Adult comics are a new medium in the Arab world. This article is the first in-depth study of their emergence and role within Arab societies. Focused on Egypt, it shows how adult comics have boldly addressed political and social questions. Seeing them as part of a broader cultural efflorescence in Egypt, I argue that, against patriarchal authoritarianism, adult comics have expressed an alternative ideology of tolerance, civic rights and duties, individualism, creativity, and criticism of power. Specifically, they present a damning critique of Egypt's authoritarian order, as well as of the marginalization of women and broader gender dynamics in Egyptian society. Through frank humor, a playful style, and explicit graphics, they give voice to the concerns of young Egyptians. Connecting comics to other art forms such as music, graffiti, and political cartoons, I situate them within a critical cultural movement that came to the fore with the Egyptian uprising of 2011.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century the beylicate in Tunisia was a minor executive office. In the course of this century Tunisia's political institutions underwent a gradual change, the outcome of which was the emergence of the beylicate as the country's dominant ruling institution. This development involved a twofold process: the transformation of the beylicate into a hereditary institution having roots in native Tunisian society, and the gradual isolation and reduction of the authority of the foreign military class which had usurped power from the representative of the Ottoman sultan.from the representative of the Ottoman sultan. In this study I will analyse the meagre data available for this period of Tunisian history in order to explain the historical circumstances and local forces which account for this development.

This roundtable is the product of a conference on tribalism in the Modern Middle East held at the University of Maryland in College Park in early May 2019. In two days of scholarly exchange, the participants addressed questions on the reality of tribal life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and its impact on politics and society. Most of the specialists who participated in the conference are also contributors in this forum. To keep the discussion concise, the case studies focus on the Arab East – Syria, Jordan, and Iraq – as well as Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Building on the findings and reflections shared in College Park, the contributors responded to the following prompt as a point of departure for their essays:

In Western democracies elections are viewed as a means by which the public controls the policies of the government and decides who the policy-makers should be. Democratic theory makes two basic assumptions about elections: one is that the electorate is generally informed to the extent that it can make a meaningful and rational choice among various policy alternatives; the other, that the electorate expresses its policy preferences through recognizable partisan groupings in a two- or multiparty system.

[European Union] EU environment policy aims to promote sustainable development and to protect the environment for present and future generations. It is based on preventive action, the polluter pays principle, fighting environmental damage at source, shared responsibility and the integration of environmental protection into other EU policies. The acquis comprises over 200 major legal acts covering horizontal legislation, water and air quality, waste management, nature protection, industrial pollution control and risk management, chemicals and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), noise, and forestry. Compliance with the acquis requires significant investment. A strong and well-equipped administration at the national and local level is imperative for the application and enforcement of the environment acquis. . ..

In the post-revolutionary decades, the Iranian economy has undergone significant transitions. This paper is a study of the changes in the pattern of occupational and labor stratification in the Iranian economy in these years. This is a sufficiently long time, permitting the identification of decisive structural shifts in the Iranian economy and its labor force. For the purpose of this study, we propose two periods in the post-revolutionary years. The first period comprises the years of fervent search for a populist Islamic utopia, which began with the 1979 revolution and came to an end by 1986, when the burden of the war with Iraq and the glut in the world oil market made the populist project practically defunct. The death of Ayatollah Khomeini in June 1989 marked the beginning of the second period, one that is characterized by a move toward “economic restructuring” à la the International Monetary Fund–World Bank, aiming for a general liberalization of economic activities, including foreign-exchange realignment, decontrolling of prices, reduction of subsidies, and privatization of nationalized enterprises.

There is much controversy among Ba'thists as to whether Zaki al-Arsuzi or Michel 'Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar were the real founders of the Ba'th. The answer to this question is academic because the Ba'th was an idea representing national aspirations long before it took the shape of a political party. Its origins go back to the Arab revolt of 1916 and Faysal's ill-fated attempt to unite greater Syria under the Hashemite crown. When the French forcibly expelled Faysal from Damascus, they also frustrated a generation of Syrian nationalist youth who for a fleeting moment stood up for liberation and unification. During the interwar period, pan-Arab patriots agonized over their plight under the Mandate and nourished visions of ‘resurrecting’ the ancient glories of the Umayyads.

