Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Usman Butt
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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…
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Then He Sent Prophets
The political and religious struggles of 14th century Morocco and Granada are brought to life in Mohamed Seif El Nasr’s new novel Then He Sent Prophets. Set in the tumultuous year of 1359, it follows the fortunes of a young and upcoming Islamic scholar named Zakaria Ibn Ahmad, a man…
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The Order and Disorder of Communication: Pamphlets and Polemics in the Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire did not fully embrace the printing press until the 19th century, some 400 years after Europe but, contrary to perception, the Ottoman communication world did not stagnate for hundreds of years. Subtle and profound shifts occurred in the production of reading material. These changes occurred gradually over…
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Labors of Love: Gender, Capitalism, and Democracy in Modern Arab Thought
Childbearing and motherhood became intensely political in the Arab World from the 19th century onwards; how Arab thinkers in Beirut and Cairo saw democratisation, progress, civilisational development and economic growth had a gendered aspect to it. Susanna Ferguson’s Labors of Love: Gender, Capitalism, and Democracy in Modern Arab Thought charts…
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Spies for the Sultan: Ottoman Intelligence in the Great Rivalry with Spain
The Bishop of Heraclea, an Orthodox clergyman who played a key role in 16th century European politics, approached the Habsburgs with an intriguing proposition to sow discord in the Ottoman Empire and enable the Austrian-Spanish imperial family to expand their empire into the Balkans. The Spanish Emperor Charles V could…
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Beside the Sickle Moon: A Palestinian Story
‘The Ministry of Defence is proud to announce the future construction of the luxury hotel,’ two Palestinian men at an Israeli checkpoint read a sign written in Hebrew and learn that a part of their community is about to be upended in the Occupied West Bank. Beside the Sickle Moon:…
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Gendering The Hadith Tradition: Recentring the Authority of Aisha, Mother of the Believers
‘The positions of Aisha have been tragically dulled through the canonization process, but not entirely obscured from the historical record,’ writes Sofia Rehman in her new book Gendering The Hadith Tradition: Recentring the Authority of Aisha, Mother of the Believers, which aims to explore the role of Aisha, wife of…
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Babylonia
‘This is the end of Babylon. Their kingdom falls, but a new one is born. We will take control of the south.’ A surprised and angered Assyrian General astonishes at the disrespect shown to the defeated King of Babylon by the new Queen. When challenged, she responds, ‘You think because…
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Mapping the Fault Lines
US-Turkish relations are often fraught and uneasy, it feels like Ankara and Washington are mutually suspicious of each other, but are also in an alliance with one another. Turkiye is a member of NATO and in a geostrategic important position from the perspective of the United States, while the US…
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The New Spirit of Islamism: Interactions between AKP, Ennahda and the Muslim Brotherhood
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Tunisia’s Ennahda and Turkiye’s AKP have enjoyed close relations going back decades. Understanding the dynamics and nature of these relations can be somewhat complex, as research into these movements by journalists, analysts and academics is often coloured by what they think of Islamism broadly, which is often…
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The Geopolitics of Shaming: When Human Rights Pressure Works – and When It Backfires
In 2010, Iran came under international pressure to halt an execution of a woman for adultery; she had been sentenced to death by stoning. Tehran was used to receiving such condemnation and normally the Islamic Republic weathers the storm, but this time it was different. Criticism of Iran came from…
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The New Experts: Populist Elites and Technocratic Promises in Modi’s India
In 2014, Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won India’s 16th general election and, among huge swathes of the country’s population as well as the international community, there was great concern about what a Modi India would look like. Aside from concerns over his role during the Gujarat riots…
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Italy and the Islamic World: From Caesar to Mussolini
Italy’s relationship with the Middle East and North Africa and Islam spans millennia. Throughout the ages, the Mediterranean country has played a role in these nations and these nations have played a role in Italy. Going all the way back to the Roman Empire and stretching to Benito Mussolini’s attempts…
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The Ottoman Empire and Safavid Iran, 1639 – 1682
Between 1514 and 1639, the Ottomans and Safavid Empires engaged in a series of wars, clashes, skirmishes and destabilisation attempts. After the Treaty of Zuhab on 17 May 1639, the hostilities between the two powers largely came to an end and, for many historians, the story ends there as there…
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The Memoirs of Shah Tahmasp I: Safavid Ruler of Iran
“It occurred to my defected mind to write a memoir of my life and deeds … so that whenever our supporters read it they will remember us with a prayer … they should realize it is free of the appearance of dissimulation, lies and hypocrisy.” It is almost a truism…
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The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, The United States And The Middle East, 1979-2003
The 2003 US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq is one of the most analysed events in the history of armed conflict. Although the US achieved a military victory against the regime of Saddam Hussein, few today regard the war to be a success. Indeed, it has come to represent the…