VVolumeolume 9 - NumberNumber 4 JJuneune – JulyJuly 20132013 ££44 | €€55 | UUS$6.5S$6.5

TTHISHIS ISSUEISSUE: RRELIGIOUSELIGIOUS MINORITIESMINORITIES ● WWhoho iiss HHussain?ussain? ● MMinoritiesinorities inin NorthNorth AfricaAfrica ● CConstitutionalonstitutional reformreform inin EgyptEgypt andand TurkeyTurkey ● TThehe AAssyrianssyrian diasporadiaspora iinn LondonLondon ● AArmeniansrmenians andand thethe artsarts ● ZZoroastriansoroastrians inin LondonLondon ● TThehe BBahá’íahá’í communitycommunity inin thethe UUKK ● MMiddleiddle EasternEastern JewsJews inin LondonLondon ● PPLUSLUS RReviewseviews andand eventsevents inin LondonLondon VVolumeolume 9 - NumberNumber 4 JJuneune – JulyJuly 22013013 ££44 | €€55 | UUS$6.5S$6.5

Zoroastrian Naoroji Rustom Manek Sett in the dress of honour presented to him by the Court of Directors in About the London Middle East Institute (LMEI) England © Sanjeev Prabhu Volume 9 - Number 4 Th e London Middle East Institute (LMEI) draws upon the resources of London and SOAS to provide June – July 2013 teaching, training, research, publication, consultancy, outreach and other services related to the Middle East. It serves as a neutral forum for Middle East studies broadly defi ned and helps to create links between Editorial Board individuals and institutions with academic, commercial, diplomatic, media or other specialisations. With its own professional staff of Middle East experts, the LMEI is further strengthened by its academic Professor Nadje Al-Ali SOAS membership – the largest concentration of Middle East expertise in any institution in Europe. Th e LMEI also Ms Narguess Farzad has access to the SOAS Library, which houses over 150,000 volumes dealing with all aspects of the Middle SOAS East. LMEI’s Advisory Council is the driving force behind the Institute’s fundraising programme, for which Mr Roger Hardy it takes primary responsibility. It seeks support for the LMEI generally and for specifi c components of its King's College, London programme of activities. Mrs Nevsal Hughes Association of European Journalists Mr Najm Jarrah Dr George Joff é Mission Statement: Cambridge University Mr Max Scott Th e aim of the LMEI, through education and research, is to promote knowledge of all aspects of the Middle Gilgamesh Publishing East including its complexities, problems, achievements and assets, both among the general public and with Ms Sarah Searight British Foundation for the Study those who have a special interest in the region. In this task it builds on two essential assets. First, it is based in of Arabia London, a city which has unrivalled contemporary and historical connections and communications with the Dr Kathryn Spellman Poots AKU and LMEI Middle East including political, social, cultural, commercial and educational aspects. Secondly, the LMEI is at SOAS, the only tertiary educational institution in the world whose explicit purpose is to provide education Dr Sarah Stewart SOAS and scholarship on the whole Middle East from prehistory until today. Mrs Ionis Th ompson Saudi-British Society and BFSA Dr Shelagh Weir SOAS LMEI Staff: Professor Sami Zubaida Birkbeck College Director Dr Hassan Hakimian Co-ordinating Editor Executive Offi cer Louise Hosking Sarah Johnson Events and Magazine Coordinator Vincenzo Paci-Delton Administrative Assistant Valentina Zanardi Listings Vincenzo Paci-Delton Designer Disclaimer: Letters to the Editor: Shahla Geramipour Th e Middle East in London is published Opinions and views expressed in the Middle East Please send your letters to the editor at fi ve times a year by the London Middle East Institute at SOAS in London are, unless otherwise stated, personal the LMEI address provided (see left panel) views of authors and do not refl ect the views of their or email [email protected] Publisher and organisations nor those of the LMEI or the Editorial Editorial Offi ce Board. Although all advertising in the magazine is Th e London Middle East Institute carefully vetted prior to publication, the LMEI does SOAS University of London not accept responsibility for the accuracy of claims Th ornaugh Street, Russell Square made by advertisers. London WC1H 0XG United Kingdom

T: +44 (0)20 7898 4490 SSubscriptions:ubscriptions: F: +44 (0)20 7898 4329 E: [email protected] www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/ To subscribe to Th e Middle East in London, please visit: www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/affi liation/ ISSN 1743-7598 Contents

4 19 EDITORIAL Middle Eastern Jews in London LMEI Board of Trustees Sami Zubaida Professor Paul Webley (Chair) 5 Director, SOAS Dr John Curtis INSIGHT 21 British Museum Religious minorities in the Th e Bahá’í community in H E Sir Vincent Fean KCVO Consul General to Jerusalem Middle East the UK

Professor Ben Fortna, SOAS Sami Zubaida Dan Wheatley

Professor Graham Furniss, SOAS

Mr Alan Jenkins 7 23

Dr Karima Laachir, SOAS RELIGIOUS MINORITIES PROFILE Professor Annabelle Sreberny, SOAS Who is Hussain? Ruba Salih, SOAS Dr Barbara Zollner Birkbeck College Kathryn Spellman-Poots 24 LMEI Advisory Council 8 REVIEWS Lady Barbara Judge (Chair) Professor Muhammad A. S. Abdel Haleem Religious minorities in BOOKS Near and Middle East Department, SOAS North Africa Sherbet and Spice Mr Stephen Ball KPMG George Joff é Nevsal Hughes H E Khalid Al-Duwaisan GVCO Ambassador, Embassy of the State of Kuwait 25 Mrs Haifa Al Kaylani 10 Arab International Women’s Forum Constitutional reform and the Th e Muslim Brotherhood Dr Khalid Bin Mohammed Al Khalifa President, University College of Bahrain rights of religious minorities Mohammad Nafi ssi Professor Tony Allan Hadi Enayat King’s College and SOAS Dr Alanoud Alsharekh 26 Senior Fellow for Regional Politics, IISS 12 Unfree in Palestine Mr Farad Azima Iran Heritage Foundation Uniting people through faith Lauren Banko Dr Noel Brehony Alyn Hine MENAS Associates Ltd. 27 Mr Charles L. O. Buderi Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP 14 Books in brief Ms Zeynep Dereli APCO Worldwide Th e makings of a diaspora

Mr Shafi k Gabr Fadi Dawood 29 ARTOC Group for Investment and Development EVENTS IN LONDON Professor Magdy Ishak Hanna 16 British Egyptian Society HE Mr Mazen Kemal Homoud Bringing the old into the new: Ambassador, Embassy of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan Armenians and the arts Mr Zaki Nusseibeh of identity

Founding Patron and Susan Pattie Member of the Advisory Council 18 Sheikh Mohamed bin Issa al Jaber MBI Al Jaber Foundation Zoroastrians in London and the making of an exhibition Sarah Stewart

June-July 2013 The Middle East in London 3 EEDITORIALDITORIAL © Gertjan Vlieghe

DDearear RReadereader

Performer at Salon Mashup which was organised by the Armenian Institute and involved some forty artists and performers Kathryn Spellman-Poots, Sami Zubaida, MEL Editorial Board

onsidering the deadly sectarian of religion in the new constitutions in and dance, and their continued renewal in violence in the Middle East, the region. Hadi Enayat’s article, focusing relation to Armenian identity discourses in Cincluding the attack on the main on Egypt and Turkey, engages with a the diaspora. Sarah Stewart writes on the cathedral in Cairo and the refugee crisis number of thorny issues in recognising Zoroastrian community in London and in Syria, a special issue on Middle Eastern communal rights of religious minorities in the making of an exhibition due to open religious minorities could not be timelier. constitutional reform. in the Brunei Gallery later this year, Th e London is home to a wide range of Middle Turning to London, Alyn Hine highlights Everlasting Flame: Zoroastrianism in History Eastern religious minority communities, the development of the Arabic-speaking and Imagination. Sami Zubaida provides including Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians Orthodox Christian community who left a historical and contemporary account of (Coptic, Armenians, Orthodox, Assyrians (and continue to fl ee) the Levant due to Middle Eastern Jews, and their inroads and Evangelical), Bahá’ís, and Shi’as ongoing economic and political tensions. to London life. Kathryn Spellman-Poots, (Twelvers, Ismailis, and Alevis). Th is issue His visit to St. George’s Cathedral near focusing on a campaign spearheaded by looks at the historical and contemporary Regent’s Park shows how the Orthodox a group of young British Shi'as, takes a conditions of some of these groupings, and community, despite internal national generational look at ways Shi'as are trying to explores how their institutions and cultural and linguistic divides, strives to maintain build a public profi le in the UK and beyond. practices continue to be shaped by social a communal identity in this country. Th e short article on the Who is Hussain? and political dynamics in the region. Dan Wheately’s piece on London’s Bahá’í campaign, spearheaded by a group of young Sami Zubaida’s Insight piece presents the community traces the history of Bahá’ís in British Shi’as, takes a generational look complex and varied history of confessional the UK and introduces a few of its charitable at ways Shi'as are trying to build a public identifi cations and solidarities in relation activities in London. Fadi Dawood recounts profi le in the UK and beyond. to wider political processes across the Assyrian-British relations that date back to And fi nally, among book reviews and the region. George Joff é, concentrating on the 1837 and the political violence in Iraq that listings of Middle East events in London, history of Ibadi communities of Algeria, led to the Assyrian diaspora in the UK. is the Profi le piece on Dr. Ruba Saleh. Tunisia and Libya and North Africa’s Jewish Middle East religious minorities have Ruba provides a moving account of her communities, delivers a rich account of found diverse and creative ways to remain life in the Palestinian Diaspora and how these largely unknown, and for North connected to their histories and homelands she ‘developed an academic passion for the African Jews, virtually extinct communities. while establishing a strong communal study of “diff erence” and a commitment His reference to the draft ing of the fi rst and public presence in the UK. Susan to scholarship on justice and rights of the Arab Constitution in Tunisia in 1860 Pattie looks at the increasing exposure of disenfranchised’. echoes current, heated debates on the place Armenian art forms, such as poetry, music

