In the United States and Europe, the word "caliphate" has conjured historically romantic and increasingly pernicious associations. Yet the caliphate's significance in Islamic history and Muslim culture remains poorly understood. This book explores the myriad meanings of the caliphate for Muslims around the world through the analytical lens of two key moments of loss in the thirteenth and twentieth centuries. Through extensive primary-source research, Mona Hassan explores the rich constellation of interpretations created by religious scholars, historians, musicians, statesmen, poets, and intellectuals. Hassan fills a scholarly gap regarding Muslim reactions to the destruction of the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad in 1258 and challenges the notion that the Mongol onslaught signaled an end to the critical engagement of Muslim jurists and intellectuals with the idea of an Islamic caliphate. She also situates Muslim responses to the dramatic abolition of the Ottoman caliphate in 1924 as part of a longer trajectory of transregional cultural memory, revealing commonalities and differences in how modern Muslims have creatively interpreted and reinterpreted their heritage. Hassan examines how poignant memories of the lost caliphate have been evoked in Muslim culture, law, and politics, similar to the losses and repercussions experienced by other religious communities, including the destruction of the Second Temple for Jews and the fall of Rome for Christians. A global history, Longing for the Lost Caliphate delves into why the caliphate has been so important to Muslims in vastly different eras and places.
This easy-to-use beginner’s level guide to Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA) grammar is the ideal supplement for students of ECA as a foreign language. Keda Mazbuut is divided into twenty-five lessons, each devoted to a key grammatical rule, with examples to illustrate usage followed by a variety of exercises. Drawing on twenty-five years of experience as a full-time teacher of Arabic, Mona Hassan has organized the lesson topics to gradually progress in difficulty, from basic nominal sentences to more complex grammatical structures such as the imperative and conditional sentences. All rules are explained in straightforward English, while words and phrases are provided in both Arabic script and transcribed Arabic, accompanied by audio files to facilitate students’ ECA pronunciation. With its clear, user-friendly structure, Keda Mazbuut is designed to encourage students to work through grammatical rules at home, allowing them to devote more class time to the speaking activities that reinforce those rules.
A lively and informative collection of fifty common Egyptian colloquial expressions and proverbs, this book is must for learners of Arabic, language enthusiasts, and lovers of the country and its culture The idioms in this small, yet mighty, linguistic treasure trove have been put together to showcase the use of the Egyptian word illi, in itself a fascinating anomaly of the language as the only relative pronoun that exists in this dialect. Organized around their day-to-day linguistic function, each expression includes the original Arabic, a translation, an English equivalent or explanation, as well as whimsical illustrations. This book covers a wide array of meanings and contexts—packed full of expressions that will console, threaten, encourage, and much more—and is sure to entertain and inform both lovers of language and Egypt enthusiasts.
No matter where we come from, we all have our unique local expressions and proverbs that raise confused eyebrows when translated literally. These phrases usually carry humor and wisdom at their core, but are only fully understood in their native language. A Roving Eye explores some of these phrases and sayings from one of the world's most expressive tongues, Egyptian Arabic, the most widely spoken form of Arabic. Including some one hundred popular phrases and proverbs, all linked to parts of the body and features of the face, A Roving Eye uses striking black-and-white photography to bring these expressions to life. The result is a book that will delight both learners and native speakers of Arabic, as well as lovers of Egypt who have little knowledge of the language. Each phrase or saying features a photograph, the original expression in Arabic, its transliteration, and its equivalents in English (both literal and proverbial). The whole book makes a perfect gift or a fun read for family and friends.
