MER Article The "Turkish-Islamic Synthesis" The Hearth of Intellectuals, a small organization comprising some 150 conservative journalists, academics and other intellectuals, has functioned as a sort of fountainhead for a new legitimizing ideology for the Turkish Republic. Gencay Şaylan refers to them as the “Turkish Opus Dei” in his 1988 boo Ömer Karasapan, Erkan Akin • 2 min read
MER Article Turkey's Tarikats Tarikats are religious orders established to “search for divine truth.” They have been part of Turkish cultural and social life for centuries. The groups discussed here are Sunni. Turkey’s Shi‘a do have their own religious orders, but as a result of the persecution they suffered during Ottoman rule Ömer Karasapan, Erkan Akin • 3 min read
MER Article The Rabita Affair The Rabita affair underlines the extent to which the post-1980 regime in Turkey has turned to Islam as a bulwark against the left. “Rabita” -- the Saudi-based Rabit’at al-Alam al-Islami (World Islamic League) -- advocates the establishment of a pan-Islamic federation based on the shari‘a. One would Ömer Karasapan, Erkan Akin • 2 min read
MER Article The Political Uses of Islam in Turkey For the past several years, the Turkish press has seemed obsessed with irtica, a word of Arabic origin meaning religious reaction and obscurantism. The media has reported incident after incident in which hoca and imam urged their followers not to stray from the path of true Islam, where men and wome Ronnie Margulies, Ergin Yildizoğlu • 12 min read
MER Article Muslim Women and Fundamentalism When analyzing the dynamics of the Muslim world, one has to discriminate between two distinct dimensions: what people actually do, the decisions they make, the aspirations they secretly entertain or display through their patterns of consumption, and the discourses they develop about themselves, more Fatima Mernissi • 10 min read
MER Article An Islamic State? How applicable are the classic concepts of “state” and “politics” to the world of Islam? The current prominence of Islamic politics and the establishment of an Islamic Republic in Iran poses this question anew. Sami Zubaida • 13 min read
MER Article From the Editors (July/August 1988) This issue continues MERIP’s inquiry into the dynamic relationship of religion and politics in the Middle East. Our authors pay particular attention to the various ways in which Islam, the dominant religion in the region, enters into the equations of state power and popular opposition in countries a The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article Letters (May/June 1988) Human Rights Internet Objects (Author not identified) • 13 min read
MER Article Editor's Bookshelf (May/June 1988) The human dimensions of the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and the social contradictions of Palestinian society under occupation are nowhere better portrayed than in Sahar Khalifeh’s novel Wild Thorns, translated from the Arabic by Trevor LeGassick and Elizabeth Fernea (London: Saqi, 1 Joel Beinin • 2 min read
MER Article Young, Missed Opportunities for Peace Ronald J. Young, Missed Opportunities for Peace (Philadelphia: American Friends Service Committee, 1987). Joe Stork • 1 min read
MER Article Tucker, Women in Nineteenth-Century Egypt Judith Tucker, Women in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). This is more than a general treatise about women in Egypt. It is a subtle and adroit analysis of gender and class during the transformation of Egyptian society in the nineteenth century and it is this un Cynthia Nelson • 5 min read
MER Article Original Sin Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). Tom Segev, 1949: The First Israelis (New York: The Free Press, 1986). Simha Flapan, The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities (New York: Pantheon, 1987). Zachary Lockman • 29 min read
