Selected by Fred Rhodes

ISBN 1 86064 552 6
price �14.95
paperback

Ali Shari’ati is, for many, the ideological father of the Iranian revolution. A charismatic leader and teacher, his radical blend of Islam and Marxism mobilised a whole generation of young Iranians. Now available in paperback, this full-length political biography looks at Ali Shari’ati’s life and thought in the context of the complex and contradictory cultural, social and political conditions of the Iranian society that shaped him.

Covering his upbringing in provincial Mashhad, his life as a student in Paris in the early 1960s, his subsequent development as a religious and revolutionary thinker at odds with both the Pahlavi regime and the Shi’i clerical establishment, to his death in exile at the age of 44, Ali Rahnema unravels much of the enigma that surrounds this important figure.

An Islamic Utopian provides a new understanding of a man who played a significant part in the Iranian revolution and an analysis of a current of political Islam that has influenced movements throughout the Middle East.

THE PURE AND THE POWERFUL

Studies in Contemporary Muslim Society

By Nadia Abu-Zahara published by ITHACA PRESS

ISBN 0 86372 269 5
price �12.95 paperback

These anthropological studies focus on the performance of Islamic rituals, examining the beliefs and practices of Muslims. The book concentrates on the social life at the shrine of Al-Sayyida Zaynab in Cairo. As granddaughter of the Prophet Mohammed, Al-Sayyida Zaynab is regarded by many as the patron saint of women. The book also includes studies on rain rituals in Tunisia, and the rituals performed during the month of Ramadan in Cairo.

It seeks to break down the assumptions and stereotypes implicit in other studies on Muslim societies and provide us with a more accurate picture of how the Islamic tradition is developed and integrated within these societies.

COLONIAL CITIZENS

Republican Rights and Paternal Privilege in French Syria and Lebanon

By Elizabeth Thompson

Published by COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

ISBN 0 231 10660 2
price �31.50 hardback

ISBN 0 213 10661 0
price �11.50 paperback

This book is a study of how states and their citizens are constructed under colonialism and then bequeathed to their post-colonial successors. It begins with the proposition that even as colonial peoples waged nationalist battles for independence they inevitably participated in the very political order they rejected. Linked to that proposition is a second one, that colonisers could not and did not unilaterally impose a system of rule. Colonialism involved, as do most other political systems, constant negotiation of power relationships and identities. Such negotiation often took place across the barrels of guns, but it more routinely occurred across desks, tables, and in newspapers.

Negotiators struck bargains along the way that shaped the powers and responsibilities of the state and the rights and obligations of colonial citizens.

This book deals specifically with the construction of a colonial civic order in Syria and Lebanon, countries created by European powers after the Ottoman Empire was defeated in World War I and governed by the French as a mandate, a system of tutelary and temporary rule authorised by the League of Nations. Syria and Lebanon are apt cases for the study of colonial civic orders because they simply did not exist before 1918 as national polities; by the time they achieved independence at the end of World War II, however, basic norms and institutions had been laid that would shape government and citizenship for decades afterward.

POLITICAL ISLAM AND THE UNITED STATES

A Study of US Policy towards Islamist Movements in the Middle East

by Maria do C�u Pinto

With a foreword by James Piscatori

Published by ITHACA PRESS

ISBN 0 86372 245 8
Price �35.00 hardback

In the West and particularly in the United States, Islamism has come to be seen as a disruptive force that threatens friendly Arab regimes, has a strong anti-Western bias, is anti-democratic and a source of terrorist activity. Attacks against foreign tourists in Egypt and the savage war against the Algerian regime have added fuel to these feelings.

The political Islam debate in the United States has become one of the most controversial debates in academic circles. This book depicts the two major schools of thought on political Islam that have emerged. One considers the Islamist movement to be a healthy grassroots response to the failure of Arab governments to tackle growing socio-economic problems. The other argues that political Islam is inherently hostile to the Western world, that Islamists are only rhetorically committed to democracy and pluralism but that their real aim is the establishment of a religious dictatorship.

The book discusses the processes whereby political Islam has been identified as one of the major security threats to the new international order, and brings to light the vested interests of certain political groups within the United States in disseminating this idea. It then goes on to look at the cases where political Islam poses a series of challenges under different guises to the United States: Islamic terrorist acts against the United States; attempts to derail the Middle East peace process; the Islamic regimes of Sudan and Iran; and the Islamist political movements that challenge the regimes in Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey.

