John O. Voll

Sudan : state and society in crisis

Preface More Turbulence in Sudan: A New Politics This Time?/Peter K. Bechtold War of Visions for the Nation/Francis Mading Deng SudanOs Foreign Policy: In Search of Arms, Aid, and Allies/Ann Mosely Lesch Islamization in Suda: A Critical Assessment/Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban The Sharia in Sudan: Implementation and Repercussions/Gabriel R. Warburg A Missed Opportunity? SudanOs Stabilization Program, 1979-1982/Bodour Abu Affan Refugees and Development: Dissonance in Sudan/Mary C. Kilgour Farmers and the Failure of Agribusiness in Sudan/Stephen Kontos Contributors Index

Historical dictionary of the Sudan

The Republic of the Sudan was long the largest country in Africa and, according to the general consensus, also one of the least successful in many ways. This was not entirely its fault since it lay along the fault line between Muslim and Christian Africa and between the Nile Valley civilizations and African Sudanic cultures. This partly explains the long and bloody warfare waged by the Southerners to achieve independence, which they did in July 2011. So this hefty book actually covers not one but two states. This fourth edition of the Historical Dictionary of the Sudan does so, first, through a lengthy and detailed chronology tracing its relatively few successes and numerous failures. The introductory essay does an admirable job of putting it all in perspective. But the most informative part is the dictionary, with now over 700 entries for this fourth edition. They deal with important personalities, politics, the economy, society, culture, religion and inevitably the civil war. There are also appendixes and an extensive bibliography.

Neo-Sufism: Reconsidered Again

Abstract Neo-Sufism is a term used by scholars, including Nehemia Levtzion, to describe a set of movements of Islamic renewal in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. By the early 1990s, the term came to be viewed by some critics as representing a conceptual consensus that was erroneous in its understanding of Sufi movements. At the beginning of the twenty first century, a reconsideration of this critique leads to the conclusion, in this article’s analysis, that the critique raises important issues but needs to be modified in view of recent scholarship. The Sufi organizations of the period are seen as being “new.” In terms of content, certain aspects of the “neo-Sufism” conceptualizations are confirmed, but in ways that require modification of both the relatively simplistic early descriptions in the so called consensus and the stark lines of the critique. Nehemia Levtzion’s research is important in this revisionism.

Islam and the West

Conflict and dialogue are frequently seen as the alternatives in relations between Islam and the West. In the months following the destruction of the World Trade Center by terrorists on it September 2001, conflict visions received much attention. The words of Muslims like Usama bin Ladin, who proclaim the necessity of violent conflict with the West, gained high visibility and were regularly repeated in the global mass media. Those Muslim voices advocating violent jihad were frequently matched by continuing Western pronouncements of a “clash of civilizations.”

Imperialism, nationalism and missionaries: Lessons from Sudan for the twenty-first century

Abstract Muslim‐Christian relations in modem Sudanese history involve the tensions created by the transition from imperial rule to independence and by the impact of contemporary processes of globalization. The conflicts between Christian missionaries and the newly‐independent government of Sudan in the early 1960s reflected the tensions between old mission‐station style Christian activities and attempts by a military regime to impose measures of ‘national’ unification. Opportunities for creating institutions for constructive interactions were missed or not even conceived. Lessons from the experiences of the early 1960s emphasize the importance of viewing Muslim‐Christian relations in the 1990s in the context of the actual current conditions rather than imposing out‐of‐date images on existing realities.

Pensée 3: Reconceptualizing the “Regions” in “Area Studies”

“Area studies” as a way of trying to understand human experience is undergoing a major transition. Questioning the connection between Middle East and African studies highlights important dimensions of the changing nature of area studies at the beginning of the 21st century.

