Current Analysis

Manufacturing the AKP in Turkey

The AKP's decades-long electoral success in Turkey has been made possible by their strategic alliance with the country's small industrialists. Utku Balaban analyzes the connection between Islamism and industrialization since the rise of these urban manufacturers in the 1980s and explains the nuances

Utku Balaban • 15 min read

MER Article

Understanding the Diversity of Political Islam

The complex phenomenon of political Islam has inspired much sensational and alarmist writing, both popular and scholarly. Since the early 1980s, however, MERIP contributors have provided an antidote with in-depth and nuanced analyses of the impact Islamic movements have had on popular struggles for democracy and women’s rights and

Francesco Cavatorta • 4 min read

Current Analysis

Understanding the Diversity of Political Islam

Francesco Cavatorta examines MERIP's 50 years of covering the complex phenomenon of political Islam and finds that much of it is based on field research, participant observation, interviews and ethnography. The result has been a rich diversity of approaches that comprehend the plural nature of Islam

Francesco Cavatorta • 4 min read

Current Analysis

The Importance of Mauritanian Scholars in Global Islam

The North African nation of Mauritania may be peripheral in global affairs, but its robust network of Islamic scholars is central to transnational Islamic movements and ideas. Zekeria Ould Ahmed Salem traces the influential political economy of Mauritanian Islamic scholarship that has both bolstered

Zekeria Ould Ahmed Salem • 11 min read

Current Analysis

Behind the Ban on the Islamic Movement in Israel

The decision to outlaw the northern wing of the Islamic Movement in Israel was announced by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on November 17, 2015, days after attacks claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, left 130 dead in Paris. Although the ban had been long in the making, the timi

Jonathan Cook • 22 min read

Current Analysis

Between Terror and Tyranny

Nearly a year after Egypt’s first democratically elected president was overthrown by a military coup led by Field Marshal ‘Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi, a spokesperson for the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) released a video statement [https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/africa/11422-video-isis

Abdullah Al-Arian • 15 min read

MER Article

A Jihadism Anti-Primer

The US national security state has for the past quarter-century been preoccupied with something it has called “jihadism.” From the aftermath of the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan through the September 11, 2001 attacks to the rise of the self-declared Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, or ISIS, the spect

Darryl Li • 15 min read

Current Analysis

Some Thoughts on November 13 and After

My son and I were both so excited. It was my first time attending a soccer game at a stadium. And it was a momentous match, pitting the French national team against their counterparts from Germany. The Stade de France just outside Paris was full of almost 80,000 spectators of different social groups

Azadeh Kian • 5 min read

Current Analysis

Wadi Barada: Snapshot of a Civil War

Sa‘id has always loved swimming. When he was little, he spent summer afternoons with his friends on the banks of Syria’s Barada River. When the river level started to drop, in the mid-1990s, he went to a swimming pool newly opened in the nearby village of Basima. The pool belongs to the Abu al-Nour

Mohammad Raba'a • 13 min read

Current Analysis

One Society of Muslim Brothers in Jordan or Two?

Jordan’s government this week approved an application to make the Society of Muslim Brothers a licensed, local charity, paving the way for a break between the Jordanian branch of the Brothers and the regional organization based in Egypt. The move was resisted, however, not by the Jordanian governmen

Curtis Ryan • 3 min read

MER Article

The Wretched Revolution

“We live in a country where liberals renege on democracy, Islamists harm Islam and human rights activists champion oppression,” an Islamic television producer cynically remarked three months after Muhammad Mursi was ousted from Egypt’s presidency in July 2013. That summer, the televised images of mu

Yasmin Moll • 17 min read

MER Article

Doctors and Brothers

There are few obvious reasons to visit Basatin, a poor district off the Ring Road at the southern edge of Cairo. Getting there requires a driver willing to bob and weave through a succession of potholed lanes barely wide enough to accommodate pedestrians and the tiny shops that spill into the street

Steven Brooke • 8 min read