Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Usman Butt
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Imperial Iran in the Eighteenth Century: Identity and State Formation under Nader
In July 1732, Nader Shah Afsharid, established a religious endowment in the Afghan city of Herat shortly after conquering it. In the preface to the deed, it was written that Nader was a ‘loyal servant of Ali’s household and…the defender of Shi’i lands (belad) and of the Shi’a, Nader-Qoli Khan,…
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A Daring Enterprise: A US-Egyptian Partnership and the Case for Soft Power
The United States has been implementing steep cuts to its overseas aid development programmes since Donald Trump became US president in 2024. In 2025, US Foreign Aid went from $200 billion to $174 billion with proposals for more cuts. Most of the aid effected include humanitarian relief as well as…
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Private Sins, Public Crimes: Policing, Punishment, and Authority in Iran
In 1825, Fath Ali Shah, King of Iran, marched on Isfahan with his troops to bring an unruly tribesman to justice. The Shah had received complaints about a Lur tribesman named Hashim Khan, who had been involved in raiding people’s homes, extorting money, using torture, killing people including one sayyid…
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The Nightfolk: Ibn ‘Arabi Behind the Veil of Night
The night plays an important role in many Muslim cultures and religious beliefs. During Ramadan Muslims will often do nightly prayers called Tarawih, where they can ask for forgiveness and receive rewards. On one night, in the last 10 days of Ramadan, Muslims try to discern when the Night of…
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The Intelligence Intellectuals: Social Scientists and the Making of the CIA
On 25 June 1950, North Korea’s Korean People Army crossed the 38th parallel launching a full-scale invasion of South Korea. American President Harry S. Truman calls his advisors and military officers into an emergency meeting. What is telling about those who gathered that day was who was not invited to…
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A Greater Britain: Rethinking the UK’s Global Strategy
‘Britain deserves to be a strong power in the new century…It needs only to play to its many strengths,’ argues research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute and US Army College, Azeem Ibrahim. His new book A Greater Britain: Rethinking the UK’s Global Strategy sets out to reform Britain’s position…
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How do we even talk about Palestine and Israel?: One group’s experience in unspoken territory
The Tavistock Clinic in London, which was set up in the aftermath of the First World War, is one of the UK’s leading mental health institutions. Offering outpatient therapeutic services to children and adults facing a range of challenges as well as training mental health professionals, the clinic has a…
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Rebel English Academy
‘He didn’t believe in peaceful resistance but he was not a happy murderer either,’ Salim Ahmed Salim aka Sir Baghi, an English teacher and revolutionary socialist activist, is confronted with a tough choice. A known radical in OK Town, tensions reach boiling point following the execution of Pakistani Prime Minister…
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The Rise and Fall of Turkey’s Democrat Party: The Cold War and Illiberalism, 1945–60: 73
Turkish politics was fundamentally altered by the rule of the Democrat Party (DP) between 1950-1960. It has been often viewed as highly controversial party that ended with its leaders being toppled by a military coup in 1960. The Turkish memory of the DP rule and Prime Minister Adnan Menderes is…
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The New Byzantines: The Rise of Greece and the Return of the Near East
Is Greece the new rising Middle Eastern power that nobody is talking about? Sean Mathews’ The New Byzantines: The Rise of Greece and Return of the Near East makes the bold case that the Hellenic state is reembracing its Middle Eastern roots and is an emerging power who is playing…
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Hebrew Orientalism: Jewish Engagement with Arab-Islamic Culture in late Ottoman and British Palestine
It is often claimed that early Zionist settlers into Palestine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, were indifferent to or would ignore Arab, Muslim and Palestinian culture. Mostafa Hussein challenges this view in his new book Hebrew Orientalism: Jewish Engagement with Arabo-Islamic Culture in Late Ottoman and British…
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The Eloquent Tyrant: Speech and Empire in Umayyad Iraq under al Hajjaj b. Yusuf al-Thaqafi, 694-714
“People of Kufa [Iraq], I see heads that have ripened and are ready for harvesting. They are mine! I can almost see blood glistening between turbans and beards.” The chilling lines come from the inaugural speech by the Umayyad appointed governor of Iraq, Al-Hajjaj Yusuf Al-Thaqafi (694-714). A feared and…
