This novella interweaves the stories of five women who set out to escape the restrictions of family and social life in contemporary Iran. Through murder, suicide and even rape, as well as love, contemplation and spiritual transformation, they succeed, only to face new challenges.

Edited by Martin S. Kramer, Ph.D. 1982

“Jewish scholars," writes Bernard Lewis, "were among the first who attempted to present Islam to European readers as Muslims themselves see it and to stress, to recognize, and indeed sometimes to romanticize the merits and achievements of Muslim civilization in its great days." Lewis's premise is…

James L. Yarrison, Ph.D. 1982

The modern Louisiana Maneuvers (LAM) were neither maneuvers per se, nor were they held in Louisiana. The original Louisiana Maneuvers were pre-World War II General Headquarters exercises initiated by General George C. Marshall t o prepare the Army for World War II. They featured the field-testing of new…

Slavery, recognized and regulated by Islamic law, was an integral part of Muslim societies in the Middle East well into modern times. Recruited from the "Abode of War" by means of trade or warfare, slaves began their lives in the Islamic world as deracinated outsiders, described by Muslim jurists as being in a state like death, awaiting…

Edited by Ami Ayalon, Ph.D. 1980

Computer File: Bibliographic data1 CD-ROM + 1 Installation guide

Articles relating to Egypt, extracted from Middle East Contemporary Survey, volumes 1–21.

John E. Woods, Ph.D. 1974.

Translated, abridged, re-worked, and annotated by Robert D. McChesney, B.A. 1967, Ph.D. 1973.

In January 1929, the reigning monarch of Afghanistan, Amir Aman Allah Khan, was driven from his capital by a former soldier turned outlaw. The uprising was a response to the ruler’s attempts to modernize the tribal culture of…

This book aims to alter profoundly the accepted version of the history of post-World War II Egyptian foreign policy. To this end, Doran convincingly demonstrates the absence of any true pan-Arab front from the very beginning of the Arab League. Reconsidering Cairo's policy decisions during the critical years from 1944 to 1948, he proves that…

Olga M. Davison, Ph.D. 1983

This work, a collection of seven essays, centers on classical Persian poetics, primarily the epic art of Ferdowsi's Shâhnâma. It combines traditional literary approaches with new comparative methods, especially those developed by Albert B. Lord in his ethnographic fieldwork on living oral traditions and by…

Winner of the Albert Hourani Award (2001) Winner of the British-Kuwait Friendship Society Prize (2001)

Winner of the British-Kuwait Friendship Society prize (2001)

What duty do we have to stop others from doing wrong? The question is intelligible in almost any culture, but few seek to answer it in a rigorous fashion. The…

Co-compiled by Norman Itzkowitz, Ph.D. 1959.

The difficult subject of ethnic conflict in the Balkans, and the historical and political background of the area are clarified through broadsheets, historical documents, photographs and illustrations. A history of the…

A stunning collection of annotated plates of thirty military ranks and roles in the early nineteenth-century Imperial Ottoman army

English writings on the Ottoman Empire grew in the seventeenth century, following the establishment of official commercial relations between London and the…

Here Molly Greene moves beyond the hostile “Christian” versus “Muslim” divide that has colored many historical interpretations of the early modern Mediterranean, and reveals a society with a far richer set of cultural and social dynamics. She focuses on Crete, which the Ottoman Empire wrested from Venetian control in 1669. Historians of Europe…

Edited by ʻIrit Avramsḳi-Blai, Ph.D. 1982

Ami Ayalon, Ph.D. 1980

Boaz Shoshan, Ph.D. 1978

In this book, Shoshan asserts that in contemporary Middle Eastern countries the field of struggle that cultures constitute provides the ground for contesting and transforming the hegemonic patriarchal discourse and recently began to give voice, especially in women's literature, to feminist critique. Examining…

The Koran has constituted a remarkably resilient core of identity and continuity for a religious tradition that is now in its fifteenth century. In this Very Short Introduction, Michael Cook provides a lucid and direct account of the significance of the Koran both in the modern world and in that of traditional Islam. He gives vivid accounts of…

Edited by Ralph M. Coury, Ph.D. 1984

The chapters of this book offer a broad overview of the culturally rich, complex, and rapidly changing world of Arab-Islamic North Africa. The authors are scholars and professors who represent a wide range of nationalities, specializations, methodologies, and points of view. Fields of interest…

Aḥmad Ṭāhir Ḥasanayn, Ph.D. 1977

Edited by Lawrence I. Conrad, Ph.D. 1981

Contagion - even today the word conjures up fear of disease and plague and has the power to terrify. The nine essays gathered here examine what pre-modern societies thought about the spread of disease and how it could be controlled: to what extent were concepts familiar to modern epidemiology…

By focusing on Mamluk Cairo, Adam Sabra explores the attitude of medieval Muslims to poverty and the experience of being poor in an Islamic society. He also considers the role of pious endowments (waqfs) in sustaining the poor. In this way the book affords fascinating insights into a world far removed from elite society, hitherto the focus of…

Vassilios Christides, Ph.D. 1970.