This comparative dissertation analyzes Muslim perceptions of religious and social crisis precipitated by the sudden absence of a significant Islamic political institution, the caliphate, in the thirteenth and twentieth centuries. Despite the obvious disparities of chronological, geographical, and intellectual contexts, the disappearance of the Islamic caliphate, represented by the Abbasids and the Ottomans, was a deeply traumatic occurrence in both instances and generated an outpouring of emotion far beyond the territorial boundaries of temporal empire. In the case of the Abbasids, this emotive response emanated from as far away as Spain and North Africa in the west and Yemen in the south along with Egypt, geographical Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia. And in the case of the Ottomans, Muslims from Southeastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia were profoundly consterned. This widespread response reveals the potent symbolism of this religious and political institution as an emblem of Islamic unity, piety, and prestige and motivated a variety of attempts in both eras to reconstitute and harness its popular religious appeal. Yet though an Abbasid caliphate was ultimately resurrected in Cairo under the suzerainty of the Mamluks following the Mongol destruction of Baghdad in 1258, the series of early twentieth-century attempts to reestablish a modern caliphate, after its legislative abolition by the nationalist Turkish assembly in 1924, were less successful. These thwarted efforts of the modern era have since dissolved into lingering sentiments of remorse and longing for what once represented Muslim glory, righteousness, and esteem and have even contributed to the development of mass Islamist movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In analyzing these responses to the loss of a caliphate, through the works of Muslim jurists, exegetes, traditionists, theologians, historians, poets, intellectuals, bureaucrats, activists, and journalists, this dissertation traces a thread of commonality that runs through premodern and modern Islam and simultaneously highlights the multifarious ways in which modern Muslims have drawn upon, responded, and contested certain elements of their heritage.
In the early seventies, a tiny three-year-old girl stood watching suitcases gliding by on the baggage carousel while hundreds of strangers bustled and jostled, all in a hurry. She’d just landed after a 22-hour flight from Cairo, through Changi and on to Sydney, with her two brothers and her mother. “Aida!” a familiar voice called her mother’s name. Then, “Monameeno!” her father cried and Mona was ‘home’. Captain Mona Shindy’s story is one of love, faith, courage, tenacity and, at times, of extreme bias. She takes the reader through her childhood, growing up in Sydney with hardworking immigrant parents who wanted nothing more than for their children to do well in life and be happy. From an early age, Mona travelled the paths less trodden – not only by women, but by women of Muslim faith. At the age of twenty, she joined the Australian Navy – one of few women and the first female of Muslim faith to wear the navy uniform. As an engineer, her 32-year career of active service with the Navy saw Mona rise through the ranks, leading many sailors and officers both at sea and ashore. She spearheaded organisations charged with developing, delivering and sustaining Navy assets, state of the art weapons systems and technologies. She made an outstanding contribution to Navy and the defence of her nation but, more importantly, she was instrumental in instigating and effecting change when it came to female integration and cultural diversity inclusion within this traditional, white, male-dominated arena. Shattering Identity Bias is Mona Shindy’s story but more than that, it is a story that will give hope and strength to all minority groups. It will help employers better harness the power of diversity and address the challenges that it brings. For every reader, Mona’s story will paint a stark picture of the reality of the world we live in.
This introductory text explores the gendered history of the modern Middle East, from the eighteenth century to the present, studying the various ways in which gender has defined the region and shaped relations in the modern era. The book captures three aspects of change simultaneously: the events that mark the “modern” Middle East, women’s encounters with the transition to modernity and gendered responses to modernity. It contains both new fieldwork and a synthesis of secondary scholarship that highlight the role of gender in the modernization of Egypt, Turkey, Iran, the Levant and the Persian Gulf states. Chapters are organized chronologically to chart the rapid developments of the modern era, but each chapter also stands on its own, with coverage of masculinity and femininity, sexuality, marriage and the family, labor and women’s contributions to Arab Spring uprisings. Through this comprehensive account, the book pushes back on stereotypes that the Middle East is an ahistorical region and that women have not been vital actors in the process of change. Richly illustrated and accessible for a variety of readers, History, Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East is an ideal resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students in gender studies and Middle Eastern history.
