Increased access to archival and other textual sources and the situating of “Afghan” history within wider theoretical, comparative, and interdisciplinary thinking have opened Afghanistan-related studies to new fields of research and analysis. This offers new opportunities to reimagine and move beyond established historical narratives and preoccupations. At a point when English-language archives have been comprehensively mined for the political histories of Afghan dynasties, intruding Western empires, and the dynamics of modernity and state-building, non-English-language primary-source material has become increasingly available, including in translation and in online digital archival formats. The recent English translation by M. Mehdi Khorrami and Robert D. McChesney of volume three of The History of Afghanistan by the Afghan Hazara historian Fayz Muhammad Katib (c. 1863–1931) offers new material with which to reconsider not only elite political careers but also ethnic identity and competition, the sociology of provincial political networks, and the creation of governing rules codified by ʿAbd al-Rahman and Habibullah.

The writings of Jurjî Zaidân constitute an important contribution to the secular intellectual awakening of the Arabs in the nineteenth century. The trend toward non-traditional thought had been initiated by the confrontation with the overpowering Western civilization, which threatened the established socio-political order and questioned the validity of the traditional identity and cultural values. To an increasing degree intellectual discussion in the Arab World — as in many other parts of the world — concentrated upon the concept of nationalism. It is in this context that we shall have to discuss the thought of Jurjî Zaidân. Nationalism appeared to be the most efficient means to establish an identity that could resist the Western impact:

The Middle East was overwhelmed by Europe; self-affirmation in nationalistic terms was part of its defense. Backwardness could be overcome by assimilation, but assimilation would obliterate identity. Nationalism would provide the incentive to progress and at the same time a barrier to self-obliteration.

The study of Coptic history usually brings to mind gnostic texts, remote monastic enclaves, archeological ruins, conflicts with Byzantium, or a long-forgotten language. Until recently, a disproportionate focus on early Christianity has bound Copts to an ancient and seemingly timeless heritage, which explains the dearth of critical examinations on Coptic life from the Islamic conquests to the early modern period. In general, Coptic experiences after 641 have been overshadowed by other themes in Egyptian history writing, in particular political and military changes. Although the latter are as relevant for a better understanding of the Coptic past, they have been predominately examined from the perspective of the Muslim majority, exclusive of Coptic concerns, perspectives, and beliefs. Only in recent years has scholarship on Copts begun to expand. Scholars have drawn from fields such as papyrology, gender studies, art history, and law in pursuit of a more comprehensive historical narrative. We are increasingly encouraged to evaluate the Coptic experience not only as a missing cog in Egyptian historiography but also as one that complicates canonical studies of postconquest Egypt and enriches our understanding of Middle Eastern history in general.

The Ottoman Empire introduced the muhtar system in Istanbul in 1829, appointing lay headmen, called muhtar, to the lowest levels of urban administration: Muslim neighborhoods; Orthodox, Armenian, and Catholic parishes; and Jewish congregations. This reform resulted in the overlapping of state responsibilities and those of non-Muslim religious authorities, later leading to disputes between the groups. This article investigates such disagreements in an effort to understand how state officials perceived non-Muslim religious authorities’ participation in imperial governance. In so doing, this article argues that, as non-Muslim political movements began developing during the late nineteenth century, state officials adopted a cautious attitude toward non-Muslim clergy, viewing the latter as requiring more careful handling than the layman. This take on clergymen was a shift, a reconsideration of the exceptional treatment they had previously enjoyed, and ignited a growing desire to sever the ties, formerly tolerated, between muhtars and religious authorities.

From arid cities to irrigated fields, hot deserts to Mediterranean mountains, costal enclaves to verdant oases, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) encompasses a range of environments for thinking through the relationships between nature and society, people, plants, and animals, human and nonhuman worlds. Early depictions of the region in terms of patriarchal, tradition-bound, and largely homogenous Muslim populations living in undifferentiated desert spaces has long given way to scholarship that identifies the diversity and dynamism of associational life, political subjectivities, state formations, religious practices, and gender performances. Only relatively recently, however, has a significant subset of scholarship on the Middle East and North Africa picked up newer approaches to environmental issues and taken a renewed look at older topics, such as the relationship between water and the state and local subsistence practices in arid lands. This shift in the scholarship is not necessarily a reflection of rising popular “environmental consciousness” in the Middle East and North Africa, although people of the region have always been living in and thinking about the material worlds around them. For while there have been recent efforts to connect local traditions to global environmental discourses, such as rereading religious texts for their “green” character and celebrating heat-shedding architectural design, “the environment” as a term has a more uneven resonance regionally than it does in some other parts of the world. Rather, this increasing scholarly interest stems from a growing recognition within the euromerican academy of the environment as comprising intertwined social, material, political, biological, and representational worlds, and thus constituting an important focus of study.

