The work of Charles Tripp—professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) for over three decades—has shaped a distinct approach to the study of Middle East politics: an analytical sensibility that is empirically rich, theoretically insightful, and historically sensitive.
Of all the horrors of this benighted century, the genocide of the Yazidis at the hands of ISIS a decade ago stands out for its extreme brutality and inhumanity. At the time, few people outside the region were aware of the group’s existence; as non-Muslims (Yazidism has pre-Zoroastrian roots), Yazidis were specifically targeted. The world has by now, alas, largely moved on to other atrocities.
Geographic labels are sometimes misnomers. The Dead Sea’s name is not, for the most part. Its high salinity levels kill most forms of life, barring a couple hardy microbes and algae—and even these are threatened by environmental change. Except the Dead Sea has been part of human history for millennia. Jericho, the world’s oldest city, sits nearby. It features prominently in the Bible. Greeks, Romans, Jews, Arabs, Europeans all interact with the Dead Sea. And it’s now a tourist hotspot, a source for resources extraction–and a political hotspot, shared between Jordan, Israel, and the contested area of the West Bank.
The Dead Sea—and its environs of Jericho and the Jordan River—is perhaps second only to Jerusalem as a place where history, archaeology, religion, politics and international relations meet and mix. It is, as Nir Arielli points out in his new book, quite a bit older, and today is as much a place of environmental as political dispute.
Whether it’s in commerce or conflict, today’s world pays rapt attention to the Persian Gulf. But the centrality of the Gulf to world history stretches far beyond the oil age—its ancient ports created the first proper trading system and the launching point for the spread of global Islam.
Bartle Bull’s objective in the very readable Land Between the Rivers is to demonstrate that the modern country of Iraq is not a mere colonial creation but rather has a historical reality going back millennia.
A severely injured nineteen-year-old soldier caught at the frontlines of the Syrian Civil War tries to piece together his life as he waits for aid that may never arrive. As he inches toward death, he recalls the minor and major events of his life and his country that led him so close to death. Told in vignettes that jump across time and place, Samar Yazbek’s newest novel Where The Wind Calls Home is a heart-wrenching story that questions the value of life in a combat zone with equal parts compassion and anger to craft a brilliant war novel. Translated from Arabic by Leri Price, Yazbek’s story introduces English readers to a moment in Syrian history that is equally haunting and beautiful.
Moving on from the theme of communication examined in her last novel, Bitter Orange Tree, International Booker-prize winner Jokha Alharthi turns her exacting focus and lyrical style to marriage and motherhood in contemporary Oman. Sensitively translated to reflect Alharthi’s ability to switch seamlessly between the different voices of her two central characters, one pragmatic, one passionate, the story also touches on the constraints and expectations of Omani society where traditional beliefs persist despite rapid modernization.
The Mesopotamian high priestess Enheduana lived over 4,000 years ago, but her words ring down to the present: “I am Enheduana.”
It can come as a surprise that the largest Muslim (or perhaps more accurately, Muslim-majority) country is Indonesia, far from the religion’s origins in the Middle East. It is—probably as a result—not always included, or at least not centrally, in discourse about Islam. James M Dorsey, on the other hand, puts the country front and center in his new book The Battle for the Soul of Islam.
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