Why the pursuit of state recognition by seemingly marginal religious groups in Egypt and elsewhere is a devotional practice Over the past decade alone, religious communities around the world have demanded state recognition, exemption, accommodation, or protection. They make these appeals both in states with a declared religious identity and in states officially neutral toward religion. In this book, Mona Oraby argues that the pursuit of official recognition by religious minorities amounts to a devotional practice. Countering the prevailing views on secularism, Oraby contends that demands by seemingly marginal groups to have their religious differences recognized by the state in fact assure communal integrity and coherence over time. Making her case, she analyzes more than fifty years of administrative judicial trends, theological discourse, and minority claims-making practices, focusing on the activities of Coptic Orthodox Christians and Baháʼí in modern and contemporary Egypt. Oraby documents the ways that devotion is expressed across a range of sites and sources, including in lawyers’ offices, administrative judicial verdicts, televised media and film, and invitation-only study sessions. She shows how Egypt’s religious minorities navigated the political and legal upheavals of the 2011 uprising and now persevere amid authoritarian repression. In a Muslim-majority state, they assert their status as Islam’s others, finding belonging by affirming their difference; and difference, Oraby argues, is the necessary foundation for collective life. Considering these activities in light of the global history of civil administration and adjudication, Oraby shows that the lengths to which these marginalized groups go to secure their status can help us to reimagine the relationship between law and religion.
After being shunned by her Middle Eastern family, medical assistant Leila Solomon struggles to build a life for herself and her child. Landscape photographer Aiden Stone built a career seeing what others miss, and the second he meets Leila, he is drawn to her unassuming beauty and fragile strength. Leila cannot defy the gravitational forces pulling her toward Aiden and to the family who cast her out. To build a future with Aiden, she must face the past but is she strong enough to resist being pulled back into the family fold?
A groundbreaking examination of a crucial concept in Islamic thought and tradition from an author noted for her work on interfaith and intercultural dialogue Considering its prominent role in many faith traditions, surprisingly little has been written about hospitality within the context of religion, particularly Islam. In her new book, Mona Siddiqui, a well-known media commentator, makes the first major contribution to the understanding of hospitality both within Islam and beyond. She explores and compares teachings within the various Muslim traditions over the centuries, while also drawing on materials as diverse as Islamic belles lettres, Christian reflections on almsgiving and charity, and Islamic and Western feminist writings on gender issues. Applying a more theological approach to the idea of mercy as a fundamental basis for human relationships, this book will appeal to a wide audience, particularly readers interested in Islam, ethics, and religious studies.
In the early seventies, a tiny three-year-old girl stood watching suitcases gliding by on the baggage carousel while hundreds of strangers bustled and jostled, all in a hurry. She’d just landed after a 22-hour flight from Cairo, through Changi and on to Sydney, with her two brothers and her mother. “Aida!” a familiar voice called her mother’s name. Then, “Monameeno!” her father cried and Mona was ‘home’. Captain Mona Shindy’s story is one of love, faith, courage, tenacity and, at times, of extreme bias. She takes the reader through her childhood, growing up in Sydney with hardworking immigrant parents who wanted nothing more than for their children to do well in life and be happy. From an early age, Mona travelled the paths less trodden – not only by women, but by women of Muslim faith. At the age of twenty, she joined the Australian Navy – one of few women and the first female of Muslim faith to wear the navy uniform. As an engineer, her 32-year career of active service with the Navy saw Mona rise through the ranks, leading many sailors and officers both at sea and ashore. She spearheaded organisations charged with developing, delivering and sustaining Navy assets, state of the art weapons systems and technologies. She made an outstanding contribution to Navy and the defence of her nation but, more importantly, she was instrumental in instigating and effecting change when it came to female integration and cultural diversity inclusion within this traditional, white, male-dominated arena. Shattering Identity Bias is Mona Shindy’s story but more than that, it is a story that will give hope and strength to all minority groups. It will help employers better harness the power of diversity and address the challenges that it brings. For every reader, Mona’s story will paint a stark picture of the reality of the world we live in.
In a collage of images the author attempts to convey the transformation of consumer culture and how it is related to the urban reshaping of the city of Cairo to meet with the demands of globalisation. Evidently Cairo ́s urban reshaping is taking place by pushing away the unwanted slums residents, which constitute the majority of the city ́s population.
