Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
Nearly a year has passed since the huge crowds in Cairo’s Tahrir Square rallied to overthrow former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Yet, the Egyptian public remains loathe to articulate a coherent vision for Egypt, and “that is the challenge going forward,” says Steven A. Cook, CFR’s top Egypt expert.
This Day in World History
In the mid-1970s, few rulers seemed more secure than Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the shah of Iran. He had oil wealth, a powerful military, and the friendship of the United States and other western nations. Yet on January 16, 1979, he and his family were forced to flee. What toppled this powerful ruler?
In this video, Professor Fawaz Gerges, author of The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda, discusses why Al-Qaeda did not feature in the Arab Spring of 2011.
By Martin Evans
On 11 January 1992 the Algerian President, the white-haired sixty-one year old Chadli Bendjedid, announced live on television that he was standing down as head of state with immediate effect. Nervous and ill at ease, the president read out a brief prepared statement. In it he explained his decision as a necessary one. Why? Because the democratic process which he had put in place two years earlier could no longer guarantee law and order on the streets.
This Day in World History
Impatient, the Emperor Justinian did not wait for the arrival of Menas, the patriarch of the Orthodox Church. Rather than entering the new cathedral jointly with the religious leader, he went in alone. Dazzled by the beauty of his structure, particularly its massive dome with a 105-foot diameter—meant to echo the vault of heaven—circled by forty windows at the base, the emperor is said to have proclaimed that he had outdone Solomon, builder of the famous temple of Jerusalem more than a thousand years before.
This Day in World History
As the poet and mystic Jalal al-Din Rumi lay on his deathbed, his wife pleaded with him not to die. “Am I a thief?” he replied. “Have I stolen someone’s goods? Is this why you would confine me here and keep me from being rejoined with my Love?” The love that Rumi sought was for Allah; the poet, a Sufi, or mystic, yearned to achieve union with Allah.
This Day in World History
On November 20, 1977, Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat made an historic speech before Israel’s Knesset, or Parliament, becoming the first leader of an Arab nation to speak there. He was also the first of Israel’s Arab neighbors to publicly say anything like these words: “Today I tell you, and I declare it to the whole world, that we accept to live with you in permanent peace based on justice.”
By Professor Louis René Beres
Admiral Leon “Bud” Edney
General Thomas G. McInerney
For now, the “Arab Spring” and its aftermath still occupy center-stage in the Middle East and North Africa. Nonetheless, from a regional and perhaps even global security perspective, the genuinely core threat to peace and stability remains Iran. Whatever else might determinably shape ongoing transformations of power and authority in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Saudi Arabia, it is apt to pale in urgency beside the steadily expanding prospect of a nuclear Iran.
Egypt’s 2011 revolution marks the latest chapter in Egyptians’ longtime struggle for greater democratic freedoms. In this video, Steven A. Cook, CFR’s Hasib J. Sabbagh senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies and author of The Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square, identifies the lessons that Egypt’s emerging leadership must learn from the Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak regimes. Egypt’s new leaders “need to develop a coherent and compelling, emotionally satisfying vision of Egyptian society, and answer the question what Egypt stands for and what its place in the world is,” argues Cook.
Outdated goals of war in the 21st century By Louis René Beres Even now, when the “fog of war” in Iraq and Afghanistan is likely at its thickest point, our leaders and military commanders still speak in starkly traditional terms. Such ordinary emphases on “victory” and “defeat” belie the profound and critically-nuanced transformations of war […]
By Steven A. Cook
If February 11, 2011 demonstrated the very best of Egypt, then October 9, 2011 demonstrated the very worst of Egypt. The only way to describe what unfolded in front of the state television building (and subsequently Tahrir Square), where Copts were protesting over not-so-subtle official efforts to stoke sectarian tension over a church being constructed in Aswan, was an anti-Christian pogrom. The death toll stands at 25 with 300 injured. There have been scattered reports of soldiers and policemen injured, but by far the Copts took the brunt of the violence.
This Day in World History – October 10 marks a signal date in Islamic history. On that day, Hussein ibn Ali, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, was defeated and killed at Karbala, in modern Iraq. His death cemented deep and lasting division among Muslims that persist to this day. In Iran, where the population is overwhelmingly Shia, the death of Hussein—“leader of the martyrs”—is regularly commemorated in passion plays.
By Steven A. Cook
As Cairo’s citizens drove along the Autostrad [last] week, they were greeted with four enormous billboards featuring pictures of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. With Turkish and Egyptian flags, the signs bore the message, “With United Hands for the Future.” Erdogan’s visit marks a bold development in Turkey’s leadership in the region. The hero’s welcome he received at the airport reinforced the popular perception: Turkey is a positive force, uniquely positioned to guide the Middle East’s ongoing transformation.
By Nathan Schneider
Not long after his return from Cairo, where he was doing fieldwork, I spoke with Talal Asad at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, where he is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology. Distinguished indeed: with books like Genealogies of Religion and Formations of the Secular, as well as numerous articles, Asad’s work has been formative for current scholarly conversation about religion and secularity, stressing both
By Charles Kurzman
Last month, a few hours after a bomb exploded in downtown Oslo, I got a call from a journalist seeking comment. Why did Al Qaeda attack Norway? Why not a European country with a larger Muslim community, or a significant military presence in Muslim societies? I said I didn’t know.
A second media inquiry soon followed: Given NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the number of disaffected Muslims in Europe, why don’t we see more attacks like the one in Norway? This question was more up my alley. I recently
By Bassem Sabry
In early April, Bothaina Kamel, a female television presenter and media figure, announced that she would run for the office of the presidency. In a society where the idea of a woman leading a country, the judiciary, or serving any similar role is discouraged by both culture and religion (indeed, it is often outright banned), the presence of a woman in elections stirs up strong reactions from the public. A cursory glance at the news articles that have mentioned her after she declared her candidacy feature such statements as: “Are we so out of men that we would be run by a woman?”