4 The Middle East in London June-July 2013 IINSIGHTNSIGHT © Stéphane Pradines Sami Zubaida gives an overview of the situation facing religious minorities in the region

RReligiouseligious mminoritiesinorities iinn tthehe MMiddleiddle EEastast

Saint Antoine Monastery, Red Sea

istorically, non-Muslims in the professions and the arts in the emerging administrative practice, as well as in popular Middle East had the legal and modern states, economies and public attitudes and actions. One component of Hsocial status of dhimmis, granted spheres. Th e (theoretical) legal equality of popular ideology and imagination is what protection by the Muslim sovereign in non-Muslims, and the advantages enjoyed may be called ‘Umma nationalism’: the return for special taxes and impositions, by their elites under modern conditions, idea that the world is divided into religious and assigned an inferior status with many as well as their association with ascendant solidarities, and that the Christianity of disqualifi cations. In reality, their conditions European interests, led to a sharpening of Europe and the Judaism of Israel encompass varied from time to time and in relation resentments and antagonisms within the the local/national Christians and Jews. to class and power, ranging from violence Muslim population, sometimes resulting Anti-imperialism, then, would include and extortion to prosperity and high offi ce in riots and attacks. Th ese punctuated hostility to all non-Muslims, reinforcing for some. Political modernity, the colonial the history of communal relations in the historical antipathies. Th e antidotes to these episodes and the nation-state were, in 19th and 20th centuries, starting with the sentiments were present in both traditional, the earlier decades of the 20th century, attacks on Christians in Egypt following the conservative ideas of neighbourliness and favourable to most non-Muslims. Th e 19th Napoleonic invasion at the turn of the 19th coexistence, and the modern universalist century Ottoman reforms and the later century, followed by similar events in many ideologies of liberalism, socialism and even constitutional revolutions of the early 20th countries including Syria and Lebanon. Th e fascism, which sidelined religious identity century within the Empire and in Iran, First World War and its aft ermath witnessed in favour of national solidarity. Christians included large measures to secularise the the massacres and forced movements of and, at an earlier stage, Jews, were part of state and institute laws granting equality population in Turkey. these imaginings. Christian intellectuals of citizenship. Missionary and Jewish In reality, the theoretical stipulations played an important part in Arab nationalist schools from the mid-19th century equipped of legal equality and common citizenship politics from the 19th century, and one of some members of these communities were/are oft en subverted in political and the founders of Ba`th ideology and the with a modern European education and familiarity with European languages (mostly French), as well as Turkish and Arabic. Th is qualifi ed benefi ciaries Th e stipulations of legal equality are subverted in political and for careers in business, bureaucracies, administrative practice, as well as in attitudes and actions

June-July 2013 The Middle East in London 5 Sunni-Shi'a sectarianism and Arab/Kurdish divisions victim to the violence from one or other, or both sides. In Iran, sectarian divisions are centre stage in Iraq’s politics, merging into are superimposed on ethnic identities the regional, geopolitical sectarian patterns with respect to Sunni Kurds, as well as the continuing persecution of Baha’is, and the pressures on Christians and the party was Michel Afl aq, a Syrian Christian. threats to the citizenship status of non- few remaining Jews. Sectarianism in the In Egypt, Coptic personalities were at the Muslims. Th e more recent uprisings in the region is also reinforcing the entrenched forefront of political life and prominent in Arab world, the so-called Arab Spring, were communalism in Lebanon in confessional the nationalist struggles. In Egypt, Iraq and animated by universalist demand for liberty, identifi cations and solidarities, with all sides the Maghreb many Jews were active in the dignity and social justice, and included opposing any measures towards common left ist national movements. an assertion of citizenship and fraternity. citizenship in electoral arrangements Countries in the region have diff erent Copts were prominent participants in or in allowing civil (and possibility of profi les of communal and cultural Tahrir Square. Th e reactions and violence mixed) marriage. Th e reformers’ and composition. In Turkey, for instance, that followed, however, targeted the Copts. revolutionaries’ aspirations to national Christian groups were for the most part In October 2011, a predominantly Coptic fraternity and common citizenship ethnically distinct Greeks, Armenians and crowd demonstrated in central Cairo, appear utopian. Assyrians, and most Jews were Sephardic against the demolition of a church in Upper Ladino speakers. Waves of ethnic cleansing Egypt. Th ey were attacked by the army and Sami Zubaida is Emeritus Professor of through the twentieth century resulted in a security forces, as well as civilian thugs, Politics and Sociology at Birkbeck, and predominantly Muslim population, mostly resulting in the notorious massacre with Research Associate at LMEI, SOAS. His Sunni but with a sizable Alevi minority, an 23 deaths and 212 injuries. Th e attacks on latest book is Beyond Islam: A New off shoot of Shi'a Islam, itself the subject Coptic churches, businesses and individuals Understanding of the Middle East of prejudice and discrimination. Egypt, by occurred frequently under the previous contrast, has a Coptic population estimated regime and seem to be continuing. Th e at 10 percent, which is native Egyptian authorities, including the recently elected and shares language, culture and custom Muslim Brotherhood President Morsi CORRECTION: with its Muslim neighbours. Iraq famously continue to proclaim equality, as did their Middle East in London would like to apologise for the following errors in the features many religious and ethnic divisions. predecessors, but their police and security April/May issue on Saudi Arabia. At present, Sunni-Shi'a sectarianism and services continue to be bystanders, or even In the Insight piece by George Joff é (Th e Arab/Kurdish divisions are centre stage sometimes complicit, in the attacks against giant with the feet of clay), 'Saudi Arabia' was in the country’s politics, merging into the Coptic targets. omitted twice in the fi rst paragraph. It was Michelle Davis and not Michelle regional, geopolitical sectarian patterns. Th e sharpening sectarian, Sunni-Shi'a, Smith who wrote Contemporary Saudi Th ere are also considerable Christian tension in the region has the eff ect in Arabian art in London on p.14-15 populations, in both the Arab and Kurdish divided countries of subverting national In the article Th e International prize for regions, mostly Chaldeo-Assyrian who identifi cation in favour of the sub-national, Arabic fi ction is six years old Peter Clark was speak Aramaic dialects, which continue the sect, and the supra-national sectarian wrongly named as one of the judges of the IPAF prize. He is a trustee. to be their liturgical language, though they solidarities in regional alignments. Th is are now predominantly Arabophone and is clearly the case in Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi culturally integrated. Th eir numbers in Arabia and the Gulf, and now fi ercely in A group of Christians (and some Muslims) 2003 were estimated at 1.4 million. In the Syria. Christians, Baha’is and esoteric sects, take part in a protest in October 2011 in turbulent years following the 2003 invasion such as Yezidis and Mandeans in Iraq, fall Maspero, Egypt and up to the present, the sectarian militias of both sides, oft en with the acquiescence of the authorities, have targeted Christian and heterodox populations with killings, kidnapping and extortion, bombing of churches and kidnapping of priests. Large numbers have taken refuge in neighbouring countries, mainly Jordan and Syria, as well as having been internally displaced to the Kurdish autonomous region.

Recent transformations Th e rise of Islamic politics in the later decades of the 20th century placed greater pressure on non-Muslim communities in many countries. Th e ‘nation’ became increasingly identifi ed as the Muslim nation, part of a worldwide Islamic Umma, a resurrected ‘Umma nationalism’. Th e call for the application of the Shari`a poses

6 The Middle East in London June-July 2013 RRELIGIOUSELIGIOUS MINORITIESMINORITIES A group of young British Shi’as have launched a worldwide campaign that aims to raise the profi le of their religion. Kathryn Spellman-Poots explains WWhoho iiss HHussain?ussain?

he Who is Hussain? campaign was Although the younger generations are launched in London in November rooted in family and diasporic networks, T2012, and spread to locations and might feel connected to religious around the UK and the world soon aft er. practices stemming from countries of Spearheaded by a group of young British descent, many have found additional ways Shi'as, the campaign consisted of dozens to commemorate Imam Hussain that relate of inspirational messages and quotes, to more closely to their lives in the UK. In encourage people to struggle for social contrast to the religious programmes held justice and the rights of others, using in homes and mosques, which are oft en the example of the martyrdom of Imam held in Arabic or Persian, the younger Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet generations organise lectures and dinners Mohammad, during the Battle of Karbala at places such as hotel banquet halls, in 680 CE. By posting the question, ‘Who conference rooms at Wembley stadium, and is Hussain?’ and sharing the story of his university student unions. Th ey invite young courage and heroism in public places, speakers to provide lectures in English on including London’s busiest tube stations, religious and political issues that pertain to they aim to draw attention to a man who is British youth. It is at such events that the largely unknown to non-Muslims. latest ideas - such as the Who is Hussain? Th e events at the Battle of Karbala, campaign - are discussed, recorded and particularly the martyrdom of Hussain, uploaded to social media networks. have played a historically signifi cant role Motivated by the Arab uprisings, and in Shi’a ritual practices, imagery and building on past public campaigns such as identity construction. Street processions, ‘Inspired by Muhammad’, the organisers One of the posters used in the Who is lamenting rituals and passion plays have of the Who is Hussain? campaign felt Hussain? campaign been the traditional platforms used that young British Shi’a lacked wider to mourn the martyrs of Karbala and public platforms to activate social change. strengthen Shi’a faith and group identity. Determined to remain anonymous and Th e Karbala paradigm has also served independent from any one Muslim as a political metaphor and a source of organisation, they raised enough seed locales with posters in public spaces, as well inspiration for fi ghting against political money from private donors, and eventually as distribute water bottles, as a reminder of tyrants and social injustices of the time. a number of Shi’a centres, to launch the the thirst endured by Imam Hussain and his Th e varied ways that British Shi’as have campaign. Th ey designed a number of entourage in Karbala. Although its impact carried out such ritual practices have been posters with questions, such as: ‘Have is hard to measure, the Who is Hussain? largely shaped by the customs of the older you got what it takes?’ to provoke people campaign demonstrates novel ways that generations who come from a range of to carry out good deeds or actions. Th ey young British Shi’as are striving to be ethno-national backgrounds, including also referred to wider social movements, recognised as social actors in British society Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, South Asia, human rights discourses and leaders such and beyond. East Africa, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Saudi as Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Ghandi Arabia, and Kuwait. Ritual practices are also and Mohammed Bouazizi. Th e messages Dr Kathryn Spellman Poots is senior lecturer infl uenced by the jurisprudential rulings were disseminated through press releases, at the Aga Khan University -Institute for the and politics of the grand Ayatollah’s known campaign posters in dozens of London’s Study of Muslim Civilisations. She is also a as marja`a, to whom the majority of the tube stations and bus routes, as well as member of the editorial board estimated 450,000 British Shi’as adhere to. sophisticated social networking sites. In recent years, however, some young Th e publicity prompted Shi’as around British Shi’as have been questioning the the UK, North and South America, East divergent customs of the older generations. Africa and the Far East to animate their