Charity is an economic act. This premise underlies a societal transformation—the merging of religious and capitalist impulses that Mona Atia calls “pious neoliberalism.” Though the phenomenon spans religious lines, Atia makes the connection between Islam and capitalism to examine the surprising relations between charity and the economy, the state, and religion in the transition from Mubarak-era Egypt. Mapping the landscape of charity and development in Egypt, Building a House in Heaven reveals the factors that changed the nature of Egyptian charitable practices—the state’s intervention in social care and religion, an Islamic revival, intensified economic pressures on the poor, and the subsequent emergence of the private sector as a critical actor in development. She shows how, when individuals from Egypt’s private sector felt it necessary to address poverty, they sought to make Islamic charities work as engines of development, a practice that changed the function of charity from distributing goods to empowering the poor. Drawing on interviews with key players, Atia explores the geography of Islamic charities through multiple neighborhoods, ideologies, sources of funding, projects, and wide social networks. Her work shifts between absorbing ethnographic stories of specific organizations and reflections on the patterns that appear across the sector. An enlightening look at the simultaneous neoliberalization of Islamic charity work and Islamization of neoliberal development, the book also offers an insightful analysis of the political and socioeconomic movements leading up to the uprisings that ended Mubarak’s rule and that amplified the importance of not only the Muslim Brotherhood but also the broader forces of Islamic piety and charity.
Cotton made the fortune of the Fuuda family, Egyptian landed gentry with peasant origins, during the second part of the nineteenth century. This story, narrated and photographed by a family member who has researched and documented various aspects of her own history, goes well beyond the family photo album to become an attempt to convey how cotton, as the main catalyst and creator of wealth, produced by the beginning of the twentieth century two entirely separate worlds: one privileged and free, the other surviving at a level of bare subsistence, and indentured. The construction of lavish mansions in the Nile Delta countryside and the landowners' adoption of European lifestyles are juxtaposed visually with the former laborers' camp of the permanent workers, which became a village ('izba), and then an urbanized settlement. The story is retold from the perspective of both the landowners and the former workers who were tied to the 'izba. The book includes family photo albums, photographs of political campaigns and of banquets in the countryside, documents and accounting books, modern portraits of the peasants, and pictures of daily life in the village today. This is a story that fuses the personal and emotional with the scholar's detached ethnographic reporting--a truly fascinating, informative, and colorful view of life on both sides of a uniquely Egyptian socio-economic institution, and a vanished world: the cotton estate.
This book is an account of the emergence and key events related to the origin and expansion of Pakistani Taliban since 2001, with a focus on the role of religion in their actions, policies and worldviews. The author brings to light rare insight into the ideological basis of Pakistani Taliban, drawing upon first-hand research comprising participant observation, interviews, content analysis of organizational literature and Talibani communications, such as recruitment videos, recorded speeches, leaflets and pamphlets, jihadi anthems and press releases to the local media. The book demonstrates how religion simultaneously appears as an object to be defended, as a threat, as the purpose of violence, as the source of rules and limitations on violent action and as the source of motivational imagery and myths. Going into an analysis of just what role religion plays in violent activities of this group and how does it do so, the author shows that Talibani narratives are both secular and religious at the same time, contradicting a clear-cut divide between religious and secular motivations for violence. The book advocates against extreme positions that accord religion either a primary or a negligent position in explaining the raison d’être of Pakistani Taliban. It makes a plea for more informed and empathetic approach instead of the purely militaristic stance towards extremism, which has only helped it grow in the past.
This book is a comparative study of the sociological field in two different Muslim societies: Malaysia and Egypt. It analyses the process of the production of 'knowledge' through the example of the modern 'Islamization of knowledge debate' and local empirical variations.
The original BESTSELLER from nationally syndicated columnist Mona Charen! Who’s on the wrong side of history? The liberals who are always willing to blame America first and defend its enemies. They've tried to rewrite history, but Mona Charen won't let them as she calls out liberal hypocrisy during the Cold War and afterward; from DC elites like Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Jimmy Carter to Hollywood celebs like Woody Allen, Jane Fonda, and Martin Sheen to academic snobs like Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag, and many more. Charen's devastating critique of the left's philosophical incompetence is a must-read for Americans on both sides of the aisle.
