This book examines the early Muslim conquests that started with the first caliph, Abu Bakr, and accelerated during the reign of the second caliph, Omar. During this time, the Sassanids were destroyed, the political and commercial order of Rome was turned upside down, and the ancient period came to an end. Iraq, a province belonging to the Persians ......
During his lengthy tenure as Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei has shown a knack for consolidating power by creating layers of bureaucracy in military, economic, and religious affairs. In turn, he has liberally purged officials who have hinted at disloyalty to him, the Islamic Republic, or its governing doctrine, velayat-e faqih (rule of the ......
The October 1973 Middle East War transformed the regions politics and had a huge impact on the international political system as a whole. For the 50th anniversary of the war, this book grapples with these issues in an objective way by using the mass of declassified material that has recently become available.
No empire or a regional power has helped mold the socio-political and religious landscape of a country as the Ottoman Empire and its heir (the Republic of Turkey) have helped shape modern Lebanon. Although the history of Lebanon and Turkish foreign policy have been the focus of a number of studies, no contemporary study has examined ......
For two millennia calling oneself a Jew and confessing Jesus-Christ was perceived as nonsense. This is no longer the case. Jewish believers in Christ - "Messianics", Catholics, Orthodox, and so forth - are now reclaiming their Jewish identity. Jewish Church is about imagining what their home in the Church would look like.
Uncovering the professional secrets of con artists and swindlers in the medieval Middle East The Book of Charlatans is a comprehensive guide to trickery and scams as practiced in the thirteenth century in the cities of the Middle East, especially in Syria and Egypt. Al-Jawbari was well versed in the practices he describes and may have been a ......
The adventures of the man who created Aladdin The Book of Travels is Hanna Diyab's remarkable first-person account of his travels as a young man from his hometown of Aleppo to the court of Versailles and back again, which forever linked him to one of the most popular pieces of world literature, the Thousand and One Nights. Diyab, a ......
Artists Between Europe and the Ottoman Empire, 17741839
In this volume, Elisabeth Fraser shows that artists and the works they created in the Mediterranean during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were informed by mutual dependence and reciprocity between European nations and the Ottoman Empire. Her rich exploration of this vibrant cross-cultural exchange challenges the dominant ......