Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
36
Sorenson, David S.. An Introduction to the Modern Middle East : History, Religion, Political Economy, Politics, Routledge,
2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bcufpb-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1457772.
Created from bcufpb-ebooks on 2018-11-16 09:37:47.
the guests descend the steep stone path back to greater
Damascus, they wonder aloud what the fate of five Syrians
climbing the hills of Boston or San Francisco or any other
city after 11:00 at night might be.
Yet the Middle East is a vital area for world interests, and for
reasons that go far beyond oil, its best-known commodity. Oil
is the most significant natural resource in the Middle East,
with around three-quarters of the global supply located there,
37
Sorenson, David S.. An Introduction to the Modern Middle East : History, Religion, Political Economy, Politics, Routledge,
2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bcufpb-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1457772.
Created from bcufpb-ebooks on 2018-11-16 09:37:47.
but petroleum is only one factor that makes the Middle East
important. World commerce today sustains the livelihood of
billions of people, and much of that commerce moves by
land, sea, and air through the Middle East. The seaborne trade
between Europe and Asia generally passes through the Suez
Canal and into the Red Sea, exiting through the Bab
al-Mandeb, while much of the world’s oil transits the narrow
Straits of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Other
ocean trade moves through the Mediterranean Sea, north of
the coast of Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, and Egypt.
That makes the stability of those countries important.
Less tangible factors also connect the Middle East to the rest
of the world. It is the birthplace of the world’s three
monotheistic religions—Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.
Jerusalem best demonstrates this, a city where one can visit
the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Western Wall, and the
Dome of the Rock in less than an hour.1 They are, in order,
the purported site of Christ’s crucifixion, the possible remains
of the Hebrew Second Temple (destroyed by the Romans in
70 CE), and the place from which Muslims believe the
Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven after a night journey
from Mecca.2 These places lie within a small section of the
Copyright © 2018. Routledge. All rights reserved.
38
Sorenson, David S.. An Introduction to the Modern Middle East : History, Religion, Political Economy, Politics, Routledge,
2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bcufpb-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1457772.
Created from bcufpb-ebooks on 2018-11-16 09:37:47.
Stations of the Cross and the Church of the Nativity in nearby
Bethlehem.
A riot of bright colors covers the fields, rare for Syria except
in March. Paper-thin red poppies, tiny blue lupine blossoms,
and yellow buttercups dot the rolling green hills. The narrow
Copyright © 2018. Routledge. All rights reserved.
39
Sorenson, David S.. An Introduction to the Modern Middle East : History, Religion, Political Economy, Politics, Routledge,
2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bcufpb-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1457772.
Created from bcufpb-ebooks on 2018-11-16 09:37:47.
really a library. However, diggers discovered a treasure trove
of clay tablets there, revealing much about Ebla, including
the affairs of its citizens and its relations with other city-states
of the area. The hills surrounding the excavations cover other
foundations, but there is neither time nor money to dig, and
so what lies under the flowers must remain a mystery for now.
Once this was a city possibly ruled by the
great-great-great-great grandfather of Abraham. Once, the
sounds of ancient people rang out: the chisel of the mason,
the laughter of children, the call of the merchant, the sentry’s
shouted warning from the fifty-foot-high city wall alerting the
city to the arrival of the Acadians, who would lay waste to it
around 2250 BCE. The fate of Ebla’s citizens is unknown,
though the Acadian leader boasted of other conquests where
he slaughtered everyone he found, flaying them and
decorating his columns with their skins.
Today the area around Ebla is silent, except for the breeze
blowing through the low scrub brush and the distant bleating
of goats. The carpet of flowers reseeds itself each year,
although there is almost no one left to pick them. It has been
this way for forty-five centuries.
Copyright © 2018. Routledge. All rights reserved.
The Middle East, along with China, India, and another few
scattered places around the world, is one of those few “core
areas” where human civilization developed many thousands
of years ago. The early inhabitants of the region between the
Tigris and Euphrates Rivers who built such ancient
civilizations as Sumer and Babylon in the land known as
Mesopotamia left footprints thousands of years ago for those
who came after them to follow. While it is true that the
connection between
40
Sorenson, David S.. An Introduction to the Modern Middle East : History, Religion, Political Economy, Politics, Routledge,
2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bcufpb-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1457772.
Created from bcufpb-ebooks on 2018-11-16 09:37:47.
the early Mesopotamians and those who settled the land after
them was broken, the people who live there today still feel
links to those ancient cultures. Sometimes modern-day
leaders use those links to inspire their followers. For example,
former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein rebuilt part of the great
city of Babylon, and the former shah of Iran celebrated the
5,000th birthday of Persia (now Iran) in the ruined city of
Persepolis.
41
Sorenson, David S.. An Introduction to the Modern Middle East : History, Religion, Political Economy, Politics, Routledge,
2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bcufpb-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1457772.