June-July 2013 The Middle East in London 7 RRELIGIOUSELIGIOUS MINORITIESMINORITIES

George Joff é traces the history of the Ibadi and Jewish communities MMinoritiesinorities iinn NNorthorth AAfricafrica

nlike the Middle East, North Africa of Algeria, Tunisia and Libya and North that emerged there were challenged, fi rst is marked by the predominant Africa’s Jewish communities. by the Abbasids, and then suppressed by Uethnic and sectarian uniformity the Fatimid Empire that developed in the of its populations. Th e vast majority Th e Ibadis of the M’Zab, the Matmata and Eastern Maghrib in the early tenth century. are Sunni Muslims following the Maliki the Jabal Nafusa Th eir remnants retreated to remote desert school of legal interpretation and, even Th e Ibadis of North Africa, like the Ibadi and mountainous areas – the M’Zab in if only a quarter of them speak a Berber communities in Oman and Zanzibar, are Algeria, the Matmata and Djerba in Tunisia language as their fi rst language rather than a legacy of one of the earliest schisms in and the Jabal Nafusa overlooking the Jafara Arabic, nearly all of those living in the Islam, that of the Kharajites during the Plain and Tripoli in Libya – where they region are ethnically Berber in origin. Yet, Battle of Siffi n in 657 CE at the end of remain today. In the M’Zab, the majority historically, there have always been ethnic the Rashidun era. Khariji doctrines were of the Ibadi community lives in the ‘fi ve and sectarian minorities there as well, some subsequently adopted with enthusiasm by towns’ around Ghardia, each dominated the product of Mediterranean interactions many Berbers in North Africa who, despite by a mosque and clustered together in a through commerce and war and others a having converted to Islam, resented their wadi just to the south of Hassi R’Mel, the consequence of regional history, particularly exclusion from the benefi ts enjoyed by original centre of Algeria’s gas industry. In at the beginning of the Islamic period and the Umayyad conquerors of the region. the Matmata, the Ibadi community was during the brief colonial moment between Over time, however, the Ibadi polities so remote that it was virtually unknown 1830 and 1962. Most of these minorities have been too small or have been there Most lived in subterranean troglodyte for too brief a period to aff ect regional demographies but two have had a much dwellings, now known because they became more lasting eff ect – the Ibadi communities the settings for two of the Star Wars fi lm series

8 The Middle East in London June-July 2013 Some Jews no doubt converted, a tradition that had status as dhimmis was to be used by France to force the Bey to grant the Arab world’s begun under the Almohades to avoid persecution fi rst constitution in 1861, as a fi rst step to alienating the Jewish community from its until the 1960s. Most live in subterranean social styles. What is clear, however, is traditional Muslim background. In Algeria, troglodyte dwellings, now known because that, by the fi ft h century CE, the Jewish the same result came through the Décret they became the settings for two of the Star population of the Maghrib had been Crémieux in 1870 by which the Jewish Wars fi lms series. signifi cantly augmented by refugees from community was granted French citizenship. In addition to retaining their Ibadi faith, Spain. Th ey settled in the coastal ports and In Morocco, the French occupation created these communities remain resolutely cities, only to face renewed oppression from a similar gulf between Jew and Muslim, Amazigh in terms of self-identity and the Byzantine conquerors of the Vandals although there was also to be a small Jewish language. Given their isolation in remote two centuries later. section of the national independence and arid locations in Algeria and Tunisia, Th e initial Arab invasion followed shortly movement, Istiqlal, aft er 1944. the communities there have long ceased aft erwards and, although Judaised Berber Th e Second World War, however, was to be self-sustaining and their men-folk tribes from Eastern Algeria, led by Dahiyah to begin the dismantling of North Africa’s have now become petty traders throughout (Kahina), resisted their advance, the arrival Jewish communities. Under Vichy France, the two countries and abroad. In more of Islam was generally welcomed at fi rst as the Décret Crémieux was repealed in Algeria recent times, they have taken over the petty it meant an end to Byzantine and Christian and racial legislation was introduced, as it grocery trade in the former French colonies persecution. Despite their status as ‘people was in Tunisia where, in November 1942, and even in France itself, like the Swasa of the book’, sporadic repression continued, direct German rule consigned the Jewish from the Souss in Southern Morocco. particularly under the Almohades in the population to concentration camps until In Libya, the Ibadi villages and towns twelft h century. By the fourteenth century, Allied victory in 1943. In Libya, too, the of the Jabal had a better resource base but however, the more tolerant Marinids in Jewish population was rounded up in traditionally sought employment in the Morocco encouraged Jewish emigration 1942. In Morocco, however, the sultan, country’s armed forces. However, under from Spain which became a fl ood, in Mohammed V, refused to introduce the Gaddafi regime, their overt Amazigh response to the Alhambra Decree issued the racial laws proposed by the Vichy identity led to socio-political isolation and in Seville in 1391 CE and the collapse of authorities. Th e real exodus, however, began persecution from Libya’s Arab nationalist Granada in 1492 CE. in 1948 with the creation of Israel and by rulers, even when the Libyan leader rejected Some no doubt converted, a tradition that 1967, the Jewish communities in North the Arab world in 1997, embracing Africa had begun under the Almohades to avoid Africa had virtually disappeared. instead. Now, with the collapse of the persecution – rather like the conversos in Gaddafi regime, the Jabal, which was a Spain – thus becoming, as tradition claims, George Joff é teaches at the Department of centre of the civil war against it, can begin part of the Fassi elite that still dominates Politics and International Studies in the for the fi rst time in four decades to express political and commercial life in Morocco University of Cambridge and is a member of its unique identity once again. today. In Algeria many settled in Oran the editorial board and Algiers or even in Constantine, while North Africa’s Jewish communities in Tunisia, Tunis became the favoured Th e origins of North Africa’s Jewish destination. Th ere, four centuries later, their communities are shrouded in mystery. One tradition suggests that Mizrahis came with the Phoenicians to Carthage, before the Maghrib was occupied by Rome; another that they resulted from the emigrations caused by the Jewish Rebellion in Palestine between 66 and 70 CE. Yet another tradition, pointing to the dating of the fi rst synagogue in Tunisia to between the third and fi ft h century CE, suggests that Sephardi Jews arrived from Spain to avoid Visigoth oppression. Nor is it clear whether these Maghribi Jewish communities prospered under Roman and later Vandal rule by proselytisation among the indigenous Berber population or whether the new arrivals adopted the local language and

(Opposite) The synagogue in Djerba (Right) The old city wall of Azemmour in Morocco

June-July 2013 The Middle East in London 9 RRELIGIOUSELIGIOUS MINORITIESMINORITIES

Hadi Enayat looks at the changing situation in Egypt and Turkey CConstitutionalonstitutional © Michal Dubrawski rreformeform aandnd tthehe rrightsights ooff rreligiouseligious mminoritiesinorities