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The Fall of the Assads: The End of Half a Century of Tyranny in Syria and How it will Change the World
In 1971, Hafez Al-Assad seized power in Syria and in 2000 his son Bashar Al-Assad succeeded him ruling the country until he was toppled in 2024. The half a century rule of the Assad family has reshaped the Mediterranean country, but grasping the essentials of their rule often gets lost…
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Transformed by the People: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s Road to Power in Syria
Ahmed Al-Sharaa has been in power in Syria for nearly 1-year. The lightening rebel offensive that brought down five decades of the dictatorial rule of the Assad family, was a shock to many. In Al-Sharaa, Syrian’s were greeted with a new kind of leader, but debates about Syria’s future continue…
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The Crusader Storm: A Global History of the Wars for the Middle East
In 1187, Salah Ad-Din Ibn Ayub, Saladin, entered Jerusalem victorious after taking the city from the Crusaders, who had held the city since 1099. There was no great sacking of the city, Saladin accepted the formal surrender of the Crusaders and the geopolitical winds of the Middle East shifted. The…
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Forgotten Experts: Astrologers, Science, and Authority in the Ottoman Empire 1450-1600
Astrology is seen today as something fun that some people are interested in, it is often seen as the opposite of science and not taken very seriously by governing authorities. This has not always been the case. In the Ottoman Empire astrology was part of statecraft with the royal court…
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Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History
Iran is undoubtedly a key player in Middle Eastern politics, but remains poorly understood by outsider observers and the image of the country is mirrored in stereotypes. Political thinker, intellectual and former US diplomat Vali Nasr aims to clearly set out how Iranian leaders see their place in the world…
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Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History
The land between the two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, known as Mesopotamia by the Greeks and known as Iraq today, has 5,000 years of history and stories to tell. Tablets, reliefs, ruins, pots, bricks and other material objects tell a very human story about life in the…
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The Business of Transition: Jewish and Greek Merchants of Salonica, from Ottoman to Greek Rule
When a young Zionist activist, Leon Armariglio, would go on collection drives in late Ottoman Salonica, he would sometimes encounter dismissive reactions from local Jews, who would retort to him, ‘What Palestine are you talking about? This is Palestine!’ The history of what is today the Greek city of Thessaloniki…
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Contested City: Citizen Advocacy and Survival in Modern Baghdad
“I am the citizen Fatima, mother to ten children under the age of fourteen…My husband is completing his military service, and we don’t have anyone to provide for us,” reads a petition submitted to the Vice Chair of the Baath Party Revolutionary Command Council Izzat Ibrahim Al-Duri in 1989. The…
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Holy Men of the Electromagnetic Age: A Forgotten History of the Occult
In Raphael Cormack’s book Holy Men of the Electromagnetic Age: A Forgotten History of the Occult, he tells us that a group of young people asked a Catholic journal, “What do you think about the miracles of Christ, the Prophets and the Saints now?” following the performance of a famous…
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Histories of Political Thought in the Ottoman World
There is a tendency to view political thought in the Ottoman Empire as stagnate, with very little dynamism in terms of its ideas and all politics emanating from the all-powerful Sultan who ran a medieval-like oriental despotic regime. These types of views have a long history in Europe, but the…
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Bordering on War: A Social and Political History of Khuzestan
Perhaps no province has challenged nationalism in Iraq and Iran quite like Khuzestan, a border region which has fuelled intrigue, suspicion and the imagination in both Tehran and Baghdad. An Iranian territory with an estimated population of just under five million people, the oil rich province was one of the…
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The Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora
‘Having a loving environment is what makes a space home. So home is where I can be myself, like I am now, but with people I love,’ says Nour, who settled in Denmark. Home is something many of us take for granted as an idea, but when asked about what…