Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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Sami Zubaida

Sami Zubaida, a contributing editor of this magazine, is author of Law and Power in the Islamic World (I. B. Tauris, 2003).

MER Article

Communalism and Thwarted Aspirations of Iraqi Citizenship

Many commentators on the state of Iraq after the removal of the Baathist regime in 2003 have attributed the chaos and sectarian-ethnic conflict to some essence of Iraqi society: fissiparous and tribal, only governable by the firm hand of authoritarian dictatorship. This is, of course, an ahistorical

Sami Zubaida • 11 min read

MER Article

Islam and the Politics of Community and Citizenship

Islam is in the news again, associated with international terrorism. Popular sentiment in many parts of the Muslim world manifests support for Osama bin Laden, alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks in the United States. Ironically, this episode comes at a point when political Islam, in itself, is no

Sami Zubaida • 20 min read

MER Article

Turkish Islam and National Identity

Turkish Islam is tied up with Turkish nationalism in a unique fashion, the product of Turkish history and identity. Turkey’s brand of Islamist ideology challenges the secularist components and the European identification of Kemalism, historically the dominant form of Turkish nationalism, but retains

Sami Zubaida • 17 min read

MER Article

Islam, the State and Democracy

The quest for democratization and human rights in the Middle East has prominently featured the term “civil society.” Oppression and corruption, it is agreed, have followed from an overly intrusive state and its bureaucracies. Democratization must include a withdrawal of the state to allow free spheres of social autonomies and

Sami Zubaida • 20 min read

MER Article

Binder, Islamic Liberalism

Leonard Binder, Islamic Liberalism: A Critique of Development Ideologies (Chicago, 1988).

Sami Zubaida • 6 min read

MER Article

Report from Paris: The Kurdish Conference

“There’s not much talk about the Kurds because we have never taken any hostages, never hijacked a plane. But I am proud of this.” So wrote Abd al-Rahman Qassemlou, the Iranian Kurdish leader who was assassinated in Vienna last July. The Kurdish Institute of Paris and France-Libertes, a human rights

Sami Zubaida • 4 min read

MER Article

Reading History Backwards

Edmund Burke III and Ira Lapidus, eds., Islam, Politics and Social Movements (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988). Shireen T. Hunter, ed., The Politics of Islamic Revivalism: Diversity and Unity (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988). Henry Munson, Jr., Islam and Revolut

Sami Zubaida • 8 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