MESC The 21 “Best” Books in Middle East Studies Orientalism

The American University in Cairo
Middle East Studies in Cairo
Volume 2, Issue 2. November 2005
MESC
The 21 “Best” Books in
Middle East Studies
1. Orientalism
Edward Said
2. The Old Social Classes and
the Revolutionary Movements
of Iraq
Hanna Batatu
3. History of the Arab Peoples
Albert Hourani
Books #4-#21 Inside
Message
From the Director
Building Knowledge about the Middle East
W
ith the Middle East increasingly at the center of
the news*, the important question is what do we know about
the region and how do we acquire this knowledge. Hence
MESC’s emerging project of stock-taking knowledge about
the Middle East.
Part of this project is a new foundation course applying
interdisciplinary analysis to the region and critically
evaluating the influential literature. Another aspect is
inventorying this literature worldwide.
Garth Hall, a research assistant at MESC, wrote to two
hundred and two professors to inventory the most
recommended MES books. The final list received included a
total of two hundred and forty-seven different books
recommended. Through a frequency count limiting the “top”
list to books that are recommended four times or more, the
list was shortened to twenty-one books. Not surprisingly,
Edward Said’s Orientalism (with nineteen repetitions) came
in first. But there are also surprises, in the books included as
well as those excluded. The full details are presented on
page seven.
Garth’s initial effort is preliminary. It concentrates on
books published in English, is rather American-oriented, and
focuses primarily on some of the social sciences. But this is
only the beginning, and adjustments and corrections have to
be made.
This is the beginning of a collective project that concerns
all those interested in the assets/liabilities of acquiring
knowledge, and not only about the Middle East. MESC
would like to hear from you – either through our website or
through active “letters to the editor.”
*CNN, with its anchorman Jonathan Mann, is devoting its feature
week 21-28 November to the Middle East, including a long
interview with Libya’s strongman Muammar Qadhafi.
Table of
Contents
Letter to the Editor
What is the Middle East?
Page 2
Hani Soliman
Point/Counterpoint
Federalism in Iraq
Page 3
Maria Dayton & Clark Gard
MidEast Politics
When Does Aid Become a
Burden? NGOs in Sudan
Page 5
Lenka Benova
Feature Article
The 21 “Best” Books in
Middle East Studies
Page 7
Garth Hall
Reviews
Kofi Annan at AUC
Page 11
MESC Staff
Reviews
Al-Akkad’s The Message
Page 12
Danny Corbin & Clark Guard
CONTACT US: If you have any questions,
comments, or contributions (articles, pictures,
creative writing) please feel free to contact us.
Email: [email protected]
Address: 5 Youssef El Guindy St., Apt #4.
Phone: 797 5994
*The views expressed herein are those of their authors and not necessarily those
of MESC, the editorial board, or the Middle East Studies Program.
The following is an essay sent in by Dr. Hani
Soliman in response to an article in the
October MESC (reprinted below) by Garth
Hall. Both Dr. Soliman and Mr. Hall are
Middle East Studies graduate students at AUC.
Dear MESC,
What is the Middle East? Why is it “middle”? And to whom it
is “east”?
We should take into consideration that what is “east” to a
certain geographical location is “west” to another. Thus, Turkey,
Iran and Saudi Arabia are east of Europe, but they are west of
Japan. What we know as the Middle East, is actually the Middle
West for Japan!
In Orientalism, Edward Said argues that the “Orient” was a
western invention, made to be exploited by the Europeans. For
the Europeans, “the world is made of two unequal halves, Orient
and Occident” and the “relationship between Orient and Occident
is the relationship of power, of domination, of varying degrees of
a complex hegemony.” For European/Western historians and
scholars, researchers and leaders, artists and merchants, the East
is a career; as stated by Benjamin Disraeli!
This argument is clear if we trace the development of the geopolitical concept of the East. For a long time, the Europeans had
an established concept of the East. The East was the land that
flowed with milk and honey. The East was the land of one
thousand and one nights. The East was the home of the great
capitals of Jerusalem, Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo and their
hidden treasures. For the Crusaders of the 12th and 13th
centuries—kings, princes, knights, officers and soldiers—the East
was a holy mission, a designated profession and a long-lasting
career. When the Ottomans captured the Arab-Muslim countries
in the 16th century, the East for the Europeans became the lands
of the Ottoman Turks, who also captured the Europeans’ western
borders and threatened their existence.
When the Europeans reached China and initiated their conflict
there by the end of the 19th century, they discovered that “the
East” extended far beyond what they had previously known as
“the East.” So they divided this vast East into the Near East, the
one they had already known, and the Far East, which they had
just discovered.
The British had a new concept in the early 20th century. Having
established their hegemony in India, they introduced a new term
to describe the area that separated their homeland in Europe from
their Jewelry of the Crown: the Middle East. This term
described the area that extends from the Red Sea to the British
Empire in India. They looked to capture this Middle East to link
their Empire from the European borders up to the Indian subcontent. Following World War I and the fall of the Ottoman
Empire, the Middle East became the victim of British and French
colonization. Both Britain and France competed to establish their
hegemony over those countries released from the Ottoman
hegemonaye
A reprint of the October MESC article:
Who Art Thou,
O Middle Eastern Countries?
By Garth Hall
Are Turkey and Iran “Middle Eastern” countries? What about
Afghanistan and Pakistan?
My political science class recently opened with these questions, which
both draw from the alleged enigma, “What is the Middle East? What
nations comprise this region?” Well, the mystery stops now. These
questions have a lot of background, which we will skip here in favor
of an over-simplified formula that happens to work. If the country
fulfils two of these three requirements, it’s a Middle Eastern country:
1. Is Arabic, Farsi, or Hebrew an official state language?
2. Is the majority of the country Muslim?
3. Is the country located in a former territory of the Ottoman
Empire?
Some case studies:
• Turkey: fulfils religion and location requirement. Therefore,
Turkey is a Middle Eastern country.
• Iran: fulfils language and religion requirement. Ergo, Iran is a
Middle Eastern country.
• Afghanistan: fulfils language and religion requirement. Thus,
Afghanistan is a Middle Eastern Country.