This introductory text explores the gendered history of the modern Middle East, from the eighteenth century to the present, studying the various ways in which gender has defined the region and shaped relations in the modern era. The book captures three aspects of change simultaneously: the events that mark the “modern” Middle East, women’s encounters with the transition to modernity and gendered responses to modernity. It contains both new fieldwork and a synthesis of secondary scholarship that highlight the role of gender in the modernization of Egypt, Turkey, Iran, the Levant and the Persian Gulf states. Chapters are organized chronologically to chart the rapid developments of the modern era, but each chapter also stands on its own, with coverage of masculinity and femininity, sexuality, marriage and the family, labor and women’s contributions to Arab Spring uprisings. Through this comprehensive account, the book pushes back on stereotypes that the Middle East is an ahistorical region and that women have not been vital actors in the process of change. Richly illustrated and accessible for a variety of readers, History, Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East is an ideal resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students in gender studies and Middle Eastern history.
A multivocal account of why Egypt's defeated revolution remains a watershed in the country's political history. Bread and Freedom offers a new account of Egypt's 2011 revolutionary mobilization, based on a documentary record hidden in plain sight—party manifestos, military communiqués, open letters, constitutional contentions, protest slogans, parliamentary debates, and court decisions. A rich trove of political arguments, the sources reveal a range of actors vying over the fundamental question in politics: who holds ultimate political authority. The revolution's tangled events engaged competing claims to sovereignty made by insurgent forces and entrenched interests alike, a vital contest that was terminated by the 2013 military coup and its aftermath. Now a decade after the 2011 Arab uprisings, Mona El-Ghobashy rethinks how we study revolutions, looking past causes and consequences to train our sights on the collisions of revolutionary politics. She moves beyond the simple judgments that once celebrated Egypt's revolution as an awe-inspiring irruption of people power or now label it a tragic failure. Revisiting the revolutionary interregnum of 2011–2013, Bread and Freedom takes seriously the political conflicts that developed after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, an eventful thirty months when it was impossible to rule Egypt without the Egyptians.
Was life really that bad under the Saddam Hussein regime? Look Beyond the Fire: Daily Struggles Under Saddam's Regime is Mona K. Oshana's heart-rending account of the struggle to live and ultimately escape the cruel totalitarian rule of Saddam Hussein. Oshana vividly captures the thoughts and suppressed way of life of the forgotten, misunderstood people of Iraq and how decades of oppression have affected their state of mind. Drawing on her own life experiences, she illustrates the anguish and the suffering of her people that is rarely seen or covered by the media. Look Beyond the Fire offers a true glimpse inside Iraq beyond the controversy, beyond the politics and beyond the line of fire to the heart of the country the people.
I willingly present this book to every person capable of understanding the divine words sent to people, especially the groups of grown up men and women who are eager for gaining deeply-rooted knowledge. Those targeted people are the ones who have reached the age of twenty-five and more. Those are the people who seek the bases of knowledge that through its flashlights leads to enlightening the value of freeing the soul of humanity through validity and sincerity of worship. This is to promote the value of humanity by its creator in the three holy books which are Koran, Torah and the Bible. They also highlight the value of woman by what is mentioned about her in the holy verses of God, the glory, in the Koran, and the other holy books including the Bible, and the Torah. I present this with hard evidences that witness God’s veneration for women so that we will succeed in facing the tyranny of the cultural slavery and in freeing women from the materialistic human slavery.
The focus will be on three different generations of Indonesian scholars and 'Ulama who have studied in Cairo, and in Al-Azhar in particular. Three different periods will be discussed: the colonial times when Islamic Reformism had a great impact and reactivated scholarship in the Middle East and the world of Southeast Asia; the immediate post-colonial period when Azharites played a paramount role in state functions; and the seventies and eighties when Islam was affirmed by the wealth of oil-producing countries in the Arab Gulf.
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