Middle East Books

this is an excellent book and has the memoirs of a large range of individuals from the middle east. Easy to read and understand

During a five year assignment in Cairo (1961-1966) as head of the U.S. Embassy cultural and information programs I naturall tried to learn as much as I could about our audiences but I never saw an account of growing up in Egypt or nearby nations until this one. Elizabeth Fernea and her husband have lived in intimate contact with their peoples from the swamps of eastern Iraq to the bazaars of Morocco. She has a gift for describing her surroundings. Here she has assembled the memories of a panoply of individuals from every walk of life from royalty to villager during the momentous changes of the 20th Century.

This book discusses Muslim issues concerning the 'hadith' - these are sayings alleged to have been said by Muhammad, but written down hundreds of years after his death. The Sunni and Shia claim them as a second source of religious law (besides the Quran) and condemn those who do not follow it to the status of a kafir (one who conceals) or even more perplexingly a mushrik (one who associates with God). However, as Daniel Brown states througout modern times, there has always been opposition to these hadith as a source of Islamic law. However,as he also details, these Muslims have often been undone by their keenness to pretend that Islam without the hadith = that of the Sunnis and Shias.

The author gives an even and non biased account and I was left wondering exactly what his views were on the issue. He states many facts from the Quran such as the omission of any reference to the so-called 'sunnah of Muhammad' so treasured by the sectarians.

Many Sunnis and Shias are adament that 'hadith rejection' is a modern phenomenon created by Rashad Khilifah and people such as him. However Daniel Brown displays that this has been going on long before such people.

This book should be read by all sectarians because it is a book of scholarship, not one of blind faith and enforcement. Daniel Brown destroys the historical case for the 'hadith' by displaying evidence, accepted by the sectarians, when the 'hadith' were only formally collected for the first time. Those who argue that Muhammad's companions began to record hadith in writing during his lifetime must explain the Prophetic prohibition on writing of hadith. Contradictions within the hadith exist regarding this subject.

Under orders from Caliph Hisham, Shihab al-Zuhri was first assigned to collect hadith. This tradition has commonly been taken to mean that al-Zuhri, under duress, became the first traditionist to violate the Prophet's prohibition on recording hadith in writing. Al-Zuhri is reported to have said: "We disapproved of recording knowledge until these rulers forced us to do so. After that reason we saw no reason to forbid the Muslims to do so." In other words, before al-Zuhri writing was the rare exception; after him writing of traditions became commonplace. This argument is bolstered by numerous accounts that early generations of pious Muslims, including not only al-Zuhri and traditionists like him but also the first four Caliphs, strongly disapproved of writing hadith.
The evidence strongly suggests that early generations of Muslims did record traditions in writing, however having reports about written records is rather different than having the records themselves. Thus, the apparent aversion of pious Muslims to the recording of hadith should be interpreted as reluctance to record an official, public collection of hadith.

Scholars agree that forgery of hadith took place on a massive scale. The science of hadith developed gradually as a response to this problem. The early written compilations called suhuf were little more than random transcriptions or personal collections. Muslim sources identify the first systematic collection in recording of the hadith with the Ummad Caliph Umar and with the scholars Abu Bakr. No such collection has survived. The earliest systematic collection is the muttawata of Mailk bin Anas, 179 AH (168 years after Prophet Muhammad's death). Isnad (checking of transmissions) was not applied until after the early 2nd century AH according to Schacht. The book studies in early hadith literature stated it was earlier than this. For middle ground see Juynboll: "Muslim tradition". Major works of hadith .

According to some, forgers of hadith became active even during the lifetime of the Prophet. In the Caliphate of Umar, the problem became so serious that he prohibited transmission of hadith altogether. The degree of the problem that resulted can be seen from the testimony of the muhahadithin (those who collect hadith) themselves. Bukhari selected 9000 traditions out of 700 000 . When Bukhari reports that he selected from over 700 000 traditions, he is counting every different transmission chain, even when the substance of the tradition are the same . The point is that hadith criticism did not begin during the 3rd century but was practiced continually from the time of the companions onwards .

If only.......