• Pakistan: fulfils only the religion requirement. Consequently,
Pakistan is not a Middle Eastern country.
According to this method there are twenty-six Middle Eastern
countries (Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti,
Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco,
Mauritania, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria,
Tunisia, Turkey, UAE, and Yemen). There are twenty-eight if one
includes Palestine and the Western Sahara each as countries.
Complaints against the method and theory readily accepted:
[email protected]
NB: Ten countries fulfill all three of the requirements, making
them—according to this method—part of the core Middle East as
opposed to the greater Middle East. These nations are: Algeria,
Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, and
Yemen.
NB: If Turkey, Iran, or Israel weren’t considered Middle Eastern, how
would one categorize them? Do they really fit better in a category like
European or Mediterranean or South Asian?
hegemony and both succeeded in dominating the East until the
end of World War II.
In the French discourse, the terms “Middle East” and “Near
East” are used interchangeably but do not include the Northern
African countries. The French wanted to separate the Middle
East that they shared with the British from the Northern
African countries that they had captured alone!
Many American scholars designate the Middle East as a wide
region that extends from Morocco to Pakistan. Following
Continued on page 13
NB: The authors of this section are
not necessarily expressing their
personal views, but are instead
encouraging discussion of topics
relevant to studies of the Middle East.
The
preamble of the new Iraqi Constitution reads as
follows: “We the people of Iraq, newly arisen from our
disasters and looking with confidence to the future through a
democratic, federal, republican system, are determined—
men and women, old and young—to respect the rule of law,
reject the policy of aggression, pay attention to women and
their rights, the elderly and their cares, the children and
their affairs, spread the culture of diversity and defuse
terrorism.”
Why does this section, and the word “federal” in
particular, strike such fear in the hearts of so many
throughout the world? Federalism is simply a political
system in which a central government and smaller local
governments share power in the pursuit of a common good.
Why is federalism being perceived as the enemy and not as
the cure that it has been in so many complex state-building
processes before?
In this debate over federalism in Iraq let us not forget that
historical precedent has proven federalism to be the answer
to many countries’ unification efforts. Not incidentally these
same countries continue to be the richest and most complex
in
For those that claim that this
historical precedent does not apply
to the largely Muslim Middle East, I
would point out that Malaysia, one
of the most lauded and successful
Muslim states, is also federalist.
in the world. This list of federalist countries includes, among
others: the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, Brazil, Germany,
India, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Spain, Switzerland, and
the United Arab Emirates.
These countries have used
federalism not only to build trust between groups after
devastating wars, but also to unify extremely diverse peoples
under the banner of one nation. In fact, the very word
“federalism” comes from the Latin fidere which means “to
trust.” Federalism is not idealism at work. It’s a practical
solution that has been proven over time to aid in the nation
building of pluralistic states. For those that claim that this
historical precedent does not apply to the largely Muslim
Middle East, I would point out that Malaysia, one of the most
lauded and successful Muslim states, is also federalist.
There has been criticism that dividing Iraq along sectarian lines will
only weaken the new Iraqi government by reinforcing ethnic
differences and strengthening the occupation. However, idealistically
envisioning an Iraq where religious and ethnic differences don’t exist
is simply not the answer. It is a historically documented fact that
under the twenty-four years of Saddam Hussein’s regime, all but one
of Iraq’s ethnic and religious groups were viciously oppressed in a
Bathist attempt to Arabize Iraq. This is a historic and present reality
within the minds and consciousness of Iraq’s population and a system
of government has to be implemented that will address and potentially
pacify the fears of these groups. Even Iraq’s national security advisor,
Mowaffaq Al-Rubaie, admits that, "Without federalism it means that
no community interest has been addressed or fulfilled and therefore
different communities will try to find and defend and fight for their
rights."
Other critics point to the fact that Iraq’s differences are mainly
religious rather than ethnic and conclude that these religious
differences should not be stressed by instituting a federalist system.
This argument ignores not only Iraqi history but also the history of
other influential federalist states. It is important to point out that most
of the original American states were divided along religious lines and
viewed their position within the new United States in this light. As in
each previous historical example, from the United States to
Switzerland, giving each group the ability to have limited control over
their territory and such things as education has ultimately preserved
the nation as a whole.
In conclusion, federalism is not a scary, untested system of
government. It has been proven as a trust-building measure many
times in the past and will continue to be used in the future as a tool for
state-building. This is true because it works as a system of
government and can work in Iraq despite the propaganda.
Maria Dayton
Middle East Studies Graduate Student
system in Iraq is not reducible to Sunni protectionism.
Concerns emerging from central Iraq (from Sunni and Shi‘i
groups alike) surrounding the management of Iraq’s oil wealth
under a federalist system, with the bulk of Iraq’s reserves in the
semi-autonomous Kurdish north, raise the question of whether
or not autonomous-but-equal is a viable concept for transitional
Iraq. If one is going to adopt the argument that federalism
helps relieve the anxiety of groups that could potentially be
compromised under state-wide majoritarian rule, one should
also ask why it is specifically these vulnerable groups that
stand so opposed to federalism.
The argument in favor of a federalist system in Iraq
disregards Iraq’s fledgling government structures, its oilresources in minority-dominated areas, and the artificial nature
of the lines that demarcate the separate regional governates.
The typical pro-federalism argument runs as such: “The
elements of regional self-governance offered under a federalist
system are necessary to quell the anxieties of disparate groups
about who will be governing them and controlling their
resources.” While this goal of trust-building and transition to
stable intra-regional interaction must no doubt be realized if a
peaceful and prosperous Iraq is to emerge, there are serious
doubts about whether or not federalism, as it is envisioned for
Iraq, is an efficacious means to achieving that goal. Indeed, the
realization of Iraqi federalism would seem to encourage
insecurity and heighten difference, rather than build trust, and
the pragmatist view that federalism is necessary in the
formation of a state compromised by internal divisions
realization
…placating Pennsylvanians’ fears
of New Yorkers in the 1780s with
promises of state self-governance
has limited applicability to 21st
century Iraq…
displaces vital legal and constitutional questions onto a yetunformed judicial and legislative structure that is ill-equipped
to resolve the complex questions that the federalism “solution”
raises, but (for the sake of timetables) declines to answer.