Over the last twenty years there have been several interesting attempts by scholars working both in Turkey and elsewhere to offer a critical examination of the workings of the competitive party system in Turkey, and to relate changes in the parliamentary arena to the tensions created in a rapidly developing society. This emphasis on the social and economic background to political change has tended to turn attention away from the constitutional and legal arrangements on which the proper functioning of parliamentary democracy also depends. What follows tries to assess the impact of one of these factors — the electoral system — on Turkish political development since 1950. It closes with some suggestions about the possible effects on Turkish politics of some hitherto untried systems of election.

The purpose of this article is to present an analysis of the pre-1958 political system in Iraq based on explanatory factors which are relevant to an understanding of the nature of similar pre-radical regimes in other Arab States and to an understanding of how and why such political systems were transformed. In order to understand the qualitative nature of the systemic change in the Arab States in the twentieth century it is essential to move away from concepts like “traditional” and “modern” and the rise of “new men” or “new social forces.” To explain how one kind of political system changed to another one requires the abstraction of those features which indicate the positive rather than residual attributes of that earlier system. Indeed some recent studies have attempted to do this, with analytic and conceptual awareness.

Violence toward corpses and graves, especially the unusual practice of exhuming and burning remains, persisted sporadically through the 20th century in Iran but found new dimensions in the form of mass graves and a systematic desecration of cemeteries in the period following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. This paper seeks to explore the roots of cemetery violence by examining the dynamics of apostasy and the experiences and challenges Babi and Bahaʾi converts faced in their interment practices in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This period witnessed a significant change in communal identities. Unconventional self-definitions expressed in religious conversions and in fluid or multiple communal affiliations and religious convictions defied traditional boundaries and led to tension between nonconformists and religious authorities. One way for Shiʿi ʿulamaʾ and Jewish rabbis to reassert a conventional center was through the control of cemeteries, including by not allowing converts to be buried in these semisacred spaces.

In June 1937, David Ben-Gurion explained to one of the leaders of American Zionism why he thought it was right to divide Jerusalem: “England (and we) need control over the holy places—that is, the Old City. [But] ruling over Rehavia [a neighborhood in the city's western part] adds nothing [to Britain], whereas for the Jews, the millions of the Jews who do not know the difference between the Sharon and the [Jezre'el] Valley [or the difference between Rehavia and the Old City] … —the name Jerusalem means everything.”

Questions of land tenure and land ownership are central to the socioeconomic history of the Ottoman Middle East. Most people lived in the countryside, where they grew foodstuffs that fed themselves as well as the town populations. Moreover, the rural economy was the main source of economic surplus appropriated by the urban ruling classes.

Is there indeed a new or renewed demographic transition? The evidence suggests that there is. A rapidly growing number of countries of diverse cultural background have entered the natality transition since World War II and after a 25-year lapse in such entries. In these countries the transition is moving much faster than it did in Europe. This is probably related to the fact that progress in general is moving much faster in such matters as urbanization, education, health, communication, and often per capita income.

The history of the mountain hinterland of Sidon and Beirut—the area often referred to as the Druze Mountain—has hitherto been treated mainly as parochial Lebanese history, with inadequate reference to the Ottoman administrative context. Now that Ottoman archival material has become generally accessible, the subject needs to be revised in its light. In so doing one must keep in mind that most Ottoman chancery documents are normally orders issued in Istanbul for the governors of the provinces—in this particular case, the Syrian provinces—which were not necessarily acted upon, but which can serve to indicate the sort of problem that the Ottoman administration faced in a given province, whether or not they tell us what action was actually taken.This means that to attempt a reconstruction of the administrative history of a given Syrian region—or of any region of the far—flung Ottoman realm—purely on the basis of the Ottoman chancery documents, without taking into account what the local chronicles have to say, is bound to leave major parts—sometimes, perhaps, the most significant parts of the story in question—untold. On the other hand, to reconstruct such a history purely from what the chronicles relate, without reference to the official documents of the Ottoman chancery would leave much of the story unexplained or inexplicable. It is only by combining the two that one can gain a full historical picture of the subject under investigation. From this combination, what transpires, in the case of the sanjak of Sidon—Beirut, is an account of repeated Ottoman accommodations to local realities, made at the expense of administrative norms which existed in theory, but whose application in the different parts of the Ottoman world was far from uniform.

