Juan R. I. Cole

Feminism, Class, and Islam in Turn-of-the-Century Egypt

The emergence of feminist thought in Egypt at the turn of the last century has often been remarked upon, but there has been little rigorous analysis of its social context and background. As keen an observer as Gabriel Baer has ventured to write that in nineteenth-century Egypt “evidently the traditional structure of the family and the status of women did not undergo any change at all.” On the face of it, however, it seems highly unlikely that the expansion of the urban and rural middle classes, the emergence of private property, the period of state capitalism, and the onset of colonial rule could have left women unaffected.

Invisible occidentalism: Eighteenth-century indo-persian constructions of the west

Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his. In the lives of emperors there is a moment which follows pride in the boundless extension of the territories we have conquered, and the melancholy and relief of knowing we shall soon give up any thought of knowing and understanding them. -Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

Roots of North Indian Shiism in Iran and Iraq: Religion and State in Awadh, 1722-1859.

A bobbin handling apparatus in which filled bobbins are stored in a storage-conveyor bin and discharged through a chute and into a hopper. The bin continues to feed bobbins until a predetermined weight of bobbins is in the hopper whereupon a control system stops operation of the bin and concurrently closes a closure associated with the chute to prevent any bobbins subsequently passing from the bin from entering the weighing hopper. Strands of yarn extending from the bobbins are severed by a cutter mounted on the closure. As a container of an overhead conveyor passes the hopper a sliding trap door of the hopper opens thereby discharging the bobbins in the hopper into the container.

Iranian Millenarianism and Demorcratic Thought in the 19th Century

Between 1905 and 1911, Iranians were engaged in a protracted struggle over whether a constitutionalist regime would replace royal absolutism. 1 Little in Irans political culture before 1905 had hinted at this conflict before it broke out, and for the past thirty years historians have been seeking this genealogy for it. Most have searched among the papers of officials and diplomats, often examining unpublished or posthumously published manuscripts with little or no contemporary circulation, at least before the revolution, 2 but we might get closer to its context if we look at what was going on outside the governmental elite. Here I will explore the growth of belief in representative government within an Iranian millenarian movement, the Bahai faith, in the last third of the 19th century, as an example of how the new ideas circulated that led to the conflict. 3 Historians have noted a link between millenarianism and democratic or populist thought elsewhere, after all; for instance they have long recognized the importance of chiliastic ideas in e English Revolution of the 17th century. The republicanism of American dissidents and revolutionaries was also sometimes tinged with a civil millennialism. The Bahais of Iran, too, combined democratic rhetoric with millenarian imagery in the generation before the Constitutional Revolution. 4

Of Crowds and Empires: Afro-Asian Riots and European Expansion, 1857–1882

Comparative studies pose special problems for historians, given their long tradition of being wed to the political history of individual countries and given the limitations of their methods, which lend themselves to (at most) middlerange generalizations. Sociology and anthropology have always seemed better poised to deal with the big questions across cultures. The rise of social history, however, provides new opportunities for comparative studies, insofar as such social entities and processes as cities, social classes, crowds, and women lend themselves better to comparison than do micropolitics within the framework of a single countrys history. Despite these new possibilities, most historians demand intense contextualization and mistrust secondary sources, making it difficult for one scholar to master the relevant languages and archives in more than one culture, or to pose a broad enough question for comparative analysis. Much social history, even by the most sociologically minded historian, is likely to be based on archives and concerned largely with a single country or culture. Social historians can, however, legitimately inject a comparative element into their writing by paying special attention to the international aspects of their subject and by considering their works about particular social groups in individual countries as case studies in related phenomena.

Blogging Current Affairs History

The internet poses acute challenges to historians. Blogging and other forms of internet communication have outstripped the reach of more conventional forms of academic publications. They also provide new types of sources that would otherwise be impossible for historians to access, not least in areas of conflict. These new forms of communication must be embraced by contemporary historians as they seek to speak truth to power. They allow contemporary historians to engage with public and political debate in critical new ways. Blogging will not replace the monograph or the peer-reviewed journal article, nor will it replace archival research. In affecting public debates and political outcomes, and in obtaining new sources, blogging is a form of communication contemporary historians ignore at their peril.

Islamophobia as a Social Problem: 2006 Presidential Address

“Prejudice is an antipathy based on faulty and inflexible generalization. It may be felt or expressed. It may be directed toward a group or an individual of that group.” So the social psychologist Gordon Allport defined prejudice in a 1954 book on the subject. My focus today is on a specific sort of prejudice and discrimination, that against Muslims. Prejudice is generally recognized as similar in meaning to bias, and as having to do with attitudes and beliefs. Discrimination is the practical disadvantaging of the member of a class of persons, not for his or her personal actions but for those associated with his or her group by the majority in society.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Muslim secularism

The fact that quatrains known as Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam were not really composed by the twelfth century astronomer of that name, but composed by various hands and made into collections later, is widely accepted. This paper examines under what political and social atmosphere in later times, the collections began to be compiled, and what elements of scepticism, irreligion, mysticism and even rationalism entered into them. It is argued that the collections retained their popularity and freely circulated wherever Persian was cultivated down to modern times.

Chinese Soft Power and Green Energy Investment in the Greater Middle East

Green energy investment is one avenue through with the Chinese government is beginning to create a new relationship with the Middle East. Chinese solar panel firms have research and production advantages in the world market, but face rising labor costs at home. The Communist Party under Xi Jinping has pursued two major policies, “Go out!” and “One Road, One Belt.” The first refers to Chinese firms creating factories abroad to benefit from cheap labor and from local low-tariff trade blocs. China will therefore set up solar panel factories in the United Arab Emirates and in Morocco. Both countries have strong national commitments to renewable energy, but also have access to a wide range of export markets. This sort of investment changes China’s relationship to the region from being one of buying hydrocarbons to a much more intensive set of interactions, including acting as employer for local labor.

Iraq in 1939: British Alliance or Nationalist Neutrality toward the Axis?

‘Iraq in 1939’ makes an argument that this pivotal year in the history of the Greater Mediterranean was also pivotal for Iraq. The European contest among fascism, communism and liberalism, had strong echoes in Iraq. Whereas the existing historiography paints Arab Iraq as deeply influenced by fascism, the author found no evidence for this allegation. Iraqis were reported in the British archives to have been disgusted by Hitlers invasion of Poland as a form of colonialism. Italys own colonial enterprise in Libya tarnished its image among Arabs, and the Iraqi monarch expressed unease about a Yemeni arms deal with Italy. Germany was not at that point interested in Arab nationalism, and still hoped for a British alliance of Aryans. The reach of German radio broadcasts has been exaggerated, and prominent Iraqi poets and political societies roundly condemned fascism. The Communist movement in Iraq was still in its infancy in 1939, and a left-leaning military dictatorship had recently been overthrown in favor o...