emocratisation can be a deeply promulgated. Non-Islamists withdrew from context of a number of other articles that contradictory process, especially the Constituent Assembly in November defi ne the constitutional identity of the state Din connection with minorities. 2011 protesting that the Islamist groups in ways that do not bode well for pluralism. While it opens up a space for more rights were dominating the Assembly and this is Article 2 of the old 1971 constitution for minorities, it can also increase the refl ected in a fi nal text that represents a step stipulated that the 'principles of the shari'a scope for intolerance and persecution. backwards for minority rights. are the principal source of legislation'. With the rise to power in several Middle Article 3, which did not exist in the Specifying 'principles' was vague and open, Eastern countries of Islamist parties with previous constitution, stipulates that: 'Th e and it was down to secular judges of the majoritarian and communalist instincts, principles of the jurisprudence of Christian Supreme Constitutional Court to interpret. the issue of minority rights has become a and Jewish Egyptians are the main source Th e new constitution retains Article 2 but central issue in the social contracts being of legislation that organises their personal now qualifi ed by two additional articles drawn up in the form of new constitutions. status aff airs, their religious aff airs and which open the door to Islamisation Th e constitutional reform that has been the selection of their leaders'. Th e article potentially at the expense of minorities. taking place in Egypt and Turkey raises can be seen as an honorifi c recognition Article 219, which widens the scope of a number of questions. Is a secular of the rights of minorities and will no ‘principles’ to include the body of Islamic constitution the best way of protecting doubt please some religious leaders within jurisprudence, and Article 4 which stipulates minority rights? What should the ‘building- those communities. But the dropping of a that Al-Azhar scholars must be consulted to block’ of the constitution be: the individual clause from the previous constitution that ascertain the conformity of legislation to the or the community? Are minority rights and enshrined the principle of equal citizenship sharia. Overall the new constitution takes interests best represented in the context reinforces religious communalism and Egypt further down the road of what Ran of common citizenship or in some form the notion that individuals are primarily Hirschl calls ‘constitutional theocracy’. It also of diff erentiated citizenship such as legal members of religious groups. Th is may enshrines a selective religious communalism pluralism or multiculturalism? have negative implications for people from which, while empowering religious leaders, A new Egyptian constitution was adopted within the communities, especially women, comes at the expense of individual rights, in December 2012 and has already been who do not want to live according to common citizenship and equal rights for the subject of considerable comment and religious law. Article 3 also fails to mention all minorities. discussion. Th e draft ing of the constitution the rights of other non-Muslim minorities. Th e current constitution of the Turkish was a notable accomplishment in that it was Th is omission is further reinforced by Republic was promulgated in 1982 and is the fi rst time this had been carried out by Article 43 which reads: 'Th e state shall widely seen as tutelary and authoritarian an elected body. Nevertheless it has in many guarantee the freedom of faith and the – designed to guarantee the hegemony ways been a fl awed and unrepresentative freedom of practice of religious rites and of the military in the Turkish political process, and Egyptians remain deeply the right to establish worshipping places for system. While it is a secular constitution, divided over the way the constitution was monotheistic religions based on law.' it has also been criticised for enshrining draft ed and the referendum by which it was Th ese articles also need to be seen in the an anti-religious assertive secularism and for being highly monistic in terms of its Egyptians remain deeply divided over the way the constitution defi nition of the Turkish nation in a way that has denied the recognition of Turkey’s was draft ed and the referendum by which it was promulgated religious and ethnic minorities. Despite

10 The Middle East in London June-July 2013 being amended 18 times, growing public Non-Muslim minorities have called for a constitution discontent has led to the process of writing a new constitution aft er the 2011 elections. that recognises the pluralistic nature of Turkish society As we have seen, part of the problem with the constitutional reform in Egypt was for state neutrality and equidistance from or legislative branches. Th ese in turn that it was rushed through without any all religions and for a constitution that depend on the existence of judicial support real consultation with civil society groups. recognises the pluralistic nature of Turkish networks and the civil society activism on Th e Turkish constitutional reform is society. Despite the apparently consultative which they depend. But the specifi cations, therefore potentially more promising and nature of the draft ing process, many omissions and ambiguities of constitutional democratic. Th us far the Constitutional concerns remain. Some minorities such as texts can have important implications for Reconciliation Commission (AUK) has the Baha'is and Jehovah's Witnesses have minority rights, indeed the very defi nition adopted an inclusive approach and listened not been involved in the consultations. In of ‘minorities’ partly depends on the to the views of many groups within Turkey. addition, many are worried that the process constitutional identity of the state. Representatives of groups from the majority is being manipulated by the government. Sunni Muslim communities and from While the AKP has overseen a transition Hadi Enayat is a visiting lecturer at ISMC minorities such as the Alevis, Jews and the towards a more democratic and civilian (Aga Khan University -Institute for the various Christian communities have all political system in Turkey over the last Study of Muslim Civilisations). He is the presented their views to the commission. decade, it has also been majoritarian in author of Law, State and Society in Iran: Some of the main demands of these promoting a distinctly Sunni-Hanafi Constitutionalism, Autocracy and Legal groups are for greater religious freedoms form of Islam while largely disregarding Reform 1906-1941 (Palgrave Macmillan and protections including the legal minority religions. In light of the increasing forthcoming) recognition of religious organisations hegemony of the AKP and the weakness and communities, the right to establish of the opposition parties, some Turks are religious schools, the right to establish worried that one authoritarian constitution places of worship and the right to appoint will simply be replaced by another. leaders in accordance with their respective Of course constitutional texts are only religious traditions. Non-Muslim religious part of the wider picture in terms of the minorities, the Alevis, and some civil society rights and interests of minorities. Much (Opposite) The current constitution of the Turkish groups have also criticised the Turkish depends on the ideological complexion of Republic was promulgated in 1982 model of secularism (laiklik) for being, at the judiciary, the body of jurisprudence that (Below) The Egyptian constitution was adopted best 'quasi-secularist' and biased in favour develops over time and whether courts are in December 2012 and has already been the of the Sunni majority. Th ey have called willing or able to challenge the executive subject of considerable comment and discussion © Gigi Ibrahim

June-July 2013 The Middle East in London 11 RRELIGIOUSELIGIOUS MINORITIESMINORITIES

Alyn Hine visits St George’s Cathedral - home to a vibrant Arabic-speaking Antiochian Orthodox Christian community UUnitingniting ppeopleeople tthroughhrough ffaithaith © Sarah Johnson

ituated on Albany Road, which From the outside, St George’s Cathedral Orthodox churches in the area, the Arab runs near the east side of Regent’s bears few clues, other than a small sign by community that attends St George’s has SPark, stands St George’s Cathedral, the entrance doors, that it might be home remained vibrant, faithful and unifi ed. home since 1989 to the Arabic-speaking to one of London’s less prominent Middle Numbers saw a sudden increase eighteen Antiochian Orthodox Christian community. Eastern minorities. years ago when debates fomenting in the Antioch, in modern-day Turkey, was an It is home to one of nineteen Antiochian Anglican Church over whether or not to important administrative city in the Roman Orthodox communities throughout the UK admit women priests resulted in twelve Empire and was for many centuries a and Ireland, with two in London. members of the clergy leaving their strategic trading post. Its signifi cance as a Th e number of Orthodox believers living church and pledging themselves to Christian religious centre is emphasised in in the capital has grown in recent years, in Antiochian Orthodoxy. the New Testament, where it is mentioned part due to immigration into London from Father Samir Gholam, the current that disciples of Christ fi rst became known the Slavonic countries. And, although there Archpriest at the church, told me the as Christians in Antioch. are far more prominent Greek and Russian parish had been willing to buy the church as a freehold, but Camden council had Th e church plays a vital role in supporting people unused to introduced a policy of not selling any more churches and the idea had to be shelved, London and the loneliness that comes with living in a large city leaving St George’s on a leasehold.

12 The Middle East in London June-July 2013 Th e community may bond itself through shared language and annex is a collage of photographs taken in Lebanon and dominated by a picture of a culture, but it primarily unites on a shared Orthodox faith snow-covered cedar - Lebanon’s national tree. Father Samir, however, points out that in spite of the myriad Lebanese indicators Currently, many of the members of drawn to the typically Orthodox iconostasis: in both the church and the congregation, the church come from the Levant, and a decorative wooden wall that separates the church is not national in any way and especially from Lebanon. Some have been the sanctuary, where the members of the that Orthodoxy is the guiding principle for lucky enough to bring their wives and clergy prepare for the liturgy, from the the worshippers rather than nationality. He children with them, but many are simply on congregation. Th e iconostasis houses said: ‘I have young people coming to the their own. ‘Although my extended family is beautiful, ornate, gilded panels that depict church who mention that they have a sort back in Lebanon, I like it here,’ one member saints and religious fi gures, such as Jesus, of split identity; they can understand some said. ‘It’s one of the few places where you St George and John the Baptist, with their Arabic but they have been brought up here can hear people speaking your language all names being written above in both English in England, and so Arab life and culture is around you.’ and Arabic calligraphy. almost foreign to them. I remind them that Th e church plays a vital role in supporting Aside from being conducted largely in they are Orthodox fi rst and foremost - that people, especially those who know Arabic classical Arabic, with occasional phrases in is their unchanging identity.’ but not English, unused to London’s Greek (parts of the liturgy are referred to by During our conversation, Father Samir complex administration and the loneliness their Greek names, such as the Troparion), showed me a photograph taken during one that comes with living in a large city. While and to no musical accompaniment, the of the numerous excursions that the church global economic systems account for much Sunday service contains many prayers and organises for the Antiochian community. of the migration to London, in the past it dedications that the Anglican churchgoer Th ese excursions are organised to visit a was the civil war in Lebanon (1975-1990) would recognise in English translation. Th e number of cathedrals and monasteries that led to many of the Orthodox faithful choir’s role in the service is a complex one, in the south-east of England. Although leaving the country. Father Samir himself however, as one young member explained: we were unable to ascertain where the came in the eighties, although it was as a ‘We use around ten of those books during photograph was taken, the point of the result of a personal invitation from a service,’ she said, pointing to a pile of photograph was plain: that the community, the diocese rather than because of randomly placed volumes on the table full of young families, may bond itself political tension. opposite us. ‘it’s complicated and you’re not through shared language and culture, but Today, once again, political tensions are always sure which one to read from next.’ primarily unites on a shared Orthodox faith. paramount in the thoughts of both the Inevitably in London, St George’s suff ers clergy and the congregation, particularly from spatial restrictions. While other Alyn Hine is a research fellow at the Aga when they remember in their prayers the Antiochian Orthodox churches, particularly Khan University -Institute for the Study of Christian communities of Iraq, Syria (which those in the United States, have the capital Muslim Civilisations. He also lectures on has many Greek Orthodox communities) and land on which to build vast complexes modern Arabic literature at SOAS and Egypt. to accommodate worshippers for the entire As an Antiochian Orthodox church, St day, St George’s has to make do with its George’s also fi nds strength through its small annex in which to conduct biblical solidarity with other Orthodox churches classes for the Orthodox youth, and to in London. Th e shared exploration of faith welcome the fl ock for a cup of coff ee and is apparent in the pan-Orthodox Vespers conversation aft er the service on Sunday. service, the latest of which was held at the Greeting you when you walk into the Greek Orthodox Church of St Sophia on