The concept that federalism is trust-building, securityencouraging, and therefore good for Iraq is more often than not
built upon retrospective analysis of the development of
federalism in the United States that, it must be remembered,
occurred in the 18th century. It goes without saying that
placating Pennsylvanians’ fears of New Yorkers in the 1780s
with promises of state self-governance has limited applicability
to 21st century Iraq, especially when one considers both the
uneven distribution of resources within the country, as well as
the imagined ethnoreligious space according to which regional
lines will be drawn. It should also be unambiguously stated
that skepticism surrounding the development of a federalist
system
One should also ask how regional lines in Iraq that are
increasingly depicted by US and transitional authority figures
alike (not to mention by the media) as determined by sect
(sunni v. shi‘a), ethnicity (Kurd v. Arab), and geographical
region (North v. Center v. South – a vestige of the no-fly
zones) might differ in their ability to serve the goals of trustbuilding and national stability described above, from the less
charged categories (topo-graphical land formations; former
territorial demarcations) within other federal systems that
define regional borders.
The breakneck pace with which Iraqi transitional officials
(and their gaggle of international consultants) have been forced
to draft the constitution hardly allows for extensive
consideration, in the text of the document itself, of the
guidelines according to which regions will interact with the
national government in a federal system. Central to the success
of a federal system is a highly-developed government
infrastructure. Such an infrastructure should consist of wellfunctioning legislative and judicial apparatuses at both the
regional and national levels that can regulate the interaction of
self-governing regions with the greater state.
Iraq’s
government infrastructure does not fit this description.
Even in the proposed “model” federal system, the US, with
some of the most developed judicial and legislative institutions
in the world, questions pitting federal and state lawmakers and
judges against each other (ranging from the unevenness of the
penal code, to trade regulations, to gay marriage and religious
displays in public space) persist, and it seems unrealistic to
expect that any high court responsible for interpreting Iraq’s
constitution, or federal legislature (itself demographically
emblematic of the internal divisions that threaten Iraq) could
cope with questions of federal scope at this early state.
It is therefore unclear how, given the inability of the current
Iraqi state infrastructure to cope with questions of federalism
that will inevitably arise once regions are permitted to apply
differing sets of laws and regulations, as well as what appears
to be increasing (not decreasing) levels of hostility amongst
insecure and divided Iraqi groups, how the proposition of a
bureaucratically-complex, internally-divided, and federalist
Iraq is the most effective path towards a peaceful and
developed Iraq.
Clark Gard
Middle East Studies Graduate Student
everal Middle Eastern countries struggling to
establish working government systems are faced with the
legacy of receiving aid from foreign governments and
numerous aid organizations. As the peace process continues in
Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Sudan, prominent international
NGOs are increasingly becoming a focus of a debate
concerning whether their presence is aiding or hindering the
ongoing reconstruction efforts.
Is the provision of outside aid fostering administrative
inaction? Are NGOs diminishing the expectations of people
towards their own governments? Are these well-meant efforts
actually prolonging the poverty, corruption and dependency of
developing countries?
The “dependency” debate has been ongoing since the first
African colonial territories gained independence. Governmental
aid (otherwise known as ODA, or Official Development
Assistance), international loans, food aid, and humanitarian aid
have all at some point been the targets of blame in this
dilemma. The very inability of the first round of Western
government aid and diplomatic intervention in the 1960s to
stop the continual decline in the economic, health, education
and security situations may have, in fact, given rise to the
private humanitarian organizations striving to provide some
relief to the affected populations. For example, Doctors
Without Borders (MSF) was established in 1971 by
disenfranchised French doctors working for the Red Cross
during the Biafra War in Nigeria.
In trying to estimate the impact produced by humanitarian
organizations, an important distinction must be drawn between
emergency
emergency and development aid.
Emergency humanitarian aid aims to help individuals
survive. Doctors and nurses in refugee camps do not ask
themselves whether a measles vaccination hinders the
country’s progress by the very fact that it is not the Ministry of
Health conducting this campaign. They are concerned about
saving as many lives as possible with the limited resources
available and readily agree that some of the patients are
dependent on their help. The focus on an individual’s life goes
as far as distribution of food ratios to the entire family in cases
where one child is malnourished (so that the child’s food not
get consumed by other family members). However, as soon as
the given emergency (natural or man-made) is contained, it is
expected that other actors step in, such as local government,
UN agencies, and developmental aid NGOs.
Developmental aid claims to create capacity for the
population to deal with the current situation and improve it.
Programs in education, provision of micro-loans, water and
sanitation are good examples of these efforts.
There is no question that the services supplied by emergency
and developmental organizations are the responsibilities of the
government. Therefore, the provision of these services by
international NGOs temporarily and locally substitutes the lack
or inability of governmental action. However, aside from the
fact that international aid is much more expensive than locally
supplied services, NGOs do not the capacity, desire, or funds to
cover any given country as a whole.
The following is a Reuters list of 38 NGOs responding to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur
• Action by Churches Together
(ACT) in cooperation with
Caritas Internationalis
• Action Against Hunger
• Adventist Development and
Relief Agency (ADRA)
• Africare
• Air Serv International - USA
• American Jewish World Service
(AJWS) - USA
• AmeriCares – USA
• American Red Cross
• Catholic Agency for Overseas
Development (CAFOD) – UK
• CARE Canada
• CARE International - UK
• Caritas Internationalis
• Catholic Relief Services (CRS)
• Concern Worldwide
• Cruz Roja Española (Red Cross –
Spain)
• Disasters Emergency Committee
(DEC) - UK
• GOAL - Ireland
• International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC) - Switzerland
• International Federation of Red
Cross and Red Crescent
Societies (IFRC)
• International Medical Corps USA
• International Rescue Committee
• INTERSOS – Italy
• Islamic Relief - UK
• Lutheran World Relief
• Malteser – Germany
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Medair - Switzerland
Médecins Sans Frontières
Mercy Corps
Merlin - UK
Norwegian Refugee Council
(NRC)
Oxfam
Refugees International USA
Save the Children
Tearfund
United Methodist Committee on
Relief (UMCOR) – USA
cooperating with Action by
Churches Together
UNHCR
World Mission International
(WMI)
World Vision International
Now that the actors in the aid v. dependency game are
revealed, let us review the case of the Sudan. The population
of about thirty-five million living in a country two and a half
times the size of Egypt has struggled with civil war for over
twenty years. In 2003, the GNI (gross national income) of
Sudan reached US$15.4 billion, according to the World
Bank. In order to determine the extent of dependency on
foreign funds, a comparison of ODA, foreign debt, and
humanitarian aid is presented and compared to Egypt’s.