It concludes by discussing the policies which the Bush and Clinton administrations have developed to counter the challenges that political Islam poses in areas where the United States has vital interests.

ARABISM, ISLAMISM

and the Palestine Question 1908 - 1941

By Basheer M Nafi published by ITHACA PRESS

ISBN 0 86372 235 0
Price �35.00 hardback

This book traces the origin, development and interaction of two major Arab political factors during the interwar period: the Arab-Islamic movement and the Palestine question. It analyses the circumstances that prompted the Arab reformists to take up an Arabist political view at the turn of the century and examines the convergence of Arabism with the struggle for Palestine in the aftermath of World War I. By highlighting key events in the Arab interwar movement — the Jerusalem Western Wall incident, the Syrian revolt in the mid-1920s, the Jerusalem General Islamic Congress, Egypt’s adoption of Arabism, the 1936-9 Palestinian revolt, the reawakening of the pan-Arab movement in Iraq, and the Iraqi-British military clash of 1941 — the study follows the convergence of the fate of the Palestinians with that of the Arab movement as a whole.

Despite the failure of the Arab movement to establish an Arab united state in the wake of World War I, Arabism re-emerged in the years to come. The question of Palestine, with its geopolitical and cultural ramifications, provided the chief unifying element upon which the Arab mass movement was predicated. Yet, while the Arab anti-imperialist struggle intensified during the 1930s, the declining Arab position in Palestine and the breakdown of several projects for Arab unity brought the movement to a crisis point on the eve of World War II.

The increasing radicalisation of Arab politics in the 1930s formed the background against which the reformist vision of Arab-Islamism reached breaking point — precipitating the crisis of legitimacy that affected the Arab regional states the future conflict between the Arab nationalist governments and Islamist forces, and the violence that marked Arab political life for several decades to come.

NATION AND RELIGION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

By Fred Halliday published by SAQI BOOKS

ISBN 0 86356 078 4
price �29.50

ISBN 086356 044 x
price �14.95

The Middle East is a complex region where religion, culture and politics are deeply intertwined in a powerful relationship. From the early days of the Arab nationalist experiment to the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism in the early part of this century and beyond, the region’s political movements have become a salient feature of its modern history and continue to be the subject of much heated debate and speculation

This collection of essays addresses these timely issues by providing both a general analysis of the region and more focused country by country examples. Nationalism and Islamism are re-examined to demonstrate their on-going relevance and relationship to the present-day Arab context and identity. This is followed by a closer look at Islamist movements in Turkey, Iran and Tunisia. The book also examines the fate of the eight remaining monarchies in the Arab world.

By means of a thorough analysis of these important issues, this book provides a wealth of information that helps towards a comprehensive understanding of the region

THE EGYPTIAN UPPER CLASS BETWEEN REVOLUTIONS

1919-1952

By Magda Baraka published by ITHACA PRESS

ISBN 0 86372 230 x
price �35.00 hardback

In the period between the Nationalist Revolution of 1919 and the Nasser Revolution in 1952, the Egyptian upper class provided the leadership of the nationalist movement. The Nasser Revolution dislodged it from its position of power. In this work Dr Baraka examines the socio-cultural profile of the Egyptian upper class during this period and explores its composition, lifestyles and the prejudices embedded in its vocabulary and inter-class perceptions.

The study finds that the upper class, rather than providing the mainstay of a sustained civil society in the conventional sense, was, in the opening decades of the century, an active element of a public sphere that emerged at moments of great crisis It also concludes that there was a growing process of social, cultural and spatial differentiation between the upper class and other classes during the period under investigation.

To define ‘upper class’ in this context, Magda Baraka uses specific tests relevant to the Egyptian case. In devising these tests she has drawn on, amongst other things, subjective perceptions revealed in interviews with noted members of the upper class still alive today, and parliamentary debates of the 1940s. Upper-class affiliation, she shows, was based on at least two of the following three criteria: firstly wealth, secondly kinship and descent and thirdly education and etiquette. Dr Baraka’s work draws on a variety of primary sources covering population and agricultural census data, various editions of Who’s Who in Egypt, social columns in the local press, records of parliamentary debates, and memoirs of leading upper-class figures. Another aspect of the study deals with the widening gap between the upper class and the rest of society during 1919-52. The gap is measured not only in terms of economic disparity but also in socio-cultural terms, both of which are seen as contributing to the downfall of the class in 1952. It was class consciousness that set one group against another and started a collision course that swept the military into power.

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