Moscow Road in Bayswater on 24 March. © Sarah Johnson Here, clergy from all the Orthodox churches of London gathered for a service conducted in a number of languages, including Arabic. Upon entering through the main doors (which are closed to the public unless a service is taking place), St George’s initially looks like any other nineteenth-century church in London, save for the fact that many of the leafl ets laid out for the attendees’ attention are in Arabic. Further inside, the church presents a colourful and Levantine interior in contrast to its stern outward appearance. One’s attention is

(Opposite and right) St George's Cathedral has been home since 1989 to an Arabic-speaking Antiochian Orthodox Christian community

June-July 2013 The Middle East in London 13 RRELIGIOUSELIGIOUS MINORITIESMINORITIES

Fadi Dawood examines the history of Assyrian-British relations

TThehe mmakingsakings ooff a ddiasporaiaspora ccommunityommunity

ssyrians are a Christian minority press in the region. While Assyrians offi cials, according to what they believed to community that traditionally resided welcomed the educational facilities, they be Assyrian traditional tribal organisation, Ain the ‘triangle between the two were reluctant to break away from their and was under the leadership of General lakes of Van and Urmia and the City of ancestral churches. Agha Petros, an Assyrian who had worked Mosul’ in ancient Mesopotamia. Assyrian- In 1918-1919, British offi cials helped to with the British forces to fi ght the Kurdish British relations date back to 1837/8, when transfer 40,000 Assyrians from the Hakkari militias of the Ottoman Empire. Th e the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Mission Mountains to the newly created Iraqi fi rst group of refugees had arrived from to the Assyrian Christians was established state. Th e Assyrians had faced massacres Hammadan province in Iran, where they in the Hakkari Mountains of the Ottoman during the First World War aft er helping had last fought alongside British forces Empire, located today in Turkey. In the the British fi ght the Ottoman forces in the during the First World War. hope of converting the Assyrians from what Hakkari Mountains. Assyrian refugees Perceived by the British to be a warrior they described as ‘original Christianity’ were placed in the Ba’qubah refugee camp, race, the Assyrians were recruited to serve to Anglicanism, British missionaries named aft er the town of the same name as a military force protecting colonial air established a number of outposts in the 40km north of Baghdad. Th e camp was force bases in Iraq. Assyrian forces were Hakkari Mountains. Th e missionaries also managed and organised by British military also used for general policing of Iraq’s hoped to consolidate a British political foothold in the Ottoman Empire. During Perceived by the British to be a warrior race, the Assyrians the 1800s and early 1900s, they founded schools, a religious college, and a printing were recruited to serve as a military force in Iraq

14 The Middle East in London June-July 2013 Th e largest wave of Assyrian refugees arrived in London needs of the community in London. Th e church also functions as a space for social aft er the conclusion of the Gulf War in 1990-1991 and religious gatherings, and Assyrian language lessons for the children of territory during the British mandate (1920- Th e fi rst wave of Assyrians arrived in the the community. 1932). Th e allocation of Assyrians to the UK in the early 1950s and 1960s mostly Th e vast majority of Assyrian immigrants refugee camp distanced them from the rest from Iraq. Levies soldiers who served from Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Turkey, that of Iraq’s populations. Th e militarisation of alongside British troops in the country, were left the Middle East in the 1990s and the Assyrians deepened the separation. Iraqi the fi rst to migrate and settle in London. 2000s settled in Canada, the United States, offi cials were reluctant to allow the refugee Early Assyrian arrivals were few, but they Holland and Sweden, where Assyrian population to settle in the country fearing managed to establish a new community in immigrant populations have established that they might cause instability for the the London Borough of Ealing. Th e second large diaspora communities. Th e Assyrians nascent regime. wave of Assyrian immigrants to London of London remain connected with those During the early 1920s, British offi cials began to arrive in the 1970s. Th ey came to living in the Middle East and elsewhere in recruited Assyrians to serve in the Iraq be reunited with members of their families the diaspora. Th is close association keeps Levies military forces to protect British who had arrived in the 1950s and 60s. the community connected to their social interests in the country. In 1924 Assyrian- Th e second waves of immigrants that and cultural roots. Iraqi relations deteriorated when Levies arrived in the 1970s were not necessarily soldiers in Kirkuk attacked the city killing directly involved in the Iraq Levies Forces Fadi Dawood is a PhD Candidate at the between 40 and 50 people. Th e Royal Air during Iraq’s colonial period. However, Department of History at SOAS Force transported the Assyrians outside the they generally had relatives and family city and banned those who had participated connections in London, and left their in the violence from returning. Assyrian- homes in Iraq and Syria in search of a better Iraqi relations continued to deteriorate, economic future for their families. Th ey and aft er the end of the British mandate joined other Assyrians in Ealing where they in Iraq, Assyrian soldiers serving with the created a substantial community. Levies Force resigned en masse and crossed Th e largest wave of Assyrian refugees the border into French-controlled Syria. arrived in London aft er the conclusion Th e French government refused to settle of the Gulf War in 1990-1991 and they the Assyrians, and they were sent back to continued to settle in Ealing. Th ey left Iraq Iraq. During the summer of 1933, Iraqi for both economic and political reasons. troops attacked and massacred thousands Th e vast majority came to the UK in search of Assyrians in the village of Simile. of safety and political freedom. Since Soon aft er, many of the Assyrian soldiers then, Assyrians have been able to establish returned for service with the Iraq Levies a cultural centre where members meet Force. Although the British mandate in regularly. Th ey also set up an Assyrian the country had ended in 1932, British air church to serve the religious and spiritual bases remained active until the revolution of 1958. Th e Assyrian troops serving with the © Imperial War Museum Levies Force were stationed in Habbaniya. During the Anglo-Iraqi war of May 1941, Assyrian troops fought alongside British forces and were successful in protecting the Habbaniya base and winning the war aft er the departure of the Iraqi leaders at the end of May 1941. As a result, British forces and offi cials regarded the Assyrians as heroes. But, the episode meant that Assyrians in Iraq were ostracised further. It became diffi cult for many former soldiers to continue living in the country aft er the departure of the British forces in 1958, and a large number emigrated to London.

(Opposite) An Assyrian church in London (Right) Assyrians are transported to the Ba'qubah refugee camp in Iraq in 1920

June-July 2013 The Middle East in London 15 RRELIGIOUSELIGIOUS MINORITIESMINORITIES

Susan Pattie explores how the arts have encouraged debate about identity BBringingringing tthehe ooldld iintonto tthehe nnew:ew: AArmeniansrmenians aandnd tthehe aartsrts ooff iidentitydentity © Gertjan Vlieghe

hile transnational religious, social Th roughout much of the twentieth the new Soviet Armenian state, a stable of and political institutions have century, poetry was virtually a required new poets appeared who would have great Wkept Armenians connected post- element of any public Armenian event. infl uence in the diaspora as well, oft en genocide and dispersion, an increasingly While the central act would be a speech or despairing of the fact of diaspora. Among diverse use of the arts among Armenians sermon, poetry and other arts would adorn the most popular are Sylva Gaboudikian’s in the diaspora and the Republic of the event. Most oft en recited were poems ‘Letter to My Son’, expressing a fear of the Armenia has encouraged exploration and of longing for the homeland and expressing loss of the language itself, and Gevorg dialogue about identity. In some cases, this the horrors of the genocide. Some of the Emin’s ‘scattered beads that cannot be enlivening of identity discourses has served favourites had been written by poets, such restrung’ (from ‘Menk’). To be able to to bring closer people who are drift ing as Taniel Varoujan, killed in the Genocide recite poetry and move crowds on special beyond the margins of the communities. or Siamanto, a witness of the horrors. Inside occasions was nearly as highly regarded as writing the poetry itself. Children learned early and recited oft en, alone and in groups. Homeland/diaspora relations and genocide In London, when the Armenian weekend schools began, this tradition was continued remain frequent themes, but at the same time, though many of the adult performers were new voices and diff erences are being enabled born in the Middle East or Armenia.

