Middle East Studies

This article analyzes two important genres of Arab music that are heard in Syria in the course of the performance of the wasla, or suite of songs: the muwashshahât and the popular songs known as al-qudûd al-halabiyya. Many consider the muwashshahât (sing, muwashshah) to be the epitome of Arab music. Poetically, melodically, and vocally, the muwashshahât constitute a veritable treasure-house of Arabic culture and civilization. The qudûd (sing, qadd) are sung in both standard and colloquial Arabic, but because of their simpler melodic rhythmic structure are generally considered to be simplified versions of muwashshahât; therefore in this article I treat them as a sub-set of the muwashshahât.

The Historia Sicula is one of a handful of narratives that trace the Normans’ rise to power in south Italy during the 11th century and their subsequent conquest of Sicily from the Muslims. The majority of the text appears to offer a mid-12th-century perspective on events of the 1000s. Until the early 1900s, it was quite usual to draw on the Historia Sicula for its conquest narrative. Recently, however, it has fallen from academic favour, not least as it covers many of the same episodes as Geoffrey Malaterra’s longer De rebus gestis. The modern edition is still that of Giovanni Battista Caruso from 1723. As such, the Historia Sicula has slipped between the cracks of current debate: undervalued in terms of historiography, it has also been overlooked for what it can say of the gens Normannorum, and the rise and fall of ‘Normanness’ in the southern Mediterranean.

W tym Dwugłosie na pytania odpowiadają Jakub Gajda (Fundacja
Pułaskiego) i Łukasz Przybyszewski (Ośrodek Badań Azji).
Eksperci przewidują rozwój sytuacji w Iranie po zabójstwie gen.
Solejmaniego; mówią także o sytuacji społecznej, gospodarczej
i politycznej.
Poza tym odpowiadają na następujące pytania:
- Na ile Iran jest osamotniony na arenie międzynarodowej, i czy amerykańska polityka presji jest skuteczna?
- Dlaczego irański cywilny program nuklearny wzbudza tyle kontrowersji?
-  jakie atuty posiada Iran w toczącej się obecnie wojnie zastępczej w regionie?

Jordan offers us a very interesting case study of the ways in which modern global political and economic processes interact with local political economy to shape individual states. This chapter argues that Jordan, as a small state by most interpretations, faces immense structural limitations, yet under King Abdullah II, it has endured and its political economy has evolved in response to the dynamic set of challenges the country faces. This chapter first explores the most prevalent challenges and limitations to Jordan’s economic development and contextualizes the key features of Jordan’s political economy in the 21st century. This chapter also outlines the ways in which the political and economic issues that the kingdom faces shape national economic policy-making. Any discussion of the political economy of Jordan needs to consider energy insecurity and freshwater scarcity – two issues that are explored in detail in this chapter. Energy insecurity and freshwater scarcity reveal a great deal about the nature of Jordan’s political economy, representing Jordan’s most pressing security concerns and demonstrating the state’s pragmatism in its policy responses to developmental challenges. The chapter then explores the embedding of economic neoliberalism, led by the government and King Abdullah II in particular. Neoliberal policies have become prevalent in Jordanian decision-making circles and have transformed Jordan’s political economy – but are not particularly popular on the street. The chapter concludes that given the challenges facing Jordan’s political economy in the 21st century, it is safe to say that Jordan will remain a small state that will have to continue to respond to processes that are largely out of its control. Budgetary insecurity, poverty, high unemployment, energy insecurity, freshwater scarcity, and the polarising effects of economic neoliberalism all pose serious challenges to Jordan’s development and stability. Yet with all of these considerations in mind, the story of Jordan’s political economy is one of resilience as much as it is one of challenges, and the kingdom is likely to continue to develop, albeit somewhat unevenly.

