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Khārijite resistance to Umayyad authority during the caliphate of Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān (r. 661–680) is represented in detail in the works of the early Muslim scholars Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā al-Balādhurī (d. c. 892) and Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (d. 923). While the Khārijites are overwhelmingly depicted by both authors as religious fanatics whose excessive piety caused widespread bloodshed and who thus should be condemned, a closer look reveals that Khārijites serve specific and distinct narrative purposes: al-Balādhurī uses them mainly to illustrate Umayyad tyranny, while al-Ṭabarī addresses the consequences of Khārijite revolts for communal and imperial stability. The latter's work is also marked by a dichotomy between activist and quietist Khārijism, implying that al-Ṭabarī is not so much opposed to Khārijism as a set of “heretic” religious ideas, but rather to its violent expression of politico-religious opposition. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction of the issue is presented on topics including political developments in the Middle East, economic progress and historical and archaeological records.

The geopolitical shape of the Middle East has varied greatly over time. This article is concerned with the period from Late Antiquity to the end of the eighteenth century, during which four basic configurations succeeded each other. Late Antiquity was marked by the coexistence of two large empires, one based in the western Middle East and the other in the eastern Middle East; the early Islamic period saw the dominance of a single empire the location of whose centre was unstable; the medieval period was characterised by the absence of large and lasting empires and a shifting plurality of smaller states; finally in the Ottoman period we see the renewed dominance of a single empire, now based in the western Middle East. Are these changes to be seen as random fluctuations, or can they be explained in terms of a small number of underlying factors? The point of this article is to argue that a focus on the potential imperial heartlands of the Middle East can help us to explain much—though not all—of the changing geopolitical configuration of the region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented on the political, military and social developments in the Middle East as of December 2015. It focuses on the conflicts in the region involving Iran and its allies against Saudi Arabia and its allies. Also cited are such topics as the Iranian nuclear deal with the U.S., the civil war in Syria, and the role played by the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the conflict.

Most countries of the Arab Mashrek are multi-ethnic and multi-sectarian. In recent years, most of them have experienced violent clashes between groups that frame their conflicts along ethnic-sectarian lines. This article investigates the Lebanese Ta’if Agreement of 1989 as a crucial case study of how to manage such conflicts through a transitory power-sharing arrangement. It presents several provisions of this agreement that adhere to three different approaches of how to deal with such conflicts: the consociational and the centripetal models of power-sharing as well as the integrationist paradigm. It thereby seeks to develop a theoretical argument about chances and risks of transitory power-sharing in deeply divided societies and derives some general lessons for managing conflicts in the Middle East. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the conditions of scientific research and the scientific community in the Middle East. It discusses the progress in science, with the Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME) going fully operational in the summer of 2016. SESAME is the first synchrotron facility in the Middle East, located in Allan, Jordan and run collectively by the governments of Iran, Jordan, Israel, Pakistan and others.

The article focuses on political fears and suspicions in Middle East and Arab world; and mentions the political ability and preparedness to set up viable structures for regional security and cooperation.

The article focuses on political risks involved in Middle East. Topics discussed include regional division of labor that brought a peace treaty between Israel and its Arab neighbors; Arab intellectual and political elites who feared that their countries would lose in comprehensive settlement of Israeli-Palestinian and broader Arab-Israeli conflict; and efforts of U.S. and the European Union.