The data indicate that the amount of foreign loans to Sudan
is at least ten times the amount of either ODA or
humanitarian aid (estimating half of the present value of the
debt to be accumulated interest payments). By looking under
the surface of the attack on humanitarian agencies one is
faced with the negligible amount of money, however well
spent, these efforts actually represent. The questions of
government corruption, ineffective oversight of loan
spending by donor countries, and government unwillingness
to fund basic services such as healthcare or education now
enter the picture.
However, we are still left with the admission of guilt on
the side of humanitarian agencies for creating some
individual and societal dependency. Overlooking this impact
in order to concentrate on the value of a human life does not
rid the NGOs from making an effort to diminish their
negative effects. First, an emergency-based intervention must
strive to increase local capacity. Developing countries sorely
lack human resource potential and the employment of local
staff as opposed to expatriates will leave a lasting effect on the
community. Second, the NGO has to be wary of over-extended
projects. Any international NGO should not only have a welldefined exit strategy, but also be proactive in identifying and
supporting a local partner (whether a local NGO or a
government agency). Enabling local activists to establish
contacts with possible donors and aiding in the formulation of
funding proposals is an important contribution, an institutional
equivalent of hiring local personnel. The transparency and level
of reporting requested by donors will increase the expectations
the community has of its own government officials. Lastly,
international NGOs, often facing expatriate shortages, should
avoid hiring professionals from local staff and posting them to
other countries, thereby contributing to the “brain drain” effect.
Lenka Benova
Middle East Studies Graduate Student
Want to learn more about this and other debates pertaining to
humanitarian activities?
These websites have a wealth of information as well as links to
NGOs, data sources and job postings:
www.alertnet.org
www.reliefweb.int
www.crisisgroup.org
www.irinnews.org
www.odi.org.uk
.
Foreign government assistance:
% of ODA / GNI (2003)
Foreign loans:
% of present value of debt / GNI (2003)
Humanitarian aid:
% of humanitarian aid* / GNI (2004)
2002 annual health expenditure per capita
(US$/PPP) (2002)
% of ODA going to the Emergency sector
SUDAN
3.8%
EGYPT
1.1%
111%
30%
2.8% - 5.1%
N/A
$39
$153
67%
0%
*I have not been able to find a comprehensive source of the amount of non-governmental humanitarian aid.
The numbers used (min. US$510 mi – max. US$930 mi) are educated guesses based on several online resources.
Sources: World Bank, OECD, UN (OCHA), Human Development Report 2004
The 21 “Best” Books
in Middle East Studies
W
E HERE AT MESC WANTED TO MAKE A LIST of
the best Middle East studies books. So we emailed just over
two hundred MES professors and experts and asked them for
the ten books they found to be the most “interesting,
informative, and readable” in the field. We received just over
fifty responses and from these we compiled the Top 21 list.
We are very happy with the results and are making plans for
a future improved list. This next list compilation—slated to
begin this summer—will give professors more time to consider
their choices, will be sent out during a less hectic time in the
academic year, and will reach out to ask recommendations
from those neglected by this list. Eventually, we would like to
produce two yearly lists at the end of summer: a list of the best
MES books of the last century and another, more dynamic list
of the best MES books of the last decade. But let us first
explain our flagship list that we have now compiled.
What Do You Mean, “Best?”
This list would be more accurately titled, “the twenty-one
Middle East studies books that experts in the field found the
most interesting, informative, and readable.” But for brevity’s
sake we kicked ourselves loose of subjectivity’s chains and
called our results the twenty-one “best” books in Middle East
studies.
Some of the responses expressed understandable confusion
about what exactly we were looking for. Our original request
was for, “the ten most interesting, informative, readable books
in Middle East studies… Your selections do not need to be
well known or broad in scope.” And while we were rather
pleased with the descriptive trio of “interesting, informative,
and readable,” not everyone found the request so lucid. As one
respondent put it:
This is no easy task. The trouble is you say
“interesting, informative and readable” and while
there are some books that fit all of those categories,
they may not be the most important. Many important
books may be interesting for a specialist but not for
general readers, many may be of great importance
scientifically but difficult to read, and informative is
rather a strange category because many great
scientific books are addressed to specialists who
already are informed but make an argument.
Perhaps a look at how the respondents themselves described
their
their recommendations will give more insight into what it means
for a book to have been listed as one of the “best” of Middle East
studies. Respondents described their recommendations as,
“provocative books [that] set me to thinking,” “books that either
inspired me in one way or another or that I have found to be
especially useful,” “books that I find interesting or think they are
very important in the history of the field.” These books
sometimes “forced us to rethink our approach to the field,” and at
other times were just “the ten books I enjoy most.”
Why 21?
The books are ranked based on the number of times they were
recommended. We cut off the list at twenty-one because after the
twenty-first book, many of the candidate books are tied for the
same rank. For example, there were thirteen books tied for
twenty-second place in that each was recommended three times.
This also happened higher up in the list: there are eight books
tied with four recommendations each, five books tied with five
each, and Hodgson’s Venture of Islam and Mitchell’s Colonising
Egypt were tied with eight recommendations each. In order to
give the list a more ordered look, we broke these ties by giving
the higher rank to books that had received especial
recommendations by a professor. In our request email, we asked
professors to provide ten books recommendations and to then
write a blurb about the book most highly recommended. And so
Venture of Islam was given fifth and Colonising Egypt relegated
to sixth—although they were each recommended by eight
professors—because Venture of Islam had received two especial
recommendations and Colonising Egypt only one.
