itself and its role in the world. In a work which surveys an entire tradition of historical thought and writing across a span of...

I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies The Shi'i Ismaili Muslims of Central Asia have a complex political history. This open access book is the first English-language study of the Ismaili Muslims in this region, based on...

From encounters with Western powers in the nineteenth century through to a Constitutional Revolution at the beginning of the twentieth century, and from the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mosaddeq in the 1950s to the current...

In the 1890s, conflict erupted on the Ottoman island of Crete. At the heart of the Crete Question, as it came to be known around the world, were clashing claims of sovereignty between Greece and the Ottoman Empire. The island was of tremendous...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780262542845Author Blake AtwoodFormat PaperbackPage Count 320Imprint MIT PressPublisher MIT Press Ltd

The archaeology and architecture of Afghanistan have never been the subject of their own book before; through concise description and discussion Edgar Knobloch here reveals their importance both as works of art, and as symbols of the country's past,...

The Iranian revolution of 1979 not only had an impact on regional and international affairs, but was made possible by the world and time in which it unfolded. This multi-disciplinary volume presents this revolution within its transnational and global...

What is the Gulen Movement and why is Turkey's President Erdogan so convinced that the organisation and its charismatic leader were behind the failed military coup of 15th July 2016? The Gulen, or Hizmet, movement in Turkey was until recently the...

Palestine for the Third Time is a book of reportage originally published in Poland in 1933 by Ksawery Pruszynski, a young reporter working for a Polish newspaper, who went to Mandate Palestine to see for himself whether the Zionist dream of returning to...

During the Iranian Revolution of 1978/9, the influence of public intellectuals was widespread. Many espoused a vision of Iran freed from the influences of 'Westtoxification', inspired by Heideggerian concepts of anti-Western nativism. By following the...

This book traces the history of attitudes toward power and the use of armed force within the Zionist movement-from an early period in which most leaders espoused an ideal of peaceful settlement in Palestine, to the acceptance of force as a legitimate...

Over the last decade or so Salafism has become one of the West's new political bogey-men. Many regard the movement as the antechamber of violent groups such as al-Qaeda, and as the by-product of a centralized foreign-policy platform shaped by so-called...

What kind of duty do we have to try to stop other people doing wrong? The question is intelligible in just about any culture, but few of them seek to answer it in a rigourous fashion. The most striking exception is found in the Islamic tradition, where...

Sowing the Wind tells of how and why this happened. The subject is painful and essentially sombre, but John Keay illuminates it with lucid analysis and anecdotes. This is that rarest of works, a history with humour, an epic with attitude, a dirge that...

This book examines how violent acts were assessed by Muslim intellectuals, analysing both changes and continuity within Islamic thought over time.Book InformationISBN 9781474462600Author Robert GleaveFormat PaperbackPage Count 256Imprint Edinburgh...

The McMahon-Husayn correspondence has been at the heart of Anglo-Arab relations since World War I. It aroused great controversy, particularly over Palestine. Here, it is examined in historical context to determine why it was so obscure and what lay in...

Performing al-Andalus explores three musical cultures that claim a connection to the music of medieval Iberia, the Islamic kingdom of al-Andalus, known for its complex mix of Arab, North African, Christian, and Jewish influences. Jonathan Holt Shannon...

Like many people in America and around the world, Talal Asad experienced the events of September 11, 2001, largely through the media and the emotional response of others. For many non-Muslims, "the suicide bomber" quickly became the icon of "an Islamic...

While previous scholarship has viewed Mehmed Ali Pasha as the founder of modern Egypt, Khaled Fahmy offers a new interpretation of his role in the rise of Egyptian nationalism, locating him in the Ottoman context as an ambitious Ottoman reformer. Basing...

The Palestinian national movement gestated in the early decades of the twentieth century, but it was born in the Great Revolt of 1936-39, a period of sustained Arab protest against British policy in the Palestine mandate. In The Crime of Nationalism,...

States routinely and readily exploit the grey area between sentiments of national affinity and hegemonic emotions geared to nationalist aggression. In this book, Arshin Adib-Moghaddam focuses on the use of Iranian identity to offer a timely exploration...

This book argues that war-making with Israel has driven Hezbollah's socialisation in Lebanon and the region, transforming the Islamist movement from a loose organization into one of the world's most powerful and sophisticated armed political movements...

1. Provides readers with an accessible and entertaining introduction to Islamic art and architecture from the seventh century to the present across most regions of the Islamic world. 2. Engages with modern interpretations of key monuments, objects and...

This book shows which historical developments led people to start describing themselves and others as 'minorities'. Why, in the years around 1920, did the concept of 'minority' suddenly become prominent in public affairs worldwide? Within a decade of...