The power of traditional popular Islam in the modern world is difficult to assess. At times, however, developments provide at least an indirect means of evaluation for specific Muslim populations. One such experience is provided by the relations of the British with the ‘Ulamâ’ in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan during the early years of the Condominium. These relations also provide a case study of British imperial attitudes toward Islam.

In spite of the fact that it has been a favorite subject of scholars for more than seventy years, the religious history of Morocco, especially concerning the period before the French protectorate, remains at best incompletely studied and at worst completely misunderstood. This does not mean, however, that theories and indeed dogmatic assumptions have not been advanced, most notably in the study of what has been termed “popular religion,” that exotic blend of “orthodox” scholasticism and “heterodox” praxis that has made “Moroccan Islam” so interesting.

The recent Iranian revolution has brought into light the question of the nature and significance of both the logic and the sociology of long-term social and economic development in that country. This subject is of considerable interest in its own right, but it is of even greater significance for a realistic understanding of the country's recent developments, its present situation, and its future prospects. For it was mainly the Jack of such an understanding and insight which led the vast majority of modern Iranian intellectuals and educated masses of all political and ideological persuasions to misconstrue the logic of the events since 1963, and fail to predict the form, content, and consequences of the recent revolution.

The use of mass media to shape public opinion, disseminate public information, and transform political culture, has grown tremendously in developing countries during the last two decades. Many of these countries have raised the slogan of “creationg a new man,” that is, one with skills, attitudes, and values that are conducive to development. In this respect, they have relied on mass media as a major purveyor of modern influences and as one of the most effective agents of political resocialization.

A remarkable man in his own lifetime, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani became a legend after his death.1 For many people, Afghani evokes an image that combines the medieval ideal of the cosmopolitan Islamic scholar with the romantic aura of the 19th-century revolutionary. Since the late 1960s, Afghani has been the object of particular attention and controversy in both the West and the Islamic world. Iranian and Western scholars have radically reinterpreted his background and beliefs.2 This reevaluation of Afghani on the basis of new information about him has, however, not been generally accepted in the Islamic world. If anything, recent attention to Afghani's unorthodoxy and possible irreligion has only served to harden his defenders by giving credence to his own statements. Afghani plays an important role in the historical image of Muslim unity and sophistication presented by many Islamic groups and governments in this age of revived panIslamism. His plea for Islamic renewal through solidarity never lost its relevance as a powerful symbol linking the past with hopes for the future. The image of Afghani as the indefatigable fighter against Western imperialism who helped make the Muslim world aware of its distinct identity remains equally as suggestive.

The 1987 publication of Women and Music in Cross-Cultural Perspectives, the first anthology on the topic of women and music in the field of ethnomusicology, marked a critical turn in the scholarship. The ethnographic-focused essays on women's genres and roles in music in diverse societies around the world, including the Middle East, presented new analytical frameworks and research on authority, gender and access, and notions of power and performance. Today, research on the musical practices of women continues to expand in ethnomusicology and in fields such as anthropology. Many scholars now acknowledge the centrality of gender for locating “how society is in music and music is in society.” This is a particularly important approach for the Middle East and North Africa, where the undervaluing or silencing of women's musical practices and abilities had continued to dominate ethnomusicology. An important study to break from the paradigm was Virginia Danielson's 1997 monograph on Umm Kulthum. Danielson analyzes the development and the construction of a musical and a social “voice,” looking at what it means for this particular artist to both be the voice of and have a voice in colonial and postcolonial Egypt. In the discussion that follows I outline the academic trajectory of writings on women and music in Morocco, which I have divided into three distinct historical moments, each exemplifying different approaches to the subject matter: work by 20th-century French colonial scholars, by contemporary European and American scholars, and by contemporary Moroccan scholars.