16 The Middle East in London June-July 2013 Connections continue for a scattered people, and comprehension, memory and the present’. Project director and performance even in the myriad diversions of London curator Seta White noted that Salon Mashup was a space for ‘dialogue to fl ourish’, ‘to Th e other traditional element of also became a common element in public explore Armenian culture together’. Th is Armenian cultural, social or political events events. In this way the past is evoked – invitation to engage with each other and for is music, again with a core of pieces that with the costume and dance (both highly the audience to step outside its normally refer directly or indirectly to the Genocide stylised) while at the same time, as with the passive role is part of the movement and its aft ermath. Th e priest-composer other art forms, the audience is entertained putting the arts at the forefront not only of Gomidas Vartabed is an icon of Armenian and delighted. expression (and shaping of both memory culture, having collected songs throughout In recent times old favourites are giving and perception) but of conversation and the countryside pre-Genocide. He arranged way to newly composed or created, exploration. Homeland/diaspora relations many of these for the new instruments freshly designed or choreographed and genocide remain frequent themes and choral formations that would become pieces examining many of the familiar as each new generation comes to terms standard in the twentieth century, enabling themes of history and identity. With with these foundational facts of Armenian them to be easily performed for a variety of the increasing (relative) ease of fi lm and life but at the same time, new voices and occasions both amateur and professional. video-making, this art form has become diff erences are being enabled. Connections Among his most famous pieces is Groong an especially favoured means of exploring continue for a scattered people, even (Th e Crane), a song of exile and longing. and provoking discussions of what it means in the myriad diversions of London. By contrast, the orchestral music of Aram to be Armenian in the late 20th and now Transformation and regeneration bring the Khatchadourian is well-known outside 21st century. In some cases a particular old into the new. the Armenian community as well as perspective is in the foreground while others within, particularly his ballet music, but encourage the viewer to engage, think and Dr. Susan Pattie is a cultural anthropologist. does not lend itself to the annual round react. Dance is changing, incorporating Until recently she was the Director of the of commemorations and social occasions modern dance movements and costuming, Armenian Institute in London and a Senior where a soloist (voice or instrumental) bringing individuals to the forefront as Research Fellow at University College or amateur chorus can perform. Th e they work both within and outside the London. She is currently the Director of the latter part of the twentieth century saw traditional troupe. Armenian Library and Museum of America the commercialisation of a traditional A recent event organised by the in Watertown, Massachusetts double reed woodwind instrument, the Armenian Institute brought some forty duduk. Earlier the duduk was almost artists and performers together for Salon entirely overlooked in organised public Mashup: Displacement and Regeneration, (Opposite) The Armenian Institute brought events in diaspora but was popularised Armenian perspectives of loss and some forty artists and performers together for by the virtuoso player Djivan Gasparyan, resettlement, held at Shoreditch Town Salon Mashup: Displacement and Regeneration, and especially through its discovery by Hall. Exhibition curators Vazken Khatchig Armenian perspectives of loss and resettlement, held at Shoreditch Town Hall Hollywood for use in movie soundtracks (eg Davidian and Shoair Mavlian observed that: Spartacus). Today, Armenians have begun ‘One is invited to touch and refl ect upon (Below) According to project director and performance curator, Seta White, Salon Mashup to think an event is not complete without the raw tension between the dualities of was a space for ‘dialogue to fl ourish’, ‘to explore a duduk though this was not the case until separation and assimilation, remembrance Armenian culture together’

very recently. Th e duduk has a melancholy © Gertjan Vlieghe sound, one that lends itself to the setting of a tone of respectful mourning or again, longing and so works well with the themes of exile and dispersion. Armenian dance went through a transformation over the twentieth century, becoming choreographed, costumed and stage-centered. Th ough many still dance the village line-dances at weddings and other parties, it is just as frequently performed now by highly-trained dance troupes. Th e state-organised choreography of ethnic dancing in the Soviet Republics shaped and infl uenced Armenian dance both in the Republic and the diaspora, with soloists and ensemble dancing that is oft en narrative in scope and reminiscent of ballet. While the dance troupe can provide an evening’s spectacle, they can also provide single or small groups of dancers for other events and the costumed Armenian dancer

June-July 2013 The Middle East in London 17 RRELIGIOUSELIGIOUS MINORITIESMINORITIES A new exhibition is raising awareness of Zoroastrianism on a global scale, explains Sarah Stewart ZZoroastriansoroastrians iinn LLondonondon aandnd tthehe mmakingaking ooff aann eexhibitionxhibition

he fi rst Zoroastrians to settle Zoroastrian studies have been complicated © Homyar Mistry in A Zoroastrian Tapestry, Art Religion and Culture in Britain were Parsis from the by the paucity of religious texts, a lack of TIndian sub-continent, themselves context for the early period, and the divide descendants of migrants from Iran following in western scholarship between the pre- the Arab conquest in the seventh century. Islamic and post-Islamic eras and between Th ey came from the great trading families Iranists and Indologists. of Cama, Tata and Wadia in search of Th e fi rst history of the religion to be educational and trading opportunities. accompanied by spectacular images was Estimated at around 50 individuals by the the encyclopaedic publication: Zoroastrian mid-nineteenth century, there were no more Tapestry: art, religion and culture. Th e than 200 by the end of the Second World exhibition due to open in the Brunei Gallery War. More recently, numbers have increased later this year, Th e Everlasting Flame: with a second wave of migrants from India, Zoroastrianism in history and imagination Pakistan and former British colonies as well takes a step further. It provides a visual as from Iran. narrative that encompasses both Iranian and As with other diasporic religious Indian components as well as the infl uence minorities, Zoroastrian identities have been of Zoroastrian religious thought on the shaped by a number of factors: historical cultures of Central Asia, China and the circumstance, relations with the host Judeo-Christian world. country and ties, both real and imagined, Th is is a story that brings certain key with the land they left behind. Dynamics elements of Zoroastrianism to the fore, within the community in Britain today for example, the oral transmission of refl ect certain historical allegiances – to the religion and the absence of material Cowasjee Cursetjee Jejeebhoy, the 4th Iran, to India and to the British - as well as evidence for the early days of the religion. Baronet (1852-1908). Collection: H.B. Wadia ideological diff erences, which continue to Th e section of the exhibition Words without Atash Behram fl uctuate and develop. Iran is the original Context will introduce the Gathas, hymns homeland in the collective memory of of Zarathustra in audio-visual form. Th e Zoroastrians worldwide. While the trauma purity laws of traditional Zoroastrianism of dispersal has long since left the Parsi are nowhere more evident than in the Wiraz Namag - a text from ninth century psyche, it remains for many Iranians who rituals surrounding death and exposure Iran describing the journey taken by the departed aft er the establishment of Islamic of the body. Th e juxtaposition of a model righteous Wiraz through heaven and hell - Republic. Although there may be no idea dakhmah with the painting by Iranian artist is all the more remarkable when displayed of return, there is an idealisation of the Fereydoun Ave entitled Rostam in the Dead alongside Dante’s Divina Comedia and the ancient pre-Islamic era in Iran and a quest of Winter, in which vultures surround the Islamic Mirajnamah. Miniatures from the to discover more about its history and the fi gure of a man, conveys a powerful image Shahnamah of Ferdowsi will be seen for the origins of the religion. Contact between of this small part of traditional Zoroastrian fi rst time in the context of the Pahlavi books, Zoroastrians and western scholars began belief and practice. Objects, texts and and of earlier Avestan texts from which when the primary collection of sacred paintings that may be familiar to many their stories derive. From Iran to India the texts, the Avesta, began to be studied by will be presented in a Zoroastrian context. textiles and paintings from the eighteenth orientalists in the nineteenth century. An illustrated manuscript of the Arda and nineteenth centuries bear witness to the role of Parsis in the China trade in opium, silk and tea. Dynamics within the community in Britain refl ect certain historical allegiances, and ideological diff erences, Sarah Stewart works in the Department of Study of Religions at SOAS and is a member which continue to fl uctuate and develop of the editorial board

18 The Middle East in London June-July 2013 RRELIGIOUSELIGIOUS MINORITIESMINORITIES

Sami Zubaida looks at the cosmopolitan background of Middle Eastern Jews in the capital MMiddleiddle EEasternastern JJewsews iinn LLondonondon

The Ohel David Eastern Synagogue in Golders

© Sarah Johnson Green in London

ondon has always been a favoured inclined to move to the UK, especially Th roughout the twentieth century, destination for Middle Eastern London. Th e largest numbers outside Middle Eastern business people and Ltravellers, students, professionals, Israel, however, found themselves in the professionals, including Jews, settled in entrepreneurs and refugees. Jews have US and Canada. London. Names that rose to prominence been strongly represented in all these Th e links of Iraqi Jews to Britain and in British public life include the Saatchi categories. Jews have been under particular British India go back to the nineteenth brothers and Alan Yentob of arts and pressure in the region, especially since the century. Jewish entrepreneurs from broadcasting fame. Mothercare stores 1940s and the process of the foundation Baghdad and Basra migrated to Calcutta, were founded by the Zilkha family, who of Israel and the mounting Arab-Israeli Bombay and other Indian cities, and from earlier established a banking network. confl ict. Regardless of their actual political there to Burma and Shanghai. Some of Prominent fi gures in the academic world orientation or activity, Jews were oft en the entrepreneurial families in the East include the late Professor Elie Kedourie considered as complicit with Israel and rose to prominence, notably the Sassoons of LSE, originally from Iraq, a notable world Zionism, and oft en vilifi ed and in India then Britain, and the Khedouris theorist of nationalism and critical writer persecuted as such. Th e ultimate result was and Suttoons in Shanghai. Aft er Indian on Britain and the Middle East. Another is the virtual disappearance of ancient Jewish independence in 1947 many of those the historian Professor Donald Sassoon at communities from the Arab world and their ‘Baghdadi’ Indian Jews migrated to Queen Mary: his ancestry, originally from drastic diminution in Iran and Turkey. From Britain, mainly London. Here they shared Iraq, then Syria and Egypt, and ultimately the 1940s the bulk of Jewish migration was synagogues, neighbourhoods, social life and France and Italy, truly representative of to Israel. Some, however, especially among inter-marriage with Jews from Iraq. the cosmopolitanism of Middle Eastern the more prosperous and educated, found a home in Europe, the US and Canada. Jews from North Africa, Egypt and Lebanon Food is the item which lasts longest in the memory and had links with France and considerable aff ections of migrants and exiles over the generations, and this communities found a home there and in Francophone Canada. Iraqi Jews were more applies to Middle Eastern diasporas, including the Jewish