What Do You Mean “in Middle East Studies?”
Our original decisions about which professors to contact
obviously influenced the shape that the compiled book list would
take. Most of the professors we contacted were political
scientists, modern historians, and economists. Our bias was not
lost on the respondents: “Your list of faculty contacts is very
heavily weighted to modern studies… I am almost the only
medievalist in the lot. I assume your list will also be skewed in
this way.” This will be one of the issues addressed in the list we
will compile this summer.
There is also the question of who constitutes an expert in
Middle East studies. Although we emailed two librarians, a
handful of think-tank experts outside academia, and one Major
General, our list is heavily, heavily weighted towards professors.
And so, for convenience, we refer to the group of professors,
Continued on page 10
1. Orientalism
Edward Said, 1978
2. The Old Social Classes and the
Revolutionary Movements of Iraq
Hanna Batatu, 1978
12. A Political Economy of the
Middle East
Alan Richards & John Waterbury,
1990
13. A History of Islamic Societies
Ira Lapidus, 1988
3. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age
Albert Hourani, 1962
14. Rule of Experts
Timothy Mitchell, 2002
4. A History of the Arab Peoples
Albert Hourani, 1991
15. Ambiguities of Domination
Lisa Wedeen, 1999
5. The Venture of Islam
16. The Muqaddimah
Marshall Hodgson, 1975
Ibn Khaldun, 1377
6. Colonising Egypt
Timothy Mitchell, 1988
17. A Peace to End All Peace
David Fromkin, 1989
7. The Mantle of the Prophet
Roy Mottahedeh, 1986
18. Armed Struggle & the Search for
State
8. Contending Visions of the Middle
Yezid Sayigh, 1997
East
Zachary Lockman, 2004
19. State, Power and Politics in the
Making of the Modern Middle
9. Women and Gender in Islam
East
Leila Ahmed, 1992
Roger Owen, 1992
10. The Emergence of Modern Turkey 20. Society of the Muslim Brothers
Bernard Lewis, 1961
Richard Mitchell, 1969
11. Over-stating the Arab State: Politics 21. Arab Politics: The Search for
and Society in the Middle East
Legitimacy
Nazih Ayubi, 1995
Michael Hudson, 1977
runner-ups:
these books were all tied for
twenty-second place with
three “votes” each
• Abrahamian’s Iran Between Two
Revolutions
• Abu-Lughod’s Veiled
Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in
a Bedouin Society
• Batatu’s Syria's Peasantry, the
Descendants of Its Lesser Rural
Notables, and Their Politics
• Cole’s Colonialism and
Revolution in the Middle East
• Cook’s Commanding Right and
Forbidding Wrong in Islamic
Thought
• Doumani’s Rediscovering
Palestine: Merchants and
Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 17001900
• Kerr’s The Arab Cold War
• Lewis’ The Middle East: A Brief
History of the Last 2000 Years
• Mahmood’s The Politics of Piety
• Owen’s The Middle East and the
World Economy, 1800-1914
• Seale’s The Struggle for Syria: A
Study in Post-War Arab Politics,
1945-1958
• Slyomovics’ The Object of
Memory: Arab and Jew Narrate
the Palestinian Village
• Vatikiotis’ The History of
Modern Egypt
these 52
professors
contributed:
AUB (Beirut)
John Meloy
John Waterbury
AUC (Cairo)
Enid Hill
Hazem Kandil
Walid Kazziha
Bahgat Korany
Emad Shahin
Begin-Sadat Center
Efraim Inbar
Amikam Nachmani
Binghamton Univeristy
Richard Antoun
Donald Quataert
Columbia University
Richard Bulliet
Hossein Kamaly
Georgetown University
Barbara Stowasser
Harvard University
Susan Kahn
Susan Miller
Indiana University
John Walbridge
Princeton University
Michael Barry
Julie Taylor
Robert Tignor
UC Berkeley
As’ad Abu Khalid
Nezar Alsayyad
UCLA
Sondra Hale
Michael Ross
UC Santa Barbara
Juan Campo
Lisa Hajjar
Garay Menicucci
University of Arizona
Julia Clancy-Smith
David Dunford
University of Calgary, McGill
Rex Brynen
University of Chicago
Orit Bashkin
Fred Donner
Martin Stokes
Lisa Wedeen
University of Durham
Emma Murphy
University of London, SOAS
G. R Hawting
Laleh Khalili
Charles Tripp
University of Michigan
Susan Waltz
University of Oxford
Ahmed .Al-Shahi
Homa Katouzian
Eugene L.Rogan
A. R. Sheikholeslami
University of Texas, Austin
Mounira Charrad
Clement Moore Henry
Shenandoah University
Calvin Allen
University of Utah
Peter Sluglett
Tel Aviv University
Meir Litvak
Bruce Maddy-Weitzman
Eyal Zisser
University of Washington
Alwyn Rouyer
Yale University
Michael Gasper
Ellen Lust-Okar
Continued from page 7
librarians, etc. that we contacted for the study as “professors.”
We hope the others will not take offence at this umbrella term.
Especially not the Major General.
This preliminary list is also weighted towards American
professors. We created our email list by going to each of the
university program sites listed on the very helpful MESA
website links page (http://fp.arizona.edu/mesassoc/links.htm).
In most cases we selected six professors from each Middle East
studies center or department. This initial list consisted entirely
of universities in the United States, with the exception of a dash
of British schools, a sprinkle of Israeli institutions, and the
American Universities in Cairo and Beirut.
We then
supplemented the list with about eight other universities not
found on the MESA page. We also sent in a combined twentytwo emails to the Washington Institute and the Brookings
Institute but we assume that we were thwarted by an email
filter in that we did not receive any responses from these. We
would have liked to include more professors from various
countries, especially from the Middle East itself, but it was
difficult and sometimes impossible to obtain faculty lists or
email addresses (in English) from the websites of the Middle
East studies centers in these countries.
Why Only Books From the Last Century?
