In 2016, the Justice and Development Party (French acronym PJD) in Morocco won 125 seats of the 395-seat house of representatives in the parliament of Morocco, earning it the top spot and forcing the King to appoint the party’s leader to form a government. Fast forward to September 8, 2021, and the same party, under Read more
Continue ReadingThe Muslim World in Modern South Asia: Power, Authority, and Knowledge, by Francis Robinson, draws together a decade’s worth of the author’s articles, lectures, and reviews. The book covers temporally and geographically broad trends within Muslim responses to the rise of European colonial power and Western capitalist influence, particularly but not only within South Asia. Read more
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On July 25, the president of Tunisia, Kais Saied, cited article 80 of the ratified 2014 constitution to declare a national emergency. The presidential order suspended the parliament for 30 days, dismissed the prime minister, and lifted immunity on parliamentarians. Here is a translation of the article that the president is relying on to justify Read more
Continue Readingby Marie Kortam* In May, following violence in Jerusalem, hundreds of third and fourth generation Palestinian refugees tried to cross the Lebanon-Palestine border that separates them from their homeland to join the popular civil resistance and support their families against Israeli occupation. In the camps, refugees organised sit-ins, marches and various demonstrations of support for Read more
Continue ReadingMarina Rustow’s deeply absorbing book, The Lost Archive: Traces of a Caliphate in a Cairo Synagogue states its main objective from the outset; namely, to lay to rest the persistent and erroneous notion that the medieval Islamic states of the Middle East were deficient in the art of statecraft. This false notion has been underpinned by an all-pervasive Read more
Continue Readingby Dr. Necmettin Acar * Middle Eastern states have started to give signals of radical change in the direction of their foreign policies, which have become a tradition after being followed for many years. The Gulf-Israeli rapprochement, the tendencies of Turkey and Egypt to thaw ties, the mutual desire between Turkey and Israel to strengthen Read more
Continue ReadingLebanese dates in Moscow tell the world that the latter is a great power that communicates with all parties in Lebanon, but insiders confirm that Russia’s interests go beyond this image.
Continue ReadingWriting political history in the twenty-first century is challenging. A monograph consisting of unfamiliar names, tied to convoluted political events spanning over a century would be a hard sell to a publisher, let alone appeal to a broad audience. Thus, it is no wonder that political history has become an unpopular subfield in history, and Read more
Continue ReadingMore than 5,000 researchers from universities around the globe issued an urgent call to heed the lessons of the COVID-19 crisis and rewrite the rules of our economic systems in order to create a more democratic and sustainable society. Their call, made in the midst of an unprecedented health, climate, and political crisis, paves a Read more
Continue Readingby Mohammad Sammouni* How did the coordination between currents of the radical left and the Islamist opposition movement (The Justice and Charity Party) transcend the social level that concerns public services issues, to reach political demands that concern the nature of the power system and the overthrowing tyranny? What was the role of the “20 Read more
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