June-July 2013 The Middle East in London 19 Jewry. SOAS’s Professor Deniz Kandiyoti As spaces for diversity shrink in the Middle East, they and her husband, Imperial College engineering Professor Rifat Kandiyoti open up in London and other cities, which become venues both hail from Turkey, where a Sephardic for thriving institutions of business, media and culture Jewish community has fl ourished since Ottoman times. Also from Turkey is Nicole Farhi, fashion designer, and novelist Moris player and impresario of popular music in Eastern food is Claudia Roden, an Egyptian Farhi. Another name known to SOAS is Iraq until their departure to Israel in 1951, Jew established in London. Her Middle Dr Nasser Khalili, an Iranian Jew, who is where they continued to perform. Th e event Eastern Food is aclassic and is the food bible a prominent fi gure in the art world and in took place in the Brunei Lecture Th eatre. for Middle Easterners and others all over philanthropic largesse. He is credited with Kuwaiti’s son and grandson were present, the world. She also authored Th e Book of the largest private collection of Islamic art. and lectures and fi lms featured during Jewish Food, which includes the foods of He endowed a Chair in Islamic Art at SOAS, the day. One of the fi lms shown was of an Europe and the Middle East. In addition and gave his name to the Khalili Lecture interview with the London resident and to the recipes, the narrative is an absorbing Th eatre. I should include myself in this list, veteran Iraqi Jewish musicologist Heskel ethnography of Jewish communities in as I come from a Baghdadi Jewish family, Kojaman, also a survivor of Iraqi jails, as a various lands. Th e Indian ‘Baghdadi’ Jews and have made London my home for most leading communist there in the 1940s and developed an interesting combination of of my adult life. 50s. In addition to his books on Iraqi music, old Iraqi recipes with Indian spices and Iraqi Jews tended to be much more Kojaman also authored an Arabic-Hebrew ingredients. Jewish food in each region is integrated into Arabic language and dictionary. He is a prolifi c writer on musical an adaptation of regional food culture to culture than those from Egypt, North and political themes, and oft en interviewed cultural and ritual requirements. Th ere are Africa and the Levant, who were more by scholars and students as an oral source a few Kosher Middle Eastern restaurants inclined to French. Iraqis in Israel and of Iraqi history. Th e event culminated in in London, but nothing of distinction. the West have, regardless of their political a concert of Iraqi music in the evening Most Middle Eastern Jews would normally orientations, retained a strong attachment conducted by Ahmad Mukhtar, an Iraqi patronise the regional restaurants, and of to their original culture in language, musician resident in London with an course cook their own repertoires at home. literature, music and food. Jews played a orchestra and Ismail Fadhel, a charismatic Like most other communities, some Jews prominent role in musical composition and Iraqi singer now living in Australia. Th e tend to be centred within their family and performance in Iraq in the fi rst half of the rendering of old favourites, many composed communal circles. Many participate in the twentieth century, and have kept up these by Saleh al-Kuwaity, galvanised an cosmopolitan life of London, however, with interests in Israel and the West. Groups of enthusiastic audience into song and wide social circles which include their non- Iraqi Jews in London oft en organise musical even dance. Jewish former compatriots with whom they evenings in Arab restaurants with Iraqi Food is the item which lasts longest in share culture and memory. Many Middle musicians. In 2008 they participated in a the memory and aff ections of migrants and Easterners in London are keen to preserve celebration of the anniversary of the birth of exiles over the generations, and this applies memory and culture of earlier times when Saleh al-Kuwaity (died 1986), who, with his to Middle Eastern diasporas, including the the region’s cities were much more diverse brother Daoud, was a prominent composer, Jewish. Th e doyenne of writers on Middle and cosmopolitan than they have become aft er decades of ethno-religious pressures against diff erence. Jews are a key part of that heritage. As the spaces for diversity shrink in the Middle East, they open up in London and other Western cities, which become the venues for thriving Middle Eastern institutions of business, media and culture, and of cosmopolitanism and nostalgia.

Sami Zubaida is Emeritus Professor of Politics and Sociology at Birkbeck, and Research Associate at LMEI, SOAS. His latest book is Beyond Islam: A New Understanding of the Middle East

A version of this article was used in an earlier issue of Middle East in London in 2009

Books about Jewish London on display in a

© Sarah Johnson bookshop in Golders Green

20 The Middle East in London June-July 2013 RRELIGIOUSELIGIOUS MINORITIESMINORITIES

Dan Wheatley gives an overview of how the Bahá’ís are fl ourishing in Britain TThehe BBahá’íahá’í ccommunityommunity iinn tthehe UUKK © Bahá'í International Community

There are estimated to be over six million people practising the Baha'i faith all over the world

n December 2012 Secretary of State, Eric Th e fi rst declared Bahá’í in the UK was activist, Lady Sara Louisa Blomfi eld. Th is Pickles and Don Foster, the Minister American citizen, Miriam Th ornburgh- community grew from a single person Ifor Integration, hosted a reception for Cropper, in 1898. Interest in the nascent in 1898 to the degree that, between 1911 the Bahá’í community of the UK at the Bahá’í religion, refracted through the lens and 1913, when Abdul Bahá, the head of Department of Communities and Local of periodic newspaper reports, diplomatic the Bahá’í community from 1892 to 1921, Government (DCLG). Th e reception was to cables and travellers to and from the made two visits to the UK, the early Bahá’ís commemorate the centenary of the fi rst visit faith’s natal Persia, fed the expansion of a were suffi cient in number, resources and to this country of Abdu’l Bahá, the son of small but dynamic community, including organisation to arrange visits for him to the founder of the Bahá’í faith, Bahá’u’lláh. the Anglo-Irish campaigner and social several churches throughout the UK. In a society that is increasingly diverse, organs of the state in the UK are building Today there are believed to be at least 6000 Bahá’ís in relationships with religious and other minority communities. the UK, although some sources suggest higher numbers

June-July 2013 The Middle East in London 21 government. Pickles paid tribute to the ‘little ‘We should pursue peace together and diff erences of race bits of kindness’ he has observed Bahá’ís and division between religions must cease’ - Abdu’l Bahá off ering to others. Foster acknowledged the contribution that Bahá’ís are making towards education and confl ict resolution. Today there are believed to be at least sense of justice, an eagerness to learn, and He recalled that the important truths that 6000 Bahá’ís in the UK, although some a desire to contribute to a better society.A Abdu’l Bahá had stressed during his visit to sources suggest higher numbers. Th e Bahá’í programme inspired by the Bahá’í teachings the embryonic British Bahá’í community, community estimates that there are over 6 has been developed to assist young people, namely that ‘we should pursue peace million practising Bahá’ís around the world. of every religious background and none, together and diff erences of race and division Other sources, including the Encyclopaedia to form a moral identity that will better between religions must cease’ is as true of Religion, estimate more than 7.5 million. enable them to navigate this stage of their today as it was a century ago. Th e Bahá’í community off ers a specifi c lives. Activity of this nature is spreading date for the inception of their religion. in villages, towns and cities across the UK. Dan Wheatley is senior diplomatic offi cer for On the night of 22 May 1844 a fi gure Th ose participating learn to explore their the Bahá’í Community of the UK revered by Bahá’ís as the Báb, meaning identity, their lives and spiritual questions ‘the Gate’, declared his spiritual mission through artistic expression, discussion, to a companion in the city of Shiráz. Th e cooperative games, the study of literature, Bábi religion spread rapidly in Persia in the and more. mid-nineteenth century, but its founder Th e Bahá’í community off ers this as one was imprisoned and put to death in 1850. of a number of service projects in the UK, Aft er two of his disciples, deranged by grief and the concept undermining this process at the loss of the one they thought of as a is a refl ection of a vital Bahá’í principle that prophet or manifestation of God, attempted everyone should seek knowledge and has to assassinate the Persian Shah, there were the right to investigate truth for him or widespread pogroms against the Bábis. herself, and at any age. Th is principle is best Th ese massacres claimed up to 20,000 lives. expressed in a quote from the writings of Th e majority of the surviving Bábi Bahá’u’lláh: ‘Regard man as a mine rich in community recognised Bahá’u’lláh as the gems of inestimable value. Education can, second prophetic fi gure, the one the Báb alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and had foretold as ‘Him whom God shall enable mankind to benefi t there from.’ make manifest’ and from this shattered While members of the Bahá’í continue to religious community, under the leadership seek to be of service to those around them, The Bahá’í community perceives young people of Bahá’u’lláh, the early Bahá’í community it is encouraging for them to know that their as altruistic, possessing a sense of justice, an eagerness to learn, and a desire to contribute to spread from Persia to other lands. In 2008, eff orts are increasingly recognised by the a better society there were 184 national Bahá’í communities that elected a National Spiritual Assembly, and there are Bahá’í communities of © Bahá'í International Community varying sizes in over 200 nation states and independent territories. Over the 20th century the Bahá’í faith expanded at a considerable rate in geographic terms and numbers. In some parts of the world, Bahá’í communities have continued to grow in strength but in the UK, as in most European states, the rate of actual converts joining the community is more modest. Yet the picture is perhaps more complex than the fi gures suggest. A growing number of people who are not formally registered as members of the Bahá’í community accompany and oft en lead a range of activities with which Bahá’ís are involved. Away from the centres of government and other high profi le spaces, the majority of the Bahá’ís work in their neighbourhoods, and particularly with young people. Th is age group is oft en seen as problematic within some of the current media discourse. Th e Bahá’í community has a diff erent vision, perceiving them as altruistic, possessing a