Limiting the list to books written in the last century was the
result of an early email response: “What is your timeline? Are
these to be books that are in print and circulating in this century
and last (20th century), or would they go all the way back to
Ibn Batuta?” We were cautious about being temporally
provincial, so we decided to request entries written within the
last hundred years, from 1905 to 2005.
But the time span also spawned problems in that found that
some respondents were trying to make their list represent both
the early and latter part of the century, which had not really
been our intent. Also, even after we included our timeline
limiting recommendations to the last century, professors
continued to list Ibn Khaldun’s 1377 work The Muqaddimah.
Why List?
But I suppose some explanation is necessary for the idea of
listing the “best” Middle Eastern studies books. What
possessed me to want to reduce such brilliant literature to such
bean-counting and ranking? Well, for starters, I have long
enjoyed both reading and categorizing. When my parents used
to take me out to breakfast as a child, I would invariably find
myself sorting the individual jelly servings into columns of
their different flavors—at least until the food arrived.
So I was very interested when, in 1998, Random House
composed a list of the 100 Best (English Language) Novels of
the Twentieth Century. I thought that whoever put Joyce’s
Ulysses at the top of the list should be drawn and quartered.
Beginning October 13th, we sent out two-hundred
and two requests for book recommendations. This
was the template for those requests:
My name is Garth Hall and I am a graduate
student in Middle East Studies at the American
University in Cairo.
We are compiling a "Top 25 Books in Middle East
Studies" list for our MES office newsletter. I am
basing this list on feedback from professors and
experts across America (and some abroad) and I
wanted your input.
I realize that you must be busy, but if you could jot
down what you think are the ten most interesting,
informative, and readable nonfiction books in the
last century of Middle East studies it would make
for a very interesting compiled list. Your
selections do not need to be well known or broad
in scope.
And if you could, please write one sentence on why
you chose the book you did for your first choice. If
you like, just ask and I can send you the final
results.
Thank you for your help,
Garth
But perhaps this is the curse of the first place selection in
“best of” lists: in order to be a safe choice, it needs to be either
beyond reproach or incomprehensible. You can guess how I
interpreted Ulysses’ placement (and AFI’s placement of Citizen
Kane, for that matter). But I loved the list and felt that, if
nothing else, it provoked discussion about what books were the
“best” (or “people’s favorites,” depending on one’s
interpretation of objectivity) and stirred up the pot of English
literature.
And so, come October 2005, I set about creating a list for
Middle East studies.
I’m always forgetting book
recommendations, so I liked the idea of having them all in one
place. Also, I liked the idea of having a consolidated list of
Middle East knowledge. A concentrate of Middle East studies
juice, if you will. A beating heart of MES literature, compiled
into list form in Cairo, the beating heart of the Arab world.
Garth Hall
Middle East Studies Graduate Student, MESC Editor
Please send comments and suggestions to [email protected]
with “Top 21 Book List” as subject heading.
Al-Akkad’s The Message
and the Battle of the Media
O
n October 31, 2005, the last Monday of Ramadan, the
Middle Eastern Studies Center presented the epic drama The
Message to a packed house.
Introduction to the Film
The film, by Mustapha Al-Akkad (1930-2005), is the stirring
tale of Muhammad through the eyes of those around him. The
Prophet is never shown on screen, keeping with Islamic
tradition. The main character is his Uncle Hamza, played by
Anthony Quinn.
The film, shot in 1976 on location in Morocco and Libya, is
validated for accuracy by both Al-Azhar University in Cairo
and The High Islamic Congress of the Shiat in Lebanon.
However, the film is banned in Egypt. Al-Akkad appealed for
the ban to be lifted 25 years ago but never received a decision
concerning his appeal.
The movie also had troubles as it was being made. The
production crew ran out of funding before the film was
completed. Thankfully, Al-Akkad eventually received funding
for the completion of the film from Libyan President Muammar
Gaddafi. The filming was also complicated by Al-Akkad’s
decision to shoot the entire picture, scene by scene, first in
Arabic and then—with different lead actors—in English.
Although initially controversial in Islamic circles in America
and in the Middle East, the film soon obtained immense
popularity. It is still shown in countries like Saudi Arabia and
other states in the Middle East during Ramadan almost every
year.
Ironically, Mustapha Al-Akkad is not famous for The
Message but for his involvement as an executive producer for
all of the numerous Halloween films.
Al-Akkad was born in Syria in 1930 and moved to California
to study film in 1950. He graduated from UCLA with a degree
in film and received an M.A. in the same field from USC.
On Friday November 11, 2005 Mustapha Al-Akkad died
from wounds sustained from the triple hotel bombings in
Amman, Jordan. His daughter, Rima was also a victim of the
tragic Jordanian bombings. Rima Akkad Monla was an
alumnus of American University in Beirut with an M.A. in
Middle Eastern studies.
The Film in Context
Mustafa Al-Akkad’s The Message is, by his own account,
part of what he considers to be the war that Muslims must
fight, on the battlefield of mass media, against the negative
stereotypes and warped understandings exported globally about
Muslims and the nature of Islam.
In interviews with
IslamOnline, Al-Akkad has rallied against the huge military
spending in the region—when “[we] never see a single bullet
fired against our enemies”—and has argued that the real battle
that Muslims must fight is in the arena of the media. “We are
not in need of military weaponry to change the horrible image
that Muslims are stuck with,” says Al-Akkad, “it is more
important to know how to use the most effective weapon in the
modern world, the media.” Part of Al-Akkad’s cinematic goals
are therefore markedly polemical. Describing the current state
of visual culture as a time in which the Zionist media has
succeeded in marring the image of Muslims, Al-Akkad
believes that “there is no solution but the media, only the
media.”
Upon understanding this aspect of Al-Akkad’s work, it is
relevant to ask what role we, the audience, play in this battle.
On October 31, 2005, Al-Akkad’s audience included the
diverse student body of MESC, celebrating the breaking of the
Ramadan fast in an American University in a city that is one of
the most historically enduring centers of Islamic thought. In
his book Truth and Method, German philosopher Hans GeorgGadamer argues that “there can be no speech that does not bind
the speaker and the person spoken to.”