This article examines the phenomenon of minoritarian regimes in the Middle East, focusing on Bahrain, Syria and Israel/Palestine. It considers, in each, how minority rule was established, the mechanisms through which it is maintained, and the means through which it is legitimated. Although these regimes are not typically analyzed as a category, they have important features in common. In all three, the state's political and security institutions are controlled by members of an ethnic/religious group that is a numerical minority in the country, at the expense of a majority group with a competing claim to indigeneity. While the legal and political mechanisms that these regimes use to restrict access to power vary, they employ similar strategies for legitimating minority rule, presenting democracy as a threat not only to the regime's survival, but also to the security of the group whose interests it claims to represent. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This special issue explores the prospects for what Jacob Mundy calls ‘transformative minority politics’ in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region – that is, a form of minority politics that strengthens democratic reform in the region, and that helps deepen a culture of human rights and democratic citizenship. The cases examined in the special issue include the Amazigh in North Africa, the Copts in Egypt, the Kurds in Iraq, the Palestinians in Israel, the ‘minoritarian’ regimes in Syria and Bahrain, and the various ethnic minorities in Iran. In this introduction, we try to situate this debate in a larger historical and international context, identifying some of the factors that might help support a new transformative minority politics in the region, while also emphasizing the factors that have inhibited it in the past, and why they remain powerful. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In recent years, Azerbaijan–Israel relations have come to the foreground of politics in the Middle East and Caucasus region. Ties between Baku and Tel Aviv have been directly interlinked with their relations with Iran. The nature of the Azerbaijan–Israel partnership must be analysed in order to comprehend the balance of powers and energy security in the region. Even though there have been a number of works analysing the relationship by focusing on its role in regional military security, there is a gap in the discourse in terms of understanding the economic drivers of relations and the implications of the ties for regional energy security. Particular attention will be given to discussing Azerbaijan’s emerging role as a major energy producer that has already made a profound impact on the region as an ‘alternative’ to Iran in the aftermath of the recently imposed sanctions on Tehran's energy exports. It will be argued that the Azerbaijan–Israel relationship is built on solid economic grounds and it would be reasonable to expect the strength of the ties to be further intensified in the future. The article will also demonstrate that new developments in the energy security of the wider Middle Eastern region will affect the evolution of Azerbaijan–Israel ties and their rivalry with Iran in the next decade. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In their assessment of the recent revolutionary turmoil in the Middle East, Hamid Dabashi and Tariq Ramadan argue that the Arab Revolution has opened up for the Arab peoples the possibility of reconnecting themselves with their own history. In their view, there is a creative potential in the Orient itself to question, from within its own tradition, the practices and conceptual categories by which the West has objectified it, so as to produce something new and original. In this article, I contend that Dabashi's and Ramadan's appeal to the Arab cultural tradition as a source of meaning for reconstructing Arab societies is a form of culturalization of politics that blots out the role played by political economy in the Arab Revolution. To gain a theoretical grip on this question, I suggest that the ties between culture and politics be severed and, in their place, the connection between the political and the economic be restored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The front cover of the journal is presented along with the contents within the issue, copyright information and members of the editorial board.

This is a reply to: Mabon, Simon. 2018. “Existential threats and regulating life: securitization in the contemporary Middle East.”Global Discourse8 (1): 42–58.https://doi.org/10.1080/23269995.2017.1410001. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue explores significant problems of peace mediation. How do these "minefields of mediation'' arise, how do mediators' ways of handling them impact the negotiation process, and what can mediators do to overcome them? Using examples from the last quarter century, and from the Middle East in particular, the authors examine these questions at different stages of the mediation process, from its initiation to its culmination, and with reference to different forms of mediation, including facilitation, muscular, and multiparty mediation. This short introduction provides a systematic overview of some of the most pertinent mediation challenges, with reference to who the mediators are, when the mediation takes place and what the issues of contention and possible outcomes are. These areas are of course all intertwined, and, as the articles in this issue point out, are also very much influenced by changes in the domestic, regional and international environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The geopolitical frame is a necessary but insufficient means to understand the contemporary Middle East. Defining the term in its original, fairly narrow, way puts the analytical spotlight on the Westphalian units—namely, states—that compose the classical modern international system. But those states’ lack of decisional agency is itself at the core of the region's instability. As for the region, its troubles are likely to persist for some time. Outsiders cannot fix it; at best, if they are skillful and lucky, they can contain it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the outlines of India's engagement with the Middle East, focusing on security-related aspects of that engagement. First, it argues that India's approach towards the Middle East has undergone less transformation than that seen in Indian policy towards other key regions, notably the United States and Asia. Second, it describes how India has responded to recent, and older, episodes of political disorder in the region, and what patterns might be identified from these. Third, it traces aspects of India's relationships with Iran and Saudi Arabia, an exercise that brings some of those patterns into sharper relief. Fourth, and finally, the paper concludes by asking how India might orient itself in the region in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses conversations about the sex work, human trafficking, labour and migration in the Middle East. It focuses on the complications of migration in an era of human trafficking for migrants due to the violence of the human trafficking discourse and resulting outreatch and policy strategy. Also discussed are the intersection of human trafficking, parenthood, and migration both in migrant sending and receiving countries and the growth of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