Lost Nationalism: Revolution, Memory and Anti-colonial Resistance in Sudan

Yoruba immigrants, content analysis of newspapers, and database analysis of mass expulsions. Though chapter five sits a little awkwardly in the larger arrangement of the West African study, it provides an easy introduction to some commonly-identified determinants of anti-immigrant politics. Adida’s statistical analysis also challenges the validity of some explanations that repeatedly find their way into studies on anti-immigrant politics. Given the diverse historical trajectories and distinctive political, social and economic backgrounds from which such mobilizations emerge and the fact that the larger focus of this book is on three countries in a particular regional milieu of the continent and not across it, the title of the book should have mentioned West Africa or urban West Africa rather than the African continent as a whole. It is really only in chapter five that the analysis moves to state-sanctioned expulsions witnessed in recent history in other parts of Africa. A different problem lies with the usage of the term immigrant to refer to groups that have long histories of settlement in receiving societies that expel them. But these drawbacks do not detract from what is a recommended read for students and researchers of the topic.

The Middle East in world history since 1750

Population change can be interpreted as the result of the continuous confrontation and adaptation between the forces of constraint and the forces of choice. Forces of choice are the ability to modulate and control behaviors that have demographic consequences, such as entering into a reproductive union; having children; protecting and enhancing health with adequate nutrition, housing, and clothing; moving and migrating from one place to another. Modern demography has been characterized by an acceleration with a variety of geographical patterns, and this variety increases the smaller the scale of analysis. This chapter outlines the nature of the demographic systems prevailing in different parts of the world in the eighteenth century. It presents the factors that determine a change or a transformation of a demographic system, therefore affecting population development. To define demographic transition as the process that has reduced mortality and fertility from the high pre-nineteenth-century levels to the low ones that prevail nowadays in Europe, America, and East Asia.

Women in the Middle East, Past and Present (review)

This is an excellent book, which does not quite live up to its billing. Despite positioning her work as a study of “ : : : glamour and activism as inseparable feature of flight attendants’ collective experiences”(10), Barry does not always intermingle the two seamlessly. At points, the book gets a little bogged down in detail and acronyms. But, for the most part, this is a well written, engaging, and thought-provoking contribution to the literature on gender, women, work, and culture.

Introduction Pluralism and Religions in Iranian History

Iranian history presents a vast and complex set of traditions, cultures and civilizations. Over the centuries, the peoples and societies in the broad territories identified as Iran or Persia reflect both continuities and transformations. There are many distinctive eras and traditions but it continues also to be possible to speak of ‘the heritage of Persia’ that extends over at least three millennia. In Iranian history, the themes of pluralism, interfaith relations and civilizational dialogue play an important role. In an era when conflicts viewed as the ‘clash of civilizations’ or religious wars dominate much of the news, it is important to be aware of those historical experiences in which constructive interfaith relations, pluralism and civilizational dialogue are significant. As a result, the Center for Muslim–Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, with the support of the Mihan Foundation, organized a conference on ‘Pluralism and Religions in Iranian History and Civilization’. The five essays in this issue are based on presentations at that conference. Cultural, civilizational and religious interactions among major traditions of faith and society are an important theme in Iranian history. From the perspective of the twenty-first century, the interactions between ‘the West’ and Iran are the most visible. The spectrum of relationships between Persia and the West involves both conflict and cooperation and goes back to the early roots of both civilizations. Richard N. Frye provides a broadly defined account of the changing image of Persia in the mind of the West that is also an account of the changing relationships between the two societies over the centuries. Interactions among major religious traditions within the context of Iranian history reflect a significant and constructive pluralism. As the articulations of monotheistic religious awareness were being developed in the Middle East, Iran was an important arena in which thinkers and ideas interacted. The contributions of Zoroastrian thinkers and concepts in these discussions were significant, as the awareness of monotheism and the definition of the roles of the initial spokespersons in the traditions were being more clearly defined. Jamsheed K. Choksy provides an analysis that shows the interactions among Zoroastrian, Jewish and Christian thinkers as they articulated the nature of monotheism and defined the roles of the key figures in the presentation of the monotheistic message. In the Islamic era of Iranian history, one of the most important themes of cultural experience is the development of the mystic sensibility (Sufism) in an Islamic and Persian form. Seyyed Hossein Nasr notes that Persian Sufism ‘is one of the greatest glories of Persian culture and civilization’ and is rooted in the ‘heart and soul of the Iranian nation’ while affirming that the ‘seed came from heaven, from the divine descent of the Koranic revelation’. The great visions of Iranian Sufism are a synthesis