It is with this in mind that we come to understand the
viewing of Al-Akkad’s film—our localized and particular
viewing in this time and place—as inextricably liked to the way
in which our viewing is regulated. As we think about the
direction of the film, and attempt to decipher its message, we
cannot separate, for example, the unique shooting of the film
(in particular the viewing angle of the spectator-participant)
and our role as both target and fighter in the battle Al-Akkad
describes, above. Often discussed only in terms of its historical
authenticity/value, or alternatively in terms of its aesthetic and
technical cinematic merit, we should be encouraged to read AlAkkad’s film as neither a detached historical account nor an
artistic exercise. Rather, we should be conscious of the battle
Al-Akkad describes, the terrain on which it is being fought, and
our role as onlooker and necessary participant in a process that
is historical, artistic, and also polemical.
Danny Corbin & Clark Gard
Middle East Studies Graduate Students
Kofi Annan at Oriental Hall
O
n Tuesday November 8th, 2005, Kofi Annan gave
the inaugural Nadia Younes Memorial Lecture at AUC’s
Oriental Hall.
Nadia Younes was one of the twenty-two killed in the 19
August 2003 bombing of the UN headquarters in Iraq, where
she was serving as the Chief of Staff to Sergio Vieira de Mello.
Nadia devoted more than thirty years to the United Nations,
and prior to her appointment in Baghdad, was an Executive
Director at the World Health Organization. The memorial
lecture in her name, as well as an annual prize for excellence in
humanitarianism, were endowed by her family at AUC to
commemorate her lifetime commitment to international public
service.
Above the stage at AUC’s interestingly-named Oriental Hall
is the following quote: “Let knowledge grow from more to
more, But more of reverence in us dwell.” The quote is
certainly enigmatic, but Kofi Annan’s message was not.
Following an articulate introduction by the Secretary General
of the Cairo International Modern United Nations, Kofi Annan
mixed extremely warm praise of Nadia with a broad defense of
the United Nations project, criticizing the assumption that
international law and supranational institutions are inherently
threatening to state sovereignty, and emphasizing the
relationship between global peace and national stability.
Annan argued that there is no such thing as national versus
global interest in a globalized and integrated world, and that the
collective interest of all humanity is in the national interest of
individual states. According to Annan, there is no longer any
such thing as a zero sum game as far as global politics are
concerned.
Annan applied his argument about international law and
global peace to both the Palestinian question and the war in
Iraq
Iraq. Not only speaking out against such issues as collective
punishment, religious persecution (“the problem is not the faith
but the faithful”), destruction of the environment, and
proliferation, Annan stated clearly and unambiguously that
there should be a “viable, contiguous Palestinian state,” and
reminded the audience of the “many UN resolutions” in
support of that aim.
Annan also addressed the complex issue of terrorism and
insurgencies, forcefully arguing that “the deliberate targeting of
people who cannot be identified with occupying military forces
[is] not resistance, but murder, and terrorism,” which he called
“senseless criminal violence.” Annan made subtle reference to
the politics of division that fuel much of the world’s current
crises and political conflicts, saying that people who produce
exclusionary and divisive categories that make you a “traitor”
if you don't go with their cause are the ones contributing to
violence and global disunity.
He noted that these politics of division are not limited to this
region, and while it was certainly clear that he was attempting
to make the point that once is not a traitor to the Arab cause
(however defined) by refusing to engage in acts of terrorism,
one wonders if he was not also thinking of the “with us or
against us” rhetoric that has so famously described US foreign
policy surrounding the war in Iraq. Although describing the
insurgents as terrorists, Annan cautioned that “we cannot fight
extremism with extremism, violence with violence,” which
seems to implicitly call into question some of the responses to
extremism and violence that have characterized recent military
campaigns in the region.
In addition to addressing, in a general manner, the role of
organizations like the UN in the current global system, Annan
also addressed specific issues of Arab identity, regional
politics, and the role of women in the Middle East. Describing
Nadia as the “prototype of the modern Egyptian woman,”
Annan defined the quintessential modern Arab woman as one
who is able to balance multiple global identities with no sense
of conflict. Annan also made references to the classic “Arab
intellectual” and Arab sense of humor, and the fact that he felt
it necessary to also commemorate the Egyptian ambassador to
Iraq who was killed, as well as two Algerian diplomats, points
to the way in which he called upon Cairo as a kind of
representative center of the Arab world.
As an Egyptian woman who devoted her entire life’s work to
international peace, Nadia Younes was made to stand for
something more than her gender and her flag, and was held up
as a model for the transitioning modern Middle East.
MESC Staff
Photo courtesy of AUC website
Continued from page 2
World War II, the post-colonial era of the second half of the 20th
century witnessed the departure of the British and French from
the Middle East. The Americans sought to replace both the
British and the French in the entire region. President Eisenhower
declared that “the existing vacuum in the Middle East must be
filled by the United States before it is filled by the Russians.”
Gamal Abdel Nasser sarcastically replied: “This vacuum is only
existing in Eisenhower’s head!” and went to seek the support of
the Eastern Block led by the USSR. During the Cold War the
Middle East was a major front. When the USSR collapsed and
the US became the sole superpower, the time of the Greater
Middle East came into being.
The Middle East “Proper” is a geographical area that extends
from the Nile Valley in the West to what were the borders of the
USSR in the East. It therefore includes 17 countries. The Middle
East Northern Africa (MENA) Region adds the Arab countries of
North Africa (Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya)
to the list.
The Greater Middle East partnership or initiative was first
presented by the US to the G8 countries in February 2004 as a
reform project for the Middle East and Arab countries. The
intiative was provoked by the findings of the Arab Human
Development Reports (AHDR) of 2002 and 2003. These reports
concluded that there are three major deficiencies in the Arab
countries
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Egypt
Sudan
Saudi Arabia
Yemen
Oman
UAE
Qatar
Bahrain
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Kuwait
Iraq
Syria
Lebanon
Jordan
Palestine
Israel
Turkey
Iran
countries—freedom, knowledge and women’s empowerment.
