More than three years after the beginning of the wave of Arab uprisings, an understanding of the role of intellectuals in political change across the region has never been more important. This timely volume on Intellectuals in the Modern Middle East combines geographical and chronological breadth and draws on a diverse range of approaches including intellectual history, political science, art history, social policy and political philosophy. Together, the chapters provide a window into the diversity in intellectual trends across the Middle East from the early decades of the 20th century until the present day. While they do not, and cannot, provide a complete, or even representative, picture of intellectual dynamics in the modern Middle East, they collectively address a range of analytical and normative issues that bear on the role of the intellectual in contemporary Middle Eastern politics and society. This book was published as a special issue of the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies.

More than three years after the beginning of the wave of Arab uprisings, an understanding of the role of intellectuals in political change across the region has never been more important. This timely volume on Intellectuals in the Modern Middle East combines geographical and chronological breadth and draws on a diverse range of approaches including intellectual history, political science, art history, social policy and political philosophy. Together, the chapters provide a window into the diversity in intellectual trends across the Middle East from the early decades of the 20th century until the present day. While they do not, and cannot, provide a complete, or even representative, picture of intellectual dynamics in the modern Middle East, they collectively address a range of analytical and normative issues that bear on the role of the intellectual in contemporary Middle Eastern politics and society. This book was published as a special issue of the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies.

Developing an original theoretical approach to understanding the roots of regional conflict and cooperation, International Relations in the Middle East explores domestic and international foreign policy dynamics for an accessible insight into how and why Middle Eastern regional order has changed over time. Highlighting interactions between foreign policy trajectories in a range of states including Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey, Ewan Stein identifies two main drivers of foreign policy and alignments: competitive support-seeking and ideological externalisation. Clearly linking political, ideological and foreign policy dynamics, Stein demonstrates how the sources of regional antagonisms and solidarities are to be found not in the geopolitical chessboard, but in the hegemonic strategies of the region's pivotal powers. Making the case for historical sociology - in particular the work of Antonio Gramsci and Louis Althusser - as the most powerful lens through which to understand regional politics in the Middle East, with wider implications for the study of regional order elsewhere.

The term 'jihad' has come to be used as a byword for fanaticism and Islam's allegedly implacable hostility towards the West. But, like other religious and political concepts, jihad has multiple resonances and associations, its meaning shifting over time and from place to place. Jihad has referred to movements of internal reform, spiritual struggle, social progress, self-defence and even poetic expression as much as to 'holy war'. Jihad, moreover, reflects principles and concerns by no means unique to Islam; understanding the evolution of this concept is crucial for engaging religion beyond Islam. Even among Muslim political, social and intellectual leaders, the meaning and significance of jihad remain subject to debate and controversy. Twenty-First Century Jihad contains vital analysis for those researching the role of religion in the modern world. It examines the ways in which the concept of jihad has changed, from its roots in the Qur'an to its usage in current debate. It explores familiar modern political angles, and touches on far less commonly analysed instances of jihad. It incorporates issues of law, society, literature and military action. It also provides a selection of 'views from within', allowing individuals associated with Islamic movements to present their own understanding of jihad. The approaches to understanding and conceptualising jihad include jihad in the Qur'an and Hadith, non-violent perspectives on jihad, and contemporary understandings of jihad as social practice. This makes Twenty-First Century Jihad a crucial text in understanding both the history and the contemporary applications of jihad.

From the heady days of Nasser's Arab nationalism to the cold peace of the Mubarak era, the idea and reality of Israel has occupied a central position in Egyptian politics, both domestic and foreign. Ewan Stein seeks to explain and historicise the fragile state of 'no war, no peace' that followed the 1979 Camp David Accords, examining the way in which domestic factors interact with global and regional shifts to shape attitudes to Israel in the Arab world's most populous country. Incorporating the writings of influential thinkers, from Sati' al-Husri to Sayyid Qutb to Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, this book explores the way in which approaches to Israel have been elaborated through broader ideologies and movements, in particular liberal nationalism, Marxism and Islamism. Tracing Egypt's ideological development back to the 1930s, when social movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood took root, Stein argues that Palestine and the Zionist threat came to be linked to Egypt's national and revolutionary struggle - Israel was collapsed into an extension of imperial power, especially after the 1956 Suez crisis. Nasser's defiant banner of Pan-Arabism soared against Zionism until the ferocious defeat of 1967 unleashed a wave of internal criticism and unrest to usher in a new era of 'peace' and realignment with the West. At the heart of this book is the way in which these tremendous foreign policy shifts have been played out on the Egyptian stage as Israel has been 'instrumenatalised' by regimes and social movements. Egypt's conceptions of self have been neither consistent nor unified, and this is mirrored in shifting approaches to Israel and points to an inherent tension in the dynamics of state-societal relations. This book provides nuanced and original insights into the relationships between state, society and foreign policy within the context of Egyptian nationalism and broader Middle Eastern politics.