Brown's book is the best introduction to how tradition is being understood and and re-defined in modern Sunni Islamic thought. One would recommend before reading this text having at least some familiarity with the Islamic tradition and modern Islamic history, however. Brown himself demonstrates an excellent familarity with the sources he examines and languages and contexts which produced them. He focuses mainly on the two intellectual powerhouses of modern Islamic thought, Pakistan-India and Egypt. His conclusions demonstrate that paradigms that placed tradition and modernity diametrically opposed to each other (cf. W.C. Smith) are erroneous as tradition can also be a conduit for profound social change as is the case with Islamic tradition. Moreoever, he argues forcefully that modern approaches to tradition and religious authority are born out of a confidence that Islam is growing stronger, not from a fear that it is threatened by a tide of modernity and progress.

This book is a historical survey of the Jewish people's returning to the Land of Israel. It begins in the Biblical Age, moves through the Rabbinic Period, considers Life in the Diaspora, presents an overview of Zionism,and concludes with a look at Israeli Statehood and beyond this.
This is an extremely clear and well- written work. It is a labor of love in which there is expressed an understanding and sympathy for the Jewish people's special connection with the Land of Israel.
Each chapter of the work begins by looking at the subject discussed in it from the perspective of the present. The aim of Rabbi Siegel in doing this is to provide readers with perspective, and depth.
He makes it clear that there are many perplexities in the story. He writes,

"While the land of Israel has always been central to the Jews, never has it been a simple, well understood relationship. From the moment the first Jew arrived over three thousand five hundred years ago until today, internal debate raged on a wide number of issues. whether one had to live in the Land, the nature of the Jewish ownership of Israel, the demands made on the people by the Land etc."

This is an important work that can be of great help to readers in understanding the significance of the land of Israel to the Jewish people.

Why did the Jews, as a people return to Israel?...Now, forty years after the founding of the modern State of Israel, and ninety years after the organization of the Zionist national movement, the question, often accompanied by wonder, remains.

We seek to explore the story of a relationship to an idea, the idea of returning. It is a history of a nation struggling with itself, moving far from the Land while carrying it along, constantly returning, constantly leaving, and always looking backward and forward at the same time, finding the Land of Israel at both extremes. It is a history unfinished, clearly still being written. Ironically, the current chapter seems to be seeking its predecessors, for progress is again predicated on knowing where one has been. This is, then, an effort at tracing the deepest roots of the modern return, both for those who would understandond for those who would take part.
--- from book's back cover

This book does not get caught up in details of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but is an overview that chronicles the trail of failed peace initiatives, identifies who the individual and group players are, and contends that the Zionist perspective(i.e., pro-Israeli land rights) is justifiable from the view of history, morality, and international law. Surprisingly, the author accomplishes this through a question-and-answer format. The book ends with a critique of our day's most talked about land-for-peace plan: The Road Map to Peace in the Middle East, which is sponsored by the 'Quartet' (EU, UN, USA, Russia), embraced by Arabs, and legitimized and not yet discarded by Israel. Notably missing from this book is the biblical argument for legitimacy of Israeli land rights--that's just not the message of this book. But it is the Bible's consistent position against the land-for-peace approach that is my reason for saying the book title is just wrong in saying 'Roadmap to Nowhere,' since really it is a roadmap to "somewhere": Armageddon! ("I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted MY land."--Joel 3:2 and so on). After the underappreciated but watershed Israeli elections of this week, the book is somewhat now just an argument for arguments sake, as the last significant restraining opposition to the land-for-peace/2-state track (Israel's Likud party and its supporters) has died as evidenced by the populace overwhelmingly electing into office land giveaway parties, no longer offering popular resistance to the the Left/Moderate self-destructive approach. Nonetheless, this book is still helpful for informing, persuading, and strengthening individuals who want to be at peace with God or with their conscience about this issue that actually amounts to the question of destruction of a nation, and not just any nation, but one the Bible calls the apple of God's eye. It is the issue for our time and the issue the entire community of nations is obsessed with, thus for its import and its comprehensiveness in simplicity, I recommend this book.