The US administration argued that these deficiencies have
contributed to conditions that threaten the national interests of all
G8 members in the region: “So long as the region’s pool of
politically and economically disenfranchised individuals grows,
we will witness an increase in extremism, terrorism, international
crime and illegal migration.” The GME initiative included a call
to reshape the Middle East through political, economic and social
reforms that preserve the security interests of the US and its allies
in the region as the AHDR 2004 highlighted.
The reform priorities the G-8 agreed upon in order to address
the AHDR deficits were:
• Promoting democracy and good government;
• Building a knowledge society
• Expanding economic opportunities.
The initiative went on to describe how the G-8 countries would
help to create and develop the GME through a long-term
partnership with the region’s reform leaders. Through this
partnership, consultations were to be conducted around political
reform (moving towards democracy, the rule of law and respect
of freedoms and human rights); social and cultural reform
(reform and development of education and respect of women’s
rights and the rights of expression); and economic reform
(enhancement of trade and investment opportunities, financial
resource mobilization and eradicating corruption.)
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Mauritania
Morocco
Algeria
Tunisia
Libya
Egypt
Sudan
Djibouti
Somalia
Comoro Islands
Saudi Arabia
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Yemen
Oman
UAE
Qatar
Bahrain
Kuwait
Iraq
Syria
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Lebanon
Jordan
Palestine
Israel
Turkey
Iran
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Geographically, the GME refers to the countries of the 22 Arab
countries (members of the Arab Leagues), plus Pakistan,
Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey and Israel. Thus the new category
includes the well established Middle East and North Africa
(MENA) plus Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The GME initiative was
met by strong criticism by many Arab circles after being
published in the Al-Hayat newspaper (February 13, 2004). The
Arab critics argued that:
• The initiative did not acknowledge the role of Israeli
occupation and the invasion of Iraq in impeding freedom
and development in the region;
• It was drafted without consulting of the Arab world; and
• It gave Arabs no role in deciding their future course.
The criticism also extended to include some European
countries. In response, the US started consultation with its
European allies and some allied Arab leaders. These talks and
discussions resulted in a new project called the “Broader Middle
East Initiative” that proposed more limited objectives. The
project was adopted by the G-8 countries in their summit of June
2004. The new initiative acknowledged the importance of
resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict and of returning security and
peace to Iraq (AHDR 2004). However, it stated that these
conflicts should not stand in the way of reform.
There have been many inquiries about the effectiveness of this
initiative since it lowered recommendations ceiling of the earlier
one and incorporated these recommendations into existing
projects that have not achieved notable results. Also although it
confirmed that reform should come from within Arab societies
and meet the Arab people’s aspirations, yet many felt that there is
irrational pressure form the US to apply these reforms.
The GME: Why?
What does gather al-shami (the Syrian) and al-maghrabi (the
Moroccan); as the Egyptian proverb asks? What are the
similarities between Egypt and Afghanistan; and those between
Algeria and Pakistan? How can we put Iran in the same basket
with Saudi Arabia? “Someone” may argue that all those countries
suffer from the same deficiencies of lack of democracy, rising
terrorism, increasing unemployment, low access to knowledge
resources and low women empowerment. One third of the Arab
peoples live on less than two dollars per day; with increasing
poverty in many other countries in the region.
The aim then of the GME initiative is to initiate political, social
and economic reforms that would result in establishing
democracy and good governance, economic prosperity, creation
of knowledgeable society and gender equality. The US and its
European allies will help through partnering with the Middle East
reformers to enable the peoples of the region to achieve their
aspirations. No external pressure would be made by the US or
the European partners to introduce these reforms; but only
enforcement of the regional initiatives that would take place. This
will create the modern “New Middle East” that will coop with the
modern world and respond to the modern world interests in the
region.
The above discourse describes the outline of the GME initiative
in its idealistic profile. However, “another one” may argue that
the GME is another western invention; American this time, made
to be exploited by the Americans. American scholars,
researchers, orientlists and intellectuals are now investigating and
exploring how to create the new GME. Politicians and
economists are suggesting programs of political and economic
reforms. Writers, journalists and artists are interested to write
and produce about the region. Multinational and trans-continental
companies are penetrating into the region to invest in all of its
countries. Businessmen, brokers and even adventurers are rushing
to the region for business opportunities. Lastly, but most
importantly, the American government under Bush
administration is fixing its feet in the region; controlling its
resources, supporting its friendly regimes and threatening its
hostile ones. This will create the friendly “New Middle East” that
will serve the interests of the American Empire.
The two non-contradicting profiles that I described above are
of course interacting, may be to produce a third profile that may
be more realistic and true. There is no doubt that the Middle East
is currently going into an era of significant transformation on all
levels. Political, economic, social and cultural spheres are now
changing. The calls for change are both internally originating and
externally requested. The New Middle East will emerge soon;
and then we can judge whether these changes were for the
benefits of its own people who were actively participating in
initiating them; or the whole project was only invented by
external powers for their own benefits and interests.
Sincerely,
Dr. Hani Soliman
Dr. Soliman included these quotations, which we found fitting:
East is east; west is west; and
they will never meet!
Rudyard Kipling
British writer, novelist and poet (Nobel Prize winner, 1907)
East is east; west is west; and if
they meet, there will be a clash!
Samuel P Huntington
American political scientist (author of Clash of Civilizations)
East is east; west is west; and if
they meet, I will get a
commission!
Adenan Khachojgi
Saudi businessman
Who should be AUC’s
New Mascot?
• Inanimate objects,
unite!
• “Mr. Crocodile, do you like codfish?”
• Think “Egyptian flag” and “inspiring American
symbol.”
• Don’t think “US Post Office theme song” and
“Abercrombie & Fitch knock-off.”
• Far and away the best. The only problem is that half of
AUC doesn’t know what a scarab is, and the other half
knows that it’s a dung beetle.
• I’d actually prefer the Omar Sharifs, but if we
were ever miscalled the Omar sheriffs I’d have
to shoot myself.
• The status quo. Wow. Exciting.
• This is a breed of dog. Really.
• Playing or referencing “Who Let the Dogs Out” at games
would still merit capital punishment, canine mascot or
not.
• Definitely takes the cake for realism.
• Animal mascots readily available, rabid.