This paper aims to provide an analysis of the 'new' in 'the new Middle East.' We argue that what is 'new' is the revolt against the West currently underway in the contemporary Middle East, challenging the dominant values of Western statehood and personhood. The paper identifies the novelty in the politics of radical antagonism, apocalyptic geopolitical imagination, the re-birth of extra-territorial subjectivities and the politics of resistance, which together shatter the existing political logos. Two particular empirical cases animate our discussion; namely the Arab Spring and the ISIL. By providing such groundwork, the paper also hopes to point to new avenues for further research that would go beyond the confines of narrow, ethnocentric accounts of 'the new the Middle East.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Iran nuclear deal has the potential to become a game changer in the Middle East by providing the opportunity for rapprochement between Iran, the preeminent power in the Gulf, and the United States, the preeminent global power, thus reducing the strategic importance of both Saudi Arabia and Israel. Israel's virulent opposition to the deal has also demonstrated that it has become a strategic liability for the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Naseer H. Aruri (7 January 1934–10 February 2015) was an internationally recognized and renowned scholar, activist and expert on Middle East politics, US foreign policy in the Middle East and human rights. He was Chancellor Professor (Emeritus) of Political Science, having served on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts (UMASS) – Dartmouth from 1965 to 1998. In 1993, he received the College of Arts and Sciences ‘Distinguished Research Award'. His papers have been preserved and are on display at the Claire T. Carney Library Archives and Special Collections at UMASS-Dartmouth. This text is based on an earlier version of a speech delivered by the author at the Memorial for Naseer Aruri held on 12 April 2015 at UMASS-Dartmouth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The year 2010 has seen the rise of West Asia with the Arab Spring phenomena. The event has triggered the solidarity of at least 8 countries in the region of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and has seen the ousting of Hosni Mubarak's regime. Malaysia is emotionally attached to Egypt through religion, economy and education which has led Malaysians to track the event. In the meantime, the media is seen as the catalyst towards the rise of the people there. The democratic system depends very much on free, accurate and responsible flow of credible information. The flow of information has brought huge changes in the communications aspect. This article will discuss about the impact of social media as the main source of information channel among Malaysians during the massive uprise in Egypt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an editorial about democracy, morality, and political criticism. The author argues that criticism of the so-called immature democracies in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia and the systems in the U.S. and Western Europe are both equally incorrect. For the author, who presented this editorial at the University of Paris in December 2015, democracy is imperfect and is never fully fulfilled. Its legitimacy is demonstrated by the ability of people to criticize the political and social systems of democratic societies.

