International Journal of Middle East Studies: Volume 47 -

A COMMENT ON TARA POVEY’S REVIEW OF THE POLITICS OF STATE INTERVENTION: GENDER POLITICS IN PAKISTAN, AFGHANISTAN, AND IRAN (IJMES 46 [2014]: 838–40)
Shireen K. Burki
Published online by Cambridge University Press:

27 April 2015, pp. 411-413
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Tara Povey's review of my book, The Politics of State Intervention: Gender Politics in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Press, 2013) in IJMES 46:4 misrepresents my comparative work on the gender politics of three Muslim-majority neighboring states whose territory invading Arab armies during the early Islamic period called “Khurasan.” The Safavid Empire encompassed modern-day Iran (known as “Persia” until 1935), Afghanistan, and the southwestern portion of present-day Pakistan. The Afsharid Empire, based out of Isfahan, also included this vast territory; its hegemonic ambitions led to military expeditions to wrest control of the entire Indian subcontinent to the east from the Turkic Mughals, which included the sacking of Delhi by Nadir Shah in 1739. Thus, these contemporary states have historical linkages with shared cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and religious characteristics across what some citizens (Kurds, Baluch, and Pashtuns, for example) perceive as artificial—albeit internationally recognized—borders.

International Journal of Middle East Studies