This book supplies some fundamental facts that are often overlooked. It makes sense to get this book just to use it to judge other works on the topic.

Here is a simple example. Many people know that hundreds of thousands of Jews fled or were expelled from Arab lands in the past several decades. But was this a response to Israel becoming a nation? No. More than 1000 Jews were killed in anti-Jewish rioting in Baghdad, Tripoli, Aden, Aleppo, Damascus, Oudja, Djerade, and Cairo in the decade prior to Israel becoming a state. It wasn't Israel that caused this. As Ben-Gad explains, it was the winning of national independence by Arab countries. For a couple of generations prior to that, European rule had protected the Jews to some extent.

The author summarizes the mistakes of the failed Oslo peace process. The biggest problem was legitimizing Arafat as a partner for peace and imposing his rule over Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza. Although Arafat talked about his evil intentions all the time, this was ignored. Israeli negotiators were inexperienced, were driven by fantasy rather than reality, were too trusting (they assumed that both sides wanted peace), and did not consult the Israeli army. A very small majority of legislators passed the agreement to sign the Oslo accords, allowing this to suffice was a procedural error in retrospect. Arafat was incorrectly considered as someone who could crush Arab opposition to peace: using a dictator in such a role would have been a moral and strategic error even had Arafat wanted to do all this. The agreements made a mockery of Israeli laws and red lines, giving many of Israel's opponents the feeling that they could get Israel to agree to absolutely anything.

There were other big problems with Oslo. One was that once the agreement was signed, Israeli negotiators went far beyond anything that the Israeli public or voters would have agreed to. This could not have happened had the main issues been decided at once, rather than left to the end of the process. Worst of all, Israel was expected to keep its promises while the Arab side was not required to.

To his credit, Ben-Gad notes that the Israeli settlements promote peace. There can be no peace if we all agree to something so arbitrary as to ban Jews from the West Bank while allowing Arabs to live in Israel proper. A couple of hundred thousand Jews live in the West Bank, and by doing so, they legitimize the right of over a million Arabs to live in Israel proper. The author points out that the West Bank is not occupied territory but disputed territory.

What about the proposed "Road Map" for peace? The author has some concerns about it. The biggest is that it will not stop incitement against Israel. That alone will preclude peace.

I'll mention a few of the author's other concerns with the Road Map. It will reward terrorists and give them a state from which to operate. It will freeze West Bank Jewish settlements but not West Bank Arab ones. That will concede the West Bank to the Arabs: if Jews do not have the right to move there, they certainly do not have the right to be sovereign there. With all these concessions, the issues left to the end will be about how the division of Jerusalem is to be accomplished and how many Arabs will be allowed into Israel (confirming that the purpose of a new Arab state is to serve not as a place Arabs can move into but one Arabs can use to destroy Israel). In addition, the Road Map will use international conferences to put pressure on Israel to make immoral and counterproductive concessions to terrorists.

Many on both sides of this conflict regard it to be about the fate of Israel, which both sides see as very important. I think both sides are wrong. Israel is not all that important, after all, it is small. But it would set a dangerous precedent for everyone on this planet for the international community to arbitrarily give in to irredentist terrorist demands to deprive Asian Jews of their rights to life, liberty, and property.

I recommend this book.

Dr. Kevin Butcher has simply outdone himself in this exploration of Roman Syria. Obviously he knows the period intimately, and this knowledge shows itself in the many important details in this book. Anyone who wants to know more about this intriguing and far-removed period would do well to buy this book. I'm glad I did! It reads almost like a novel!