The authors study the influence of domestic political dissent and violence on incumbent dictators and their regimes. They argue that elite with an interest in preserving the regime hold dictators accountable when there is a significant increase in terrorism. To pinpoint the accountability of dictators to elite who are strongly invested in the current regime, the authors make a novel theoretical distinction between reshuffling coups that change the leader but leave the regime intact and regime-change coups that completely change the set of elites atop the regime. Using a new data set that distinguishes between these two coup types, the authors provide robust evidence that terrorism is a consistent predictor of reshuffling coups, whereas forms of dissent that require broader public participation and support, such as protests and insurgencies, are associated with regime-change coup attempts. This article is the first to show that incumbent dictators are held accountable for terrorist campaigns that occur on their watch. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Under what conditions do minorities in the Middle East participate in authoritarian coalitions? Research on authoritarian resilience in the Middle East has been largely silent on linguistic and religious minorities’ preferences over regime types. Here, we examine whether minorities differ in their support for authoritarianism from the majority groups in four Middle Eastern states. We argue that minorities whose status is threatened by a transition to majoritarian decision-making institutions are less likely to be supportive of democratization. We examine how different cleavages affect the preferences of minorities over regime type and identify three historical legacies in the Middle East that have shaped these cleavages: the Ottoman-Islamic legacy of minority accommodation, the ethnic class structure that emerged as a result of the region’s integration to world markets in the nineteenth century, and a post-independence pattern of authoritarian secularism. Based on survey research and a comparison of minorities in Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, and Jordan, we find that linguistic minorities tend to be less supportive of authoritarianism while religious minorities tend to be more supportive of authoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the geopolitical turmoil and politics in the Middle East. Topics discussed include the religious conflict for power of different countries in Middle East, the economy and politics of the countries including Iran, Turkey and Israel, and the efforts of the Europe, Russia and U.S. to resolve the geopolitical crisis in the Middle East.

The article discusses the geopolitical turmoil and politics in the Middle East. Topics discussed include the religious conflict for power of different countries in Middle East, the economy and politics of the countries including Iran, Turkey and Israel, and the efforts of the Europe, Russia and U.S. to resolve the geopolitical crisis in the Middle East.

The front cover of the journal is presented along with the issue's editors and information on membership and subscriptions.

The exportation of groundbreaking Eastern Mediterranean (EastMed) gas resources will only be possible as a result of full regional stabilization and the peaceful resolution of all geopolitical hotspots. Ongoing tensions and chronic conflicts between individual players in the basin have resulted in economical depreciation. The general nature of the EastMed basin: small-scale, isolated reservoirs scattered around the world-class Leviathan field, require international investments, cost-effective solutions and widespread cooperation in order for the interconnection and commercialization of the sources to be achieved. Cross-border and basin-wide upstream investments and a new unified marketing model for EastMed gas via the most feasible way, i.e. the Turkish Gas Market, stands to be one of the most important energy and geopolitical successes of the last few decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa known as the Arab Spring, Jordan has remained at the second level both on the international scene and in the analyses made of this movement. The Hashemite Kingdom, characterised by its political stability and neutral position in the various confrontations that shape regional politics, has made changes in order to avoid the political processes being experienced by some of its neighbours. In this way, from a political science point of view and with an analysis that traces the processes, the developments that have taken place in Jordan are examined, putting particular emphasis on the central role of the tribal organisation within the monarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First of all, this paper frames the research into political change - one of the main study areas in comparative politics - and focusses on the regions of North Africa and the Middle East, which the ranks of comparativists had barely analysed until the so-called Arab Spring. There is, consequently, a dearth of theoretical frameworks with which to approach the experiences of political change that began in 2011 with the Arab protests and revolutions. Secondly, it analyses the democratising scope of the processes of rupture and reform brought about in the political systems of the region, observing that the expectations raised by the Arab Spring have not been fulfilled, except in the case of Tunisia. Lastly, it presents and systematises the eight articles assembled in this monograph, of which the actors and dynamics of change in the region are the cornerstone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The democratic deficit in the Middle East and the Muslim world is well-established. No study has, however, identified what it is about being a Middle Eastern or Muslim-majority country that impedes democracy. The explanatory deficit has given rise to an idea of Middle Eastern or Muslim exceptionalism. This article documents that when political and colonial history is accounted for, there is nothing exceptional about levels of democracy in these regions. Territories with comparatively developed precolonial state institutions were better able to resist European colonization and settlement. If they were colonized, territories with more developed state structures were more likely to experience an indirect form of colonial rule. Such territories, including the Islamic heartland in the Middle East, experienced less European settlement and colonial rule through local intermediaries and were therefore, in the long run, less likely to embark on a democratic regime trajectory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the state of the Middle East and North Africa after the Arab revolutions in 2011.

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