A detailed study of Byzantine Africa and its conquest by the Arabs beginning in 641/642. Professor Christides assesses the political situation on the eve of the first Arab raid, the raids themselves and the sources available for studying them, as well as the causes and consequences of the Byzantine…

This collection of merchant documents is essential reading for any student of economic developments in the Middle Ages who wishes to go beyond the level of textbook summaries. Different aspects of economic life in the Mediterranean world are delineated in the light of a rich variety of articles and other contemporary writings, drawn from Muslim…

Martin S. Kramer, Ph.D. 1982

On campuses throughout the United States, thousands of professors study and teach the Middle East. They fill the pages of journals, the shelves of libraries, and the minds of students with their paradigms, theories, and predictions. In Middle East crises, the media seek their opinions. Their enterprise is…

Edited by Lawrence I. Conrad, Ph.D. 1981

Modernising scientific medicine emerged in the nineteenth century as an increasingly powerful agent of change in a context of complex social developments. Women's lives and expectations in particular underwent a transformation in the years after 1870 as education, employment opportunities and…

This is the first book to address the topic of mutiny in and of itself, or to present mutiny in a comparative framework. The fourteen contributors, a mixture of military, social, and political historians, examine instances of mutiny that occurred from ancient to modern times and on nearly every continent. Their findings call into question…

No other North African legend had been adopted, transformed, and used by as many social groups as that of the Kahina myth. In this book, Abdelmajid Hannoum examines the role the myth played in what may be called an ideological conquest. Since its inception in the 9th century, the Kahina legend has provided the ideological armature for use in…

This is a substantially expanded edition of the author's seminal work "The Authoritative and Authoritarian in Islamic Discourses: A Contemporary Case Study". Beginning with the case study of a Muslim basketball player who refused to stand up while the American national anthem was playing, the author documents the disintegration of the Islamic…

Eric L. Ormsby, Ph.D. 1981

Araby is a new collection of poems on the adventures, dreams, hopes, and imaginings of two singular characters: Jaham, the "Father of Clouds," a semi-nomadic poet and auto mechanic, and his inseparable sidekick Bald Adham, also a virtuoso mechanic as well as pillar of Muslim piety. With sly…

This book will completely transform the standard interpretation of the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, a watershed event in the late Ottoman Empire and a key to the emergence of the modern nation-states in the Middle East and Balkans.

Preparation for a Revolution is the first book on the Young Turk Revolution to draw on both the…

Based on actual cases, these original essays present an honest and critical evaluation of the problems and challenges that confront Muslims in the Contemporary world. Using the Muslim experience in the United States as a lens, the author examines what he identifies as a pervasive alienation suffered by Muslims over their place in history,…

Drawing on both religious and secular sources, this challenging book argues that divinely ordained law is frequently misinterpreted by Muslim authorities at the expense of certain groups, including women. Khaled Abou El Fadl cites a series of injustices in Islamic society and ultimately proposes…

In Syria, all schools, including those of the private sector and UNRWA are under the supervision of the Ministry of Education which imposes on them all one curriculum and a single list of textbooks. The Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace undertook a survey of 68 textbooks for grades 1 to 12. In all the 68…

In the academic years 2000–2001 and 2001–2002, the Palestinian National Authority introduced 55 new textbooks and two teachers' guides for grades 1,2,6,7 and 11. This book discusses the results of a comprehensive survey of these textbooks to determine how they relate to peace, tolerance, recognition and…

Eric L. Ormsby, Ph.D. 1981

Eric Ormsby is a poet who writes prose that is both graceful and hard-headed. With an outspoken contempt for cant and literary persiflage, Ormsby ranges over a surprising array of writers and literatures. Each essay involves a new and sometimes startling viewpoint, whether on Hart Crane’s homosexuality and…

The philosopher and physician Abū ‘Alī al-Husayn ibn ‘Abdallâh ibn Sīnā (d. 1037 CE), known in the West by his Latinized name Avicenna, was one of the most influential thinkers of the Islamic and European Middle Ages. Yet for a great number of scholars today Avicenna’s thought remains inaccessible. Because he wrote almost all his works in…

Co-authored by Lewis B. Ware, Ph.D. 1973.

From the avant-garde design of the Islamic Cultural Center in New York City to the simplicity of the Dar al-Islam Mosque in Abiquiu, New Mexico, the American mosque takes many forms of visual and architectural expression. The absence of a single, authoritative model and the plurality of design nuances reflect the heterogeneity of the American…

Edited, and with an introduction by Eric L. Ormsby, Ph.D. 1981

Shortlisted: 2003—Griffin Prize for Poetry (Canada); Commended: 2003—Globe Top 100; Commended: 2008—New England Book Festival

The title of this book is taken from Page’s poem, ‘Planet Earth’, which was chosen by the United Nations in 2000 for their celebratory…

David S. Powers, Ph.D. 1979

David Powers analyzes the application of Islamic law through six cases which took place during the period 1300 to 1500 in the Maghrib. The source for these disputes are fatwas issued by the muftis, which Powers uses to situate each case in its historical context and to interpret the principles of law. He…

Presents the political, social, and cultural context behind Ottoman charity.

Ottoman charitable endowments (waqf) constituted an enduring monument to imperial beneficence and were important instruments of policy. One type of endowment, the public soup kitchen (imaret) served travelers, scholars, pious…

Focusing on idealists and visionaries who believed that Justice could reign in our world, this book explores the desire to experience utopia on earth. Reluctant to await another existence—another form, or eternal life following death and resurrection—individuals with ghuluww, or exaggeration, emerged at the advent of Islam, expecting…