Review – Books

Whether it is Israeli soldiers assualting and detaining groups of Palestinian schoolchildren, Syrian refugee children stranded in camps in sub zero temperatures without protection and food, or Uyghur minors...

Sahar Mustafah’s debut novel is a deep dive into the complexities of being a Muslim immigrant family in America

"Walking through the town square in El-Bireh, I'd noticed a little Palestinian boy selling Wrigleys — they call it taxi gum — five shekels for five pieces. The child...

Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is often described as the most militant of the main Palestinian resistance factions yet, when compared with the likes of Hamas and Fatah, little is...

The decolonial approach in this collection of studies offers an important and at times over looked perspective of how Palestinians have become ensnared in a settler-colonial and neoliberal project....

This new book by Cigdem Oguz, who teaches history at Bologna University, reveals the growing concern in Ottoman society during the First World War about the decline in public...

Capital and State Building in the West Bank

The sheer speed and scale of the early Islamic conquests following the death of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in 632 CE has captivated the imaginations of historians...

The author of The Last Great War of Antiquity makes the point that its writing was "no easy task… but given the importance of the war, it is worth...

It is safe to say that Ali Ibn Abi Talib is one of the most important figures in early Islamic history, recognised as the fourth Rightly Guided Caliph by...

So many stories of Palestine and Palestinians remain untold. The brevity associated with news reports barely scratches the surface of the ramifications of Israeli settler-colonialism, let alone allow non-Palestinians...

At a time when Palestine is becoming increasingly isolated, and the Palestinian struggle for liberation is being smothered under the normalisation agreements, the importance of internationalist solidarity cannot be...

In post-World War One Iraq, Britain was the occupying power. At a celebration of Prophet Muhammad's birthday in 1920 (peace be upon him) in Baghdad's Haydar-Khana Mosque, blind poet...

Tancred Bradshaw concludes in his new book – The End of Empire in the Gulf: From Trucial States to the United Arab Emirates – that, "The British imperial project...

Somdeep Sen's introductory observation in his book Decolonising Palestine: Hamas Between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial (Cornell University Press, 2020) is a telling statement that also reflects on the...

I've read several books on Islam's Sunni-Shia split, with each having provided informative insights on this ancient schism steeped in both theology and politics. The latter is the primary...

"Occupation is akin to an earthquake, and so are immigration and desolation and everything people leave behind." This rumination by Nidal, the protagonist in Sahar Khalifeh's literary novel, My...

There is a common assumption that the Islamic Republic of Iran's strategic thinking and foreign policy are fundamentally different from those of the pre-revolution era. The theocratic government's worldview...

"The two-state solution has always been merely a cynical tool of conflict management never intended to actually resolve the conflict." Jeff Halper's succinct statement regarding international diplomacy over the...

"I had a politically active life and enjoyed a large circle of friends who, like me, came from other parts of the Arab world to be in Beirut, the...

"It's about time we realised that dictatorships are not responsible global partners and, if given space, will only create more instability," warn Iyad El-Baghdadi and Ahmed Gatnash in their...

This book provides an original angle on the politics and character of Hamas by its focus on the movement's foreign policy from the early 1990s to the present through...

Zana Gulmohamad's new book, The Making of Foreign Policy in Iraq: Political Factions and the Ruling Elite, takes on the mammoth task of exploring and explaining how Iraq has...

A review of a ‘fascinating’ political evolution

A look at Israeli colonisation from the inside requires a thorough reckoning. In Hagar Kotef's recent study, The Colonising Self: Or, Home and Homelessness in Israel/Palestine, settlement narratives are...

Kelly A. Hammond's book China's Muslims and Japan's Empire: Centering Islam in World War II is published at a time when Islam in China is under intense scrutiny with...

Michael Christopher Low's book Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj is a fascinating account of the Hajj pilgrimage to Islam's holiest city of Makkah ("Mecca") during...

Laleh Khalili's book Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula is a surprisingly seductive read. A cross between history, geopolitics and economics, with a...

The history of the Arabian Peninsula before the rule of the Al-Saud royal family is rich, diverse, cosmopolitan and largely forgotten. Rosie Bsheer's new book Archive Wars: The Politics...

The media plays a key role, and not only in liberal democratic regimes. Ruling elites use media as a tool for propaganda to reproduce the dominant ideology in authoritarian...

Deep Knowledge: Ways of Knowing in Sufism and Ifa, Two West African Intellectual Traditions by Oludamini Ogunnaike is a sweeping and ambitious book that operates on multiple levels with...

Identity and war are themes explored in Inaam Kachaci's novel, The American Granddaughter (Interlink Books, 2020). The main character is Zeina, an Iraqi-born US citizen, who is thoroughly immersed...