Wow! ROMAN SYRIA AND THE NEAR EAST by Kevin Butcher is a great book for those interested in Rome in the Eastern lands. It deals with the time period from about the 1st century b.c.e. to the coming of the Arab Muslims in the 7th century c.e. and it covers what really are several modern nations today.
The book is divided up into four parts with individual chapters in them. Part I is entitled Grand Narratives and includes chapter 1 - An Incidental Annexation and chapter 2 - Rome, Syria, Parthians and Persians. These are really broad history, how Rome got involved in this area and who was fighting whom for what. Part II is called Organizing Space and Time and consists of chapter 3 - Political Entities and chapter 4 - Time and Motion. This is how the region and people were organized as cities, ethnicities, etc; who the players were so to speak, and how time was reckoned in different ways. This can be really confusing. Part III is named Production and Consumption and contains chapter 5 - Exploiting the Available and chapter 6 - Portable Antiquities. This is production, commerce, and trade. Part IV is entitled The Construction of Communities and contains chapter 7 - Public Values, chapter 8 - Impure Genres, chapter 9 - The Pious World and chapter 10 - The Military. There is also a short epilogue. Chapters 8 and 9 were my favorite, but only because they contain information about things I'm particularly interested in: art, architecture, and religion. Every one of these chapters, however, holds enormous information in clear and easy to understand language. It has b & w photos and illustrations and at the end of the writing several beautiful color photo plates. I loved the picture of the funerary monument at Hermel just because it had a rainbow in it.
This book also contains a map of the region, a list of rulers, selected bibliography and text notes, end notes, and an index.
Though Butcher is quick to say this isn't a definitive, all encompassing work, because too much is still to be discovered and analyzed, it sure feels all encompassing. It is everything you wanted to know about Roman Syria and the Near East. If you are doing research about the Romans in Syria or if you are just have a general interest in Roman history, this is your book. Loved it.

I met K'tut on a freighter headed for Southeast Asia, in 1969. First of all I thought she was a little weird..starting with the name. Long story short. She wasn't weird. Very interesting and a lot of fun. We became good friends and spent much time together. She introduced me to many of her good friends, and I found her to be one of the most intriguing people I've ever met. She gave me a copy of Revolt in Paradise and wrote some very nice dedacatory things on the fly-leaf. The book is wonderful, warm, exciting & scary and I think it would make a terrific film. Shirley Mac Laine was her choice...back then. ?????
I was thinking about her and decided to Google her and here we are. Now I know. I wish she could Google me. We had some good times together.

This is a must read for anyone interested in Indonesian contemporary history and society. It is the story of the American woman who established the first hotel in Bali, later in life became known as the revolutionary "Surabaya Sue" and who died abroad forgotten by most. Her fabulous novel "Revolt in Paradise" was never made into a film, much to her frustration. Lindsey has done a fantastic job researching the archives and interviewing the old and somewhat bitter lady.

An intriguing book that adopts a new slant on the development of Islam in the Sudan. Author Johnson shows us, step by step how the rise of states in this region and their relations with neighbors and the West resulted in a different form of religious expression. The Dervishes that fought the British at the end of the 19th century were imbued with a fervor, according to Johnson that reflected a long-developed process of assimilation and adaptation to both the Northern Arab, the Southern African and he West in general - the colonial experience. It is a fine addition to Francis Deng's great book, WAR OF VISIONS. I found THE ROOT CAUSES OF SUDAN'S CIVIL WARS a very enlightening read. As the author of a new book on the Sudan, JIHAD: THE MAHDI REBELLION IN THE SUDAN, I must include this volume into any meaningful understanding of historical forces in this region. TOP RATED!!!

After reading this book, you will laugh at newspaper reports that describe the conflict in Sudan as between "the Muslim north and Christian and animist south". Johnson not only has extensive academic publications in Sudanese ethnography and historiography, but also worked in the aid field in the country. He is also, in a well-sourced, calm and clearly presented manner, outraged at how thoroughly misunderstood the situation in Sudan is. The detail in this book is amazing. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable in an armchair kind of way about southern Sudan, and was consistently being presented with either facts of which I was unaware or, better yet, syntheses tying together various fields in a historical perspective. The offensives, famines, factionalism within southern groups, agricultural schemes, external mediators, forced displacement patterns, and competing aid agencies are all here, and presented so one can see the linkages. This is one of the rare books in which, for example, the connection between the timing of government offensives to seasonal rainfall is convincingly fit within framework of underdevelopment as a political strategy.