By using the narrative approach and linking it to feminist research ethics and critical race methodology, this article seeks to understand how non-literacy and poverty hinder low-income women's access to justice and how these women experience the Moroccan state. The state here acts as an oppressive and marginalizing entity in women's lives, but also offers the potential for empowerment. This ethnographic study tells the stories of three victims of gender-based violence to demonstrate that the state needs to (1) set up an efficient and responsive infrastructure for those lacking know-how and money; (2) institute proper training of state agents for implementation of laws and to prevent them from acting on personal opinions and attitudes with regard to women's rights; and (3) strengthen procedures so that state agents can respond expeditiously to the needs and grievances of citizens.

How do perceptions of not belonging inform economic life? For many young Omanis, the labor market is a site of contestation and a space of struggle. In this essay, I explore a neglected dimension of belonging in the Gulf—citizen labor—by looking at Omani millennials in the labor market. Despite holding legal citizenship, a sense of belonging remains elusive in much of the private sector. Many Omani young people perceive a tenuous economic citizenship, complicating narratives around belonging or not belonging in the Arabian Peninsula. I draw from lessons learned while researching my current book and exploring social relations and regulation of labor markets, and reflect on how the knowledge and theories produced concerning Gulf labor markets rarely engage with the citizens in them.

In the course of studying all surviving copies of Arabic Dioscorides manuscripts I have come across some interesting statements in the introduction and colophon of a Leiden manuscript of De Materia Medica. This manuscript belongs to the Warner Collection or Legatum Warnerium of the Library of the University of Leiden, Cod. Or. 289. This vast and valuable collection of oriental manuscripts was acquired by Levinus Warner in the early seventeenth century during his term of appointment as Dutch ambassador to the Ottoman court in Istanbul. The collection was given to the university upon the death of Mr. Warner in 1665.

As indicated in the title, this study will deal with Jewish sects in Israel, not with Moslem or Christian ones. The restriction is not altogether arbitrary, for while one could beneficially explore other religious sects in modern Israel, both for their own sake and in order to analyse their position in the predominantly Jewish society, it is the exploration of the Jewish sects which, besides dealing with a matter of intrinsic interest, may provide a peculiar insight into the meaning of Jewishness in Israel.

The Samaritans summarize their basic religious beliefs in five tenets:(1) The Lord is the one and only God and there is none beside him.(2) The only prophet is Moses and no other prophet was or will be beside him.(3) The only Holy Book is the ‘Torah’…(4) …the only Holy place in the world is Mt. Garizim the Blessed Mountain, not Jerusalem…(5) The Day of Judgement of the Lord will be according to the laws of the Old Testament, then every man will be judged and punished for his sins.’

The preamble to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights establishes a peculiar hierarchy between rebellion and human rights. The preamble affirms that “whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law.” According to the declaration, rebellion against oppression and tyranny is an act that individuals can only be compelled to pursue, and only once other choices are exhausted. Rebellion descends upon the oppressed “man” from without and he cannot refuse it. It is a force that takes over desperate men. Human rights, in turn, police against rebellion by prevailing in the law. They are the preferred weapon against two extremes: oppression and rebellion. And if rebellion is the space of compelled political action, human rights is the space of uncompelled, free, and authentic action against oppression and tyranny.

Incorporating descriptions and analyses of sound into Middle Eastern history offers a wealth of opportunity for enriching our understanding of the historical record. But sometimes we need to get back to the basics: the “five w's and one h” of sound studies, so to speak. In what follows I would like to run this simple exercise with radio in the Mandate-era Levant, in order to lay out the basic data and begin to reflect on how it might aid scholars in better understanding other aspects of life in this period. I will do this by first addressing some of these basic what, who, when, where, why, how questions, and then by examining one day's programming of the Palestine Broadcasting Service in 1937: the day immediately following the release of the Peel Commission Report. What can we learn from examining this day's programming?