Created from bcufpb-ebooks on 2018-11-16 09:37:47.
fueled such beliefs, even though the White House quickly
retracted the statement. When Pope Benedict XVI quoted a
fourteenth-century text critical of Islam in September 2006,
and a Danish newspaper published unfavorable cartoons of
the Prophet Muhammad in the same year, many Muslims
recoiled in anger. The reaction came in the face of a long
history of humiliation at the hands of Westerners, whose
influence over the past century is especially painful for the
peoples whose grandparents often recite from memory the
sights of British or French soldiers dishonoring Arabs as
though they were animals. Only those who have heard such
stories can understand the full force of disgraces like the
actions of a few Americans at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison and
the plight of the Palestinian population, half of which
continues to live in refugee status decades after their
expulsion from Israel. While nothing justifies the death and
destruction that followed protests of these memories and
events, it is imperative to understand their roots.
42
Sorenson, David S.. An Introduction to the Modern Middle East : History, Religion, Political Economy, Politics, Routledge,
2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bcufpb-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1457772.
Created from bcufpb-ebooks on 2018-11-16 09:37:47.
officers posing in front of gallows from which hang the
bodies of Persian nationalists.
43
Sorenson, David S.. An Introduction to the Modern Middle East : History, Religion, Political Economy, Politics, Routledge,
2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bcufpb-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1457772.
Created from bcufpb-ebooks on 2018-11-16 09:37:47.
century was translated into Greek and influenced Copernicus
as he developed the heliocentric theory of the solar system.6
Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Jabir al-Harrani, who lived in
what is now Iraq (858–929 CE), was probably the first to
calculate the solar year and the timing of the seasons. Abu
Yousuf Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi, also born in what is today
Iraq, wrote path-breaking books on a wide range of subjects
that would later inform European scientists. Abu al-Qasim
Az-Zahrawi, born around 938, known as the father of surgery,
performed tracheotomy and lithotomy operations, introduced
the use of cotton and catgut, and described extra-uterine
pregnancy, breast cancer, and the sex-linked inheritance of
hemophilia. Ibn Firnas, who lived in the ninth century,
investigated the mechanics of flight. He constructed a pair of
wings out of feathers on a wooden frame and made the first
attempt at flight, anticipating Leonardo da Vinci by 600
years. Some modern scholars consider the political theories
developed by Ibn Khaldun (1332–1405) as superior in
thought to the much better known political theories of
Machiavelli.7 The Arab philosopher al-Farabi (870–950)
analyzed Plato’s discussion of metaphysics and developed
original theories on logic.8 Other Arabs discovered and
Copyright © 2018. Routledge. All rights reserved.
44
Sorenson, David S.. An Introduction to the Modern Middle East : History, Religion, Political Economy, Politics, Routledge,
2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bcufpb-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1457772.
Created from bcufpb-ebooks on 2018-11-16 09:37:47.
Newton, for example), the presentation mentioned none from
the Islamic world.
45
Sorenson, David S.. An Introduction to the Modern Middle East : History, Religion, Political Economy, Politics, Routledge,
2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bcufpb-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1457772.
Created from bcufpb-ebooks on 2018-11-16 09:37:47.
• Common foods and beverages originated from or passed
through the Middle East to the West. Yogurt was a Mongol
dish left with the Arabs after the Mongol defeat in the
thirteenth century. Citrus trees arrived in Europe from the
Crusades. Coffee has obscure origins, but Sufi mystics in
Yemen seem to have first used the drink to stay awake for
evening religious services. The Arab word for the drink,
qahwah, became “coffee” and reached Europe through
Turkey. Middle Easterners probably popularized fast food
meat sandwiches with shwarma (roast lamb or chicken, sliced
into pita bread) long before the first McDonald’s opened. The
world’s first known cookbook appeared in Babylon almost
4,000 years ago and included a recipe for goat kid stewed
with onions, garlic, sour milk, and blood.
•
The concept of law, used today to regulate almost every
society, first appeared (at least in written form) in the
Babylon of King Hammurabi, who ruled from 1795 to 1750
BCE. His code, divided into 282 sections, defines rules and
penalties for a variety of activities, including business law,
civil relations (including marriage and divorce law), and
Copyright © 2018. Routledge. All rights reserved.
46
Sorenson, David S.. An Introduction to the Modern Middle East : History, Religion, Political Economy, Politics, Routledge,
2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bcufpb-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1457772.
Created from bcufpb-ebooks on 2018-11-16 09:37:47.
polytheism and formed the cult of Amun, the sun god. There
were also ancient Mesopotamian beliefs in such things as
immaculate conception, the story of Cain and Abel, and a
massive flood that serve as precursors to the Old and New
Testaments. Places in ancient Middle Eastern history get
constant mention in church sermons and hymns: Galilee,
Nazareth, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Street Called Straight,
the Mount of Olives, Zion, and many others. Islam and
Christianity both developed their philosophical orthodoxy
through the thought of Aristotle, as rediscovered and distilled
by early Islamic scholars such as Abul-Walid ibn Rushd,
known in the West as Averroes (1126–1198), Abu Ali
al-Hussein ibn Abdallah ibn Sina, also known as Avicenna
(980–1037), Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Sabbah al-Kindi
(801–873), and Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi,
known to Europeans as Rhazes (865–925), later further
developed by Christian philosophers during medieval times.10
47
Sorenson, David S.. An Introduction to the Modern Middle East : History, Religion, Political Economy, Politics, Routledge,
2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bcufpb-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1457772.