There are a couple points that made me consider moving this down to four stars. One is that Johnson is clearly partisan to the south. He is not fatally so in my opinion, describing some very unflattering characteristics and actions of Garang's faction, and making his bias clear from the beginning. By the end of the book, he also makes a strong case that "neutrality" has been misused or abused in the context of the Sudanese wars, and led me to muse that his outrage seems to spring from his knowledge, versus some writers about southern Sudan whose outrage impedes their learning. I also occasionally found the division of the book in its latter section into thematic sections confusing, especially in cases where the text would refer to later chapters for more information about a mentioned event or process. Fortunately, the appendix includes both a detailed chronology from 1972 through 2001 and a pretty good topical index for when I needed a bit of help orienting myself. The extensive annotated bibliography would be quite useful for some people. There is also the rather obvious issue that the book was written prior to the finalization of the peace agreement and death of Garang, which makes me anxious for an update.

Bottom line: If you want to know about the conflicts in Sudan between 1983 and 2001, then this is the book. If you've read other works on Sudan, you'll be astonished at how thoroughly Johnson annihilates the common wisdom. And whoever you are, you may come to share some of Johnson's outrage.

At the time of this review, there is no other up-to-date travel guide for visiting Cyprus. The Lonely Planet's "Cyprus" 2nd edition came out right as the Nicosia/Lefkosia opened in 2003 and contains outdated information on the crossing from the Greek/Turkish sides - their 3rd edition is due out this summer. Regardless, LP will have a hard act to follow, since Marc Dubin has written the single most comphrensive travel guide to a country I have ever read. I just returned from a 10 day trip to both 'sides' of Cyprus and used literally almost every page. I wouldn't have been able to see half the things I did without this guide and by relying solely on the state-run information kiosks.

It was astounding to talk to other travellers who showed up to Cyprus as package tourists and were clueless about the political circumstances surrounding the island. This wouldn't have happened if they had stepped out of Larnaca (or controversially, Ercan) airport without having a copy of this guide, if for no other reason that the author constantly integrates both ancient (Greek) and modern (political) historical information into all his location descriptions. Hn addition, there is an appendix of almost 50 pages of a balanced account of the turbulent history of the island that doesn't point sole blame on either side of the Green line. The guide also gives comphrensive information in archeological, endemic plant/animal species, a range of restaurant/lodging recommendations, and scuba diving. Like almost all Rough Guides, this book is intent in educating people to become investigative travellers rather than consuming tourists.

Note that the author frequently warns that pre-packaged tourism rules Cyprus. However, you can still backpack through both sides of Cyprus on intercity 'taxis' (small vans) in the south and dolmus buses in the north. The author is correct when he says that the conditions in hostels in Cyprus aren't comparable to their Northern (or Greek) counterparts and the island is not a budget destination, but you can usually find a hotel in a town for $40-45/night - I found locals in every town who were helpful and even outgoingly friendly after a few minutes of conversation.

In June, 2006 my wife and I traveled extensively through all parts of Cyprus by rental car and carried 4 recently published guidebooks. Even with Lonely Planet and DK carrying 2006 copyrights, neither could hold a candle to Rough Guide (Sept, 2005). Marc Dubin's work is not simply that of a traveler writing a guidebook, but like an expert presenting an insightful, informative, and balanced work. It added immensely to our enjoyment and understanding of Cyprus. The highlights section for each chapter provided an excellent overview of each region, and for the first time I found the maps to be even better than the ones in Lonely Planet. The background information was outstanding for presenting a fair treatment of this divided island, with many excellent spotlights on pertinent Cypriot topics.

At 552 pages it is over twice the length of Lonely Planet's 272 pages and DK's 216. Thanks to Rough Guide we found many places which were not even mentioned in the other books, like the secluded, abandoned cave hermitage of Palea Enklistra or the beautifully situated Kelefos Venetian-era bridge in the Troodos Mountains. The photos are still not as superb as DK, and for that reason I would also recommend DK Top 10 Cyprus (more useful than DK Cyprus), with excellent lists and photos of the island's highlights. All in all, Rough Guide Cyprus is one of the best guidebooks for any country that you could ever find.

