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A greater understanding of the politics of nationalism and identity must consider the importance of locality. This research, conducted among Muslims and non-Muslim minorities in Istanbul, Turkey, and Tel Aviv, Israel, relies on place narratives of Istanbul during the mid-20th century, when Istanbul was transforming into a predominantly Muslim, “Turkish” city. Place narratives reveal the multiplicity of interpretations of the national past and are thus a powerful resource for examining the cultural politics of identity in the national present. This research contributes to studies of national identity, which have traditionally focused on the top-down role of the state in producing the nation, by examining the processes through which ordinary people make meaning of the state-authored nation. I conclude that place-based relationships can transcend national/minority frameworks for identity, as shared ties to local place create feelings of common belonging among diverse residents

This article tells the story of ten Catholic women from Aleppo who, in the early part of the 18th century, sought to establish their own convent in the district of Kisrawan, Lebanon. Their project became the center of a conflict that entangled the devotees, their Jesuit confessors and supporters, the Melkite Church, and the Vatican. Thus, their story is a prism through which to refract the relationships among gender, class, and religion in the Levant. In particular it sheds light on the role of gender in the construction of a “modern” Catholicism. I contend that modernization predates the 19th century in the Middle East and question the opposition of secularism and history versus religion and faith as an artifact of modernity

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Muslim women have often cultivated ritual activities that fall outside the framework of normative Islam as defined by elite male scholars, activities that are frequently characterized as “popular” Islam. Although it proves problematic to define “popular Islam” as a rigorous analytic category, it is important to recognize that different groups of Muslims (including the uneducated, the poor, rural populations, and women) have had differential ability to assert their religious practices as “correct” Islam. The idea of popular Islam has played an important role within Islamic tradition as scholars strove to stigmatize practices such as the mawlid (celebration of the Prophet Muhammad's birthday) as customs of the unlettered masses. In contemporary Sanaa, Yemen, professional female mawlid chanters take different approaches to affirming the religious value of the mawlid celebration, one of which casts it as “folk Islam” in the context of a newly valorized national heritage.

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The irruption of Persian-language blogging since 2001, known to its participants as Weblogistan, has been accompanied by enthusiastic claims that blogs are promoting previously nonexistent forms of expression in Iran. In the past few years, however, Iranian bloggers have faced increased scrutiny from Iranian authorities. This article explores what the political, offline consequences of online communication in Weblogistan tell us about the relationship among cyberspace, politics, and Islam in Iran. Drawing on archived blog entries, interviews, and Persian-language print media, we discuss the arrest of three bloggers in 2004 within the context of legal, religious, and cultural pressures exerted on Weblogistan. Revising McLuhan's “the medium is the message” by showing how local conditions affect the medium, we argue for a holistic understanding of Iranian blogging as (1) an emergent medium of communication (2) situated within a particular political context.