Created from bcufpb-ebooks on 2018-11-16 09:37:47.
Tariq,” named after the Berber general Tariq ibn Zayid, who
crossed by Gibraltar to conquer Spain in 711. The Latin
alphabet originated from the Ugaritic alphabet, dating back to
around 1200 BCE. A text from Ugarit
(now in modern Syria) containing twenty-six letters is on
display at the National Museum in Damascus.
48
Sorenson, David S.. An Introduction to the Modern Middle East : History, Religion, Political Economy, Politics, Routledge,
2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bcufpb-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1457772.
Created from bcufpb-ebooks on 2018-11-16 09:37:47.
thread leads to the Bush II administration’s policy on Iraq
since 2003.17
49
Sorenson, David S.. An Introduction to the Modern Middle East : History, Religion, Political Economy, Politics, Routledge,
2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bcufpb-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1457772.
Created from bcufpb-ebooks on 2018-11-16 09:37:47.
suggest that Middle Eastern studies has “failed,” as Kramer
does, because of an oversensitivity to “Orientalism” (“Said’s
disciples govern
Middle East studies,” he claims) begs the question, Failed at
what?22 Kramer fails to demonstrate that the
“counter-Orientalists” like John Esposito are wrong; he
simply finds them guilty by association (Esposito and Said
praise each other’s work).23 Moreover, if Middle Eastern
studies “failed” to inform policy or to provide warnings about
something like September 11, was it because the discipline
“failed” or because US policy makers failed to pay attention
to what serious Middle Eastern scholars were writing and
saying? Finally, is it the duty of Middle Eastern studies (or
any other area studies, for that matter) to construct policy
foundations or to inform students and scholars who utilize the
fruits of its endeavors to enhance their own understanding of
this region?
50
Sorenson, David S.. An Introduction to the Modern Middle East : History, Religion, Political Economy, Politics, Routledge,
2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bcufpb-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1457772.
Created from bcufpb-ebooks on 2018-11-16 09:37:47.
Western values. However, values such as democratization,
equality for minorities and women, and civil liberties are
increasingly esteemed around the world if not practiced, and
the very fact that most Middle Eastern and North African
countries are increasingly putting them into practice suggests
that they are well beyond worrying about Orientalism.
51
Sorenson, David S.. An Introduction to the Modern Middle East : History, Religion, Political Economy, Politics, Routledge,
2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bcufpb-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1457772.
Created from bcufpb-ebooks on 2018-11-16 09:37:47.
and that usually both sides have at least a worthy point in the
fight. I try diligently to avoid slanting my descriptions, my
information, or my analyses toward favoring any position,
country, religion, or person. Yet I say for the record that I
believe that there are certain fundamental human rights:
children should free from exploitation for labor or sex, and
women have the same fundamental rights as do men, and thus
“honor killings” (described more in Chapter 4) are not about
honor, but are about murder. If women are required to wear
restrictive clothing or are restricted from places to pray, then
impose the same restrictions on men, or eliminate them
altogether. I believe that democracy is preferable to police
states, though I accept its limits and that it must originate
internally instead of being imposed from foreign shores. Do
these things reflect “American” values? No, they are not
universally practiced or subscribed to in America either, but
they do represent values I hear expressed on the streets and in
the shops and restaurants in Cairo, Tel Aviv, Damascus,
Tunis, Ankara, Riyadh, Doha, Amman, and so many other
places where I have walked and talked over many years.
LEARNING MORE
52
Sorenson, David S.. An Introduction to the Modern Middle East : History, Religion, Political Economy, Politics, Routledge,
2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bcufpb-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1457772.
Created from bcufpb-ebooks on 2018-11-16 09:37:47.
study. I hope that this book will inspire such endeavors: travel
to the region (yes, it is mostly safe), language study, or at
least further inquiry into the subjects I cover. One way to gain
important insights into any country or region is to read its
press and watch or listen to its media. Social media like
Facebook or Twitter have numerous postings and tweets from
the Middle East (several Middle Eastern militaries have their
own Facebook page, for example). Newspapers remain
fundamental windows though which to view countries, and
there are several sites to search for native-language papers:
www.world-newspapers.com/iran.html
53
Sorenson, David S.. An Introduction to the Modern Middle East : History, Religion, Political Economy, Politics, Routledge,
2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bcufpb-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1457772.
Created from bcufpb-ebooks on 2018-11-16 09:37:47.