Mitchell's "Colonising Egypt" transformed my experience as a student in Egypt, so I was looking forward to this work from one of the best minds in in Middle East Studies. "Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity" does not disappoint. Mitchell's work is self-reflective, de-orientalized, thought-provoking scholarship. Mitchell not only connects contemporary political and postmodern theory to his Egyptian primary sources, but he extends theory in new directions and unique interdisiplinary ways. Mitchell empowers the reader to think critically about the negative influences of power and hegemonic discourse on policy and scholarship to create distorted representations and self-fulfilling, self-replicating prophecies. We need more writers like Mitchell to question and challenge the current theory and expertise that has so much currency and momentum in the echo chambers of the Washington Consensus.

The essays cover a wide range of 20th-century topics from malaria to mapmaking, from the manipulated image of the peasant to techno-political nonsense in current development praxis. I have long believed that developmental applications of modern economic theory are very much a "faith-based" process, and Mitchell has put these thoughts in engaging prose. In addition, I was particularly impressed by the chapter on violence, which helped me frame my own thinking on violence, for example, in Syria, Algeria, or Tunisia, places where not so hidden violence functions as an instrument of power and social control. Mitchell writes eloquently on issues that have troubled most of those who work or live or travel in the developing world and who have not found the right language to express their reservations about the descriptive and prescriptive power of current scholarship and techno-political expertise.

Timothy Mitchell writes consistently on the Middle East in ways that challenge the presupposition of field. This book is a collection and revision of many studies previously published, but they are integrated into a whole to provide insights into new ways to consider. The conclusions thereof are wide-ranging, highlighting the falsification and fallacies of behind the reasoned application of universalized logics capital and techno-politics to Egyptian particularities.

Mitchell's most powerful and provocative insights occur in his essays on the history of peasant politics in instances of malaria epidemics, colonial agricultural policies, and violence and the establishment of private property and land 'reforms'. This work likely can bring its insights to bear are on any research currently being done on the Middle East.

The Author has made a thorough study of Mahatma Ghandi's life, his works and his philosophy. It could be considered a Text Book study of Mahatma Ghandi. Ghandi's philosophy and life is explored in detail with substantial reference to support the written work that Bhawana Verma has carefully woven.
The Author writes in a thought provoking manner and provides much insight and clarity to a very complex subject and leaves the reader void of any misconceptions. It would appear at times that Ghandi's ideas do not reflect the reality in the world in which we live. However careful analysis does show that his philosophy could be adapted to the modern world.
I would recommend this book to anyone who seeks to know more about God and the path to God. It should become part of comparative religious study at the University level.

Abe March
Author - To Beirut and Back ISBN: 1-4241-3853-1

Saintly Politics, a Study of Mahatma Gandhi, by Bhawana Verma, is a scholarly book about the spiritual values of Gandhi and the way he put them into political practice or action in India during a time of oppression when his people were reduced to passivity under British rule. In reading Saintly Politics, one realizes that the spiritual values of Hinduism form a true approach to truth at this moment in history as well.

This book will give the reader a way to achieve an understanding and balance in thinking between east and west, Hindu and Christian, that can inspire and uplift one to a new way of contemplating God--one that goes beyond the materialism that permeates western culture. It was not always so. Gandhi can remember the time before the industrial revolution that a more spiritual approach to life was prevalent in all cultures.

The first qualification a Satyagrahi (a seeker of truth) according to Gandhi is to have a living faith of the axiomatic truth that God exists therefore, he exists. He (Gandhi) is only instrumental in fulfilling His wishes. Gandhi believed that "The very foundation of the training in Satyagrahi is faith in God and if that is absent, all the training one may have received is likely to fail..." One can see why he said in a famous quote: "There is nothing wrong with Christianity except that it has never been tried..."

It is interesting to see the many similarities in this book between the pure truth that Christ taught of loving one's fellow man to show the love for God, and the search for pure truth as the Satyagrahi and Gandhi view it.

The author's knowledge of English is excellent, although sometimes the style in which it is written makes evident English is her second language. This in no way deflects from the truth of the book's message, but makes it real to the reader. Anyone who wishes to know the real Mahatma Gandhi will find him in this book.