Anadolu’nun kadim halklarından biri olan Zazalar, günümüzde Doğu ve Güneydoğu Anadolu’da yerleşiktir. Bununla birlikte hem Türkiye’nin bazı büyük şehirlerinde hem de Avrupa’nın çeşitli ülkelerinde göç ederek yerleşmiş önemli miktarda Zaza nüfusu bulunmaktadır. Bu çalışmada Zazaların Anadolu’ya nereden geldikleri, bugün yaşadıkları Diyarbakır, Palu, Bingöl ve Dersim coğrafyasına ne zaman ve nasıl yerleştikleri sorusuna cevap aranmıştır. Osmanlı belgeleri kullanılarak Zaza beyliklerinin tarihsel süreci irdelenmiştir. Böylece başta Palu, Eğil, Çabakçur, Genç olmak üzere Zaza coğrafyasında Sünnî İslam’ın yayılması ve yerleşmesinde beylerin, şeyhlerin ve tekkelerin etkisine değinilmiştir.

"เพิ่งผ่านพ้นวันขึ้นปีใหม่ของปี 2020 ได้ไม่นาน ในวันศุกร์ ที่ 3 มกราคม ก็ได้เกิดเหตุการณ์ที่สั่นสะเทือนความสนใจของคนทั้งโลก คือการโจมตีทางอากาศภายใต้การนำของสหรัฐอเมริกาเพื่อลอบสังหารนายพลคาเซ็ม โซเลมานี (Qasem Soleimani) นายทหารชาวอิหร่าน ผู้นำกองกำลังคุดส์ (Quds Force) และผู้ที่ได้รับการขนานนามว่าทรงอิทธิพลเป็นอันดับสองในอิหร่าน"
  "การก้าวขึ้นมาสู่ตำแหน่งประธานาธิบดีของโดนัลด์ ทรัมป์ สะท้อนถึงสิ่งที่อยู่ภายในลึกๆของจิตใจชาวอเมริกัน"
  "การโจมตีอิหร่านในช่วงเวลานี้ของโดนัลด์ ทรัมป์ จึงเป็นไปเพื่อดึงความสนใจของประชาชนมายังเหตุการณ์ความมั่นคงภายนอกประเทศ ตลอดจนส่งเสริมภาพลักษณ์ผู้นำที่เข้มแข็งพร้อมพาสหรัฐอเมริกากลับมายิ่งใหญ่บนเวทีระหว่างประเทศอีกครั้ง"

This is the long essay version of my review of Lorella Ventura's "Hegel in the Arab World: Modernity, Colonialism, and Freedom." The short (standard review length) version has been published by Marx & Philosophy Review of Books. It can be found at: https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/17587_hegel-in-the-arab-world-modernity-colonialism-and-freedom-by-lorella-ventura-reviewed-by-zeyad-el-nabolsy/

While part of the Western media presents the decision to assassinate key Iranian general Qasem Soleimani alongside 4 other Iranian ranking officers as a personal decision by President Donald Trump motivated by electoral marketing, an analysis of the facts shows that this latest air strike is merely one step in a much larger strategic repositioning by the United States in the Middle East — one with an even stronger element of military coercion.

This presentation attempts to think cosmopolitanism outside the framework of normativity and to unravel how it can be grounded in non-Western and non-integrative contexts. In a deeply inegalitarian Emirati society, Dubai’s cosmopolitanism intertwines three main features: globalization, consumption and segregation. After quickly describing these characteristics, I illustrate how the state and its corporations shape cosmopolitan landscapes in order to achieve the status of a global city and then demonstrate how these spaces are experienced by its users.

To unpack Dubai’s cosmopolitan urbanism, I have chosen to study two ordinary (and overlooked) spaces, far cries from iconic architectural successes. Global Village is an outdoor mall and entertainment park selling products from all over the world. It epitomizes the commodification of difference, where cosmopolitanism is performed as a form of consumption. International City is one of the rare urban projects built for housing low and middle-class foreign residents. In this suburban cosmopolitan district, inhabited mainly by non-Westerners, logics of segregation are spreading against “bachelors,” usually constructed as a threat to urban order in the Gulf. In these two ordinary spaces, frequented mainly by non-Westerners, a kind of cosmopolitanism from below emerges. This cosmopolitanism is not exempted from tensions and contradictions, where inclusive logics of consumption coexist with exclusive logics of segregation.