Usman Butt

A History of Jeddah: The Gate to Mecca in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Ulrike Freitag’s A History of Jeddah: The Gate to Mecca in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries is a seductively charming urban history of the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah, popularly known as the “Bride of the Red Sea” or the “Gate to Mecca”. While cities such as Baghdad, Damascus and…

Revolution and Its Discontents: Political Thought and Reform in Iran

Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi’s Revolution and Its Discontents: Political Thought and Reform in Iran takes us on an intellectual tour of post-Islamism and Islamic left thought in Iran. The early 1990s were hugely significant for global politics with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the First Gulf War. The decade transformed…

Remembering the birth of the Republic of Turkey

What: Mustafa Kemal Ataturk declared the birth of the Republic of Turkey and became its first president. Where: Ankara, Turkey. When: 29 October 1923 What happened? “Gentleman! We shall declare the republic tomorrow,” Mustafa Kemal Ataturk told lawmakers at a dinner party on the eve of 29 October, 1923. At…

Forgiveness Work: Mercy, Law and Victims’ Rights in Iran

Arzoo Osanloo’s Forgiveness Work: Mercy, Law and Victims’ Rights in Iran takes us through a little discussed feature of the Iranian legal system, which has implications beyond the country itself. The system looks peculiar to outsiders; human rights reports paint a harrowing picture of justice within the Islamic Republic and…

On All Fronts: The Education of a Journalist

“Under these circumstances, talking to a Western reporter could be a death sentence. And yet here in Douma, as soon as people saw that I was a journalist, they wanted to tell their story.” Thus begins the extraordinary autobiography of Clarissa Ward, On All Fronts: The Education of a Journalist.…

Rape, power and corruption: Is this Egypt’s MeToo moment? 

“I was sexually harassed…I was sexually harassed…I was sexually harassed,” a powerful video featuring a cross section of actresses, activists, business women and influencers repeating the same sentence over and over again, an echo of what has shaken the Egyptian elite over the summer of 2020. The problem of sexual…

MEMO in conversation with Sarah Hunaidi

Supporters of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad have claimed consistently that if he leaves power minorities in Syria could be eliminated, and that only his rule can protect the country’s mosaic of religious and ethnic communities. However, Hunaidi argued, this argument is deeply flawed and untrue. “Assad’s rhetoric from the start…

Arabic Shadow Theatre 1300-1900: A Handbook

Li Guo’s Arabic Shadow Theatre 1300-1900: A Handbook is a sweeping survey and interesting introduction to all things shadowy and theatrical. It is rare to say that an academic study is a joy to read, but this book certainly proved to be the case. Shadow theatre is rooted deeply in…

Understanding Libya Since Gaddafi

Ulf Laessing’s book Understanding Libya Since Gaddafi is published at a time when it has never been so important to know what is happening in Libya, but few outside the country and diaspora actually appreciate and comprehend events there. Libya post-2011 conjures up an image of chaos and disappointment at…

Remembering Bashar Al-Assad becoming President of Syria

On 17 July, 2000, Bashar Al-Assad assumed the office of the presidency of the Syrian Arab Republic. A shy and largely unknown figure, in his inaugural address to parliament Al-Assad called upon all Syrian citizens to participate in the “development” and “modernisation” of the country. However, hopes that the new…

Authoritarian Apprehensions: Ideology, Judgment and Mourning in Syria

The nature of authoritarian rule in Syria remains little understood outside the country. As a notoriously closed society with limited access to the outside world before the 2000s, with few journalists and academic venturing into the Arab republic, a substantive knowledge gap has developed. However, the 2011 Arab Spring uprising…

Rediscovering the Islamic Classics: How Editors and Print Culture Transformed an Intellectual Tradition

Ahmed El Shamsy’s Rediscovering the Islamic Classics: How Editors and Print Culture Transformed An Intellectual Tradition takes us into the story of how seminal works of Islamic philosophy, theology, poetry, sciences and other disciplines from 700-1400 AD were revived, adapted and changed in the 19th and 20th centuries. The author…

The Caliphate of Man: Popular Sovereignty in Modern Islamic Thought 

The Caliphate of Man: Popular Sovereignty in Modern Islamic Thought by Andrew F March comes to us at an interesting time. The 2011 Arab Spring led many across the MENA region to aspire to a new democratic and pluralistic political order, but the counter-revolutions led by the UAE, the Egyptian…

Political Quietism in Islam: Sunni and Shi’i Practice and Thought

Events in the Arab world and beyond over the past decade have ignited an intense debate about Islam, Muslims and political engagement. A common theme of western historical research situates Islam’s scholarly tradition to be on the side of obedience to the ruler, and encouragement to avoid political disagreements. A…

Ilan Pappe: Netanyahu may start a civil war in Israel to save himself 

Embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been indicted by the country’s attorney general on charges of corruption and fraud. While this does not mean that he has to resign as PM — Israeli law only requires convicted Prime Minister’s to resign — many are wondering if we are finally…

Why the Assad regime will continue to destabilise Syria

Over the summer of 2019, observers of events in Syria were left bemused by the news that Rami Makhlouf had been placed under house arrest. It simply didn’t make any sense. Makhlouf is President Bashar Al-Assad’s cousin, a member of his regime’s inner sanctum who has been instrumental in keeping…

Democracy in Lebanon

For the past few weeks, Lebanon has been rocked by anti-government protests calling for a change in the ruling system and an end to corruption, economic decay and political stagnation. Analysts are trying to understand how the country has reached this position. They would do well to read the new…

Authoritarianism means instability, so Arab regimes need to be challenged

What is the difference between a democratic society and a dictatorship? In a nutshell, a death in a democracy is a personal tragedy, but in a dictatorship it is a political crisis. To grasp this core point is to understand the basic design flaw within autocratic governance; while democracy limits…

The Sacking of Fallujah: A People’s History

The Sacking of Fallujah: A People’s History by Ross Caputi, Richard Hil and Donna Mulhearn makes for chilling reading as it takes us inside the three sieges that the Iraqi city of Fallujah was subjected to following the 2003 US-led invasion. Unlike other accounts of the torment inflicted upon the…

Assad or We Burn The Country: How One Family’s Lust for Power Destroyed Syria

It is not usual to begin a book review with a quote from elsewhere, but, “Bad men need nothing more to compress their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing,” as nineteenth century English liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill remarked, is the initial feeling that I…

Our Women on the Ground: A Review

“When ISIS soldiers arrest me and kill me, it will be okay, because while they will cut off my head, I’ll still have dignity, which is better than living in humiliation.” This was the last daring Facebook post of Ruqia Hasan, a citizen journalist based in the Syrian city of…

Remembering the 1979 Iranian Revolution

On 1 February 1979, Air France flight 4721 landed at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport at 09:27. On board were 120 international journalists and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khomeini had been exiled by the Shah’s regime for 15 years, first to Turkey, Iraq and then to France. His return was prompted by…

Palestinian Cinema in the Days of Revolution