22 The Middle East in London June-July 2013 PPROFILEROFILE RRubauba SSalihalih

Reader in Gender Studies and Chair, Centre for Gender Studies, SOAS

secular family) enrolled in the local private migrant women did not always choose a Catholic primary school. My family was transnational life, but were compelled to it scattered across the globe and never stopped by global economic restructuring, gendered moving - USA, Jordan, France, Germany, roles and expectations, and the feeling of Syria, Lebanon, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, the not being able to achieve a full sense of self Gulf among others. We would meet, those in only place only. of us with the privilege of a viable passport, In my studies, I saw diff erence not somewhere in the summer, and it was on as static alterity but rather as a way to those occasions that I was able to experience understand sameness and the delicate the delight of a diasporic, albeit enforced process of boundaries making and on us, cosmopolitan culture, shaped by meaning, the ever shift ing nature of movements across a multitude of countries, identities and the continuity between exposure to diff erent languages and to seemingly diverse claims to justice and fascinating stories of Arab resistance and rights. Pious Muslim women’s demands defeat. Th at was also the time when I was for recognition in European secularised exposed to Palestinian politics - the core of societies, economic migrants’ bids for all our gatherings’ conversations, and the social, political and economic security in conditioning factor of most of my extended post-industrial European economies, or family predicaments. the forgotten Palestinian refugees’ claims No wonder then as an adult, I developed for rights.Th e latter lies at the core of my an academic passion for the study of current research and writing. Aft er the diff erence and a commitment to scholarship Oslo consensus of the two states solution, on justice and rights of the disenfranchised. which sanctioned refugees’ marginalisation I found in anthropology the discipline that, from the mainstream national project, as an eminent colleague put it, contributes refugees are thinking in new, not exclusively Ruba Salih was born to Palestinian parents to widening ‘our sphere of what is socially national, ways about self-determination. and had an international upbringing before discovering a passion for gender issues and culturally possible’. As a postgraduate My writing and research is an attempt to student, I became interested in women’s capture and convey the political creativity rights, migration, refugeehood, Islam that comes from the standpoint of the and secularism, identity and hybridity, margins. Th e thread running through all through a gender lens. Aft er graduating my projects is the cogent persuasion that from the University of Bologna in 1994, the margin’s gaze off ers crucial insights for was born to Palestinian parents who I was awarded a Marie Curie European radical re-confi gurations of rights, dignity, experienced the Nakba, the 1948 Fellowship, which allowed me to enroll as self-determination, whether in liberal Icatastrophe and expulsion, that followed a PhD research student at the University democracies or in illiberal or the birth of the state of Israel. With the of Sussex, under the supervision of authoritarian regimes. 1967 Naksa and the occupation of the rest anthropologist, Professor Ralph Grillo, of Palestine, they were cut off forever from whose teachings and insights inspired their homes, belongings and aff ections me when I became a PhD supervisor and were never able to return. As a result, myself, fi rst at Bologna, then Exeter and I was born in Vienna, moved to Italy, and fi nally at SOAS, which I joined in 2010. started primary school in Saudi Arabia, In my PhD research I engaged with only to come back to Italy a few months the far too celebratory and, at the time, later, because my mother could not cope burgeoning literature on globalisation with the constraints of life in a country and transnationalism. I looked at the lived organised under gender segregation. My experience, and the pains and hopes, of a brothers and I were the only foreign and life across borders. Subjected to multiple Muslim children (albeit living in a truly demands and hardships, Moroccan

June-July 2013 The Middle East in London 23 RREVIEWS:EVIEWS: BOOKSBOOKS SSHERBETHERBET & SPICESPICE

By Mary Işın

I.B.TAURIS, 2013, £20.00

Reviewed by Nevsâl Hughes

‘ alking about the exquisite fl avour glasses of water and each guest in turn took the Topkapı palace (which in its heyday of rose jam, known as gülbeşeker, a spoonful of çevirme, drank some water, employed a thousand specialist cooks) was Tinspired the mystic philosopher and then placed the spoon into their glass.’ also a pharmacy. Mevlânâ to instil it with sacred symbolism. English botanist and physician Nicholas Sherbet & Spice ends rather abruptly; `O rose, you are sweeter than sugar itself, Culpeper, writing in 1653, said: ‘Th at which following a comprehensive introduction, and more worthy of sugar… Now you have the Arabians call Lohocks, and the Greeks there are 28 chapters devoted to diff erent become gülbeşeker, food of the heart, light of Eclegma, the Latins call Linctus, and in types of sweet or dessert, ranging from the spirit…’ plain English signifi es nothing else but a musk lozenges to sherbet sugar, from Th ose may not be the sentences you thing to be licked up.’ Işın`s book is oozing syrup-soaked pastries to milk puddings would expect in a cook book about with quotations like this from the journals with historical references such as the use of Turkish sweets and desserts. But then or letters of past travellers, diplomats, artists sugared almonds as pebbles in sugar models Sherbet & Spice, the Complete Story of and chefs ranging from the Bavarian of gardens carried in the circumcision Turkish Sweets and Desserts, is not a cook confectioner Friedrich Unger, to the Turkish procession of Sultan Ahmed III`s sons in book at all but an excellent educational lexicographer Mahmud al-Kasghari, from Istanbul in 1720. However, I would have text, an amazing collection of stories, the English poet and historian Julia Pardoe expected an aft erword by Işın that would factual and anecdotal about the history of to the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta. conclude this brilliantly researched and confectionery. Th e author, food historian Işın writes that sweet foods were held in amusingly presented book which also Mary Işın, settled in Turkey forty years particularly high regard in Islamic culture, includes numerous coloured plates and ago and started research for her book in perhaps refl ecting the role of the Persians photographs illuminating the history and 1983. In her preface, she writes about how and Arabs in the expansion and spread of skills of the people involved. the more she read, the more she became sugar cane cultivation and sugar refi ning Turkish readers would know this book, fascinated with the lives of people in Turkey technology. ‘Th e Turks carried the spiritual published as Gülbeşeker in 2008 by YKY in in past centuries as mirrored in their food signifi cance of sugar and sweets to new Istanbul but the English version is certainly and culinary traditions. heights, naming the three- day festival diff erent with the inclusion of extra material Işın believes sweets and desserts are ending Ramazan the Şeker Bayram or and an emphasis on historical details which especially interesting in this respect because Sugar Feast’ says Işın. Since many sweets would interest non-Turkish readers. of the role they play on special occasions. As were originally used as medicines the fi rst Işın has included over ninety authentic I read the book, I recalled various customs confectioners in Europe were pharmacists historical recipes which she hopes recounted by my maternal grandmother or alchemists with one of the earliest books adventurous cooks will try. Well, I have not like the one described on the chapter on devoted to fruit preserve and sweetmeat had a go yet, but I certainly am tempted! Çevirme or Fondant, which is a sweetmeat recipes being a tract published by French also called lohuk: ‘In Ottoman times, pharmacist, physician and astrologer Nevsal Hughes is an author and journalist serving çevirme was part of the ceremony Nostredame. As Işın points out , judging (formerly of the BBC World Service) and is a of receiving guests. Bowls of çevirme were by the lists of purchases in the accounts member of the editorial board placed on a tray, together with spoons and registers, the confectionery kitchen at

24 The Middle East in London June-July 2013 RREVIEWS:EVIEWS: BOOKSBOOKS TThehe MMuslimuslim BBrotherhoodrotherhood

By Alison Pargeter

Saqi Books £9.89

Reviewed by Mohammad Nafi ssi

his book off ers a lucid account of cost of leaving the concepts of reformism, ascendancy is attributed to ‘years of the oldest and most far reaching modernity, tradition or other key notions experience and… organisational skills, TIslamist organisation in the world. such as ‘Western’ and ‘anti-Westernism’ as well as its trademark pragmatism, It is anchored in Egypt, the birthplace or ‘progressive’ to a common sense that the Brotherhood... moved skilfully to of the Muslim Brothers and the guiding is presumed to guide most readers. In a outmanoeuvre other players on the centre of its activities as an international study focused on the Muslim Brotherhood’s political scene’. movement set up to represent and renew internal political trajectory, to speak of anti- Th e book’s fi rst edition was published Islamfollowing the abolition of the Ottoman Westernism without distinguishing between in 2010 when it had Th e Burden of Caliphate, and the ascendancy of secularism the western imperialism that supports Tradition for its sub-title, and ended with in various modernist, nationalist or Israeli colonialism or Mubarak and Saudi a Brotherhood that ‘had become utterly communist guises. Moving deft ly from and regimes, and the ideas and institutions stagnated’ matching an ‘equally stagnated to Egypt, Pargeter follows the Brotherhood’s that make the West the only place where political landscape of the Middle East’ that rise as it expands to include Syria and the Brothers or their salafi st, jihadist and ‘is unlikely to change’. Th e problem then elsewhere in the Middle East and North modernist rivals could freely air their views, was not the failure to predict the impending Africa to the sub-continent, and Europe, may not be considered a major fl aw. But revolution. No one did, least of all the home to many of its one time leading lights. to designate the Brotherhood as reformist Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘leadership which Th roughout the book, the Brotherhood or reactionary without having a clear idea was cajoled to join it by grassroots and is described as a reformist movement of the object of reform or the changing political rivals.’ Th e problem was that vacillating between tradition and modernity, contexts that shape and favour particular some key elements of the Brotherhood’s at times approaching an inclusive notion reform agendas, bypasses the multi- weighty tradition, including Sunnism, of democracy, but oft en upholding and/ dimensional analysis needed to understand were hardly explored. or instrumentalising an unreformed sharia the movement’s elusive complexity. Th is edition’s conclusion underlines the that can, at best, only be accommodated According to the book’s fi rst two pages, blessings of the Brotherhood’s tradition(s) in a majoritarian and misogynistic world. ‘the Arab Spring… turned out to be a as ‘the authentic voice that can bring From organisational processes which triumph for the forces of reformist political Islam to the core of every aspect of life, subverted consultation by unaccountable Islam’. Aft er another paragraph, the Muslim including politics’. Th ese conclusions are fi at to pronouncements and practices that Brotherhood ‘broadly rejects the West and not necessarily inconsistent. But their condoned and condemned Jihadist violence, Western values, yet is increasingly anxious consistency should be demonstrated. this ambiguity has marked many aspects of to be seen in Western eyes as a moderate When this book reaches its third edition, the movement. All this is well captured by organisation that upholds progressive we should of course all be in a position to Pargeter, perhaps too well, in the sense that inclusive values’. A page later, it is stated judge whether the Brothers’ traditions were her book refl ects and suff ers from a series that it has been ‘since its beginning… a indeed the solution to Egypt’s (and the of ambiguities and unexamined largely reactionary movement, preoccupied region’s) immense challenges. assumptions that mirror the Muslim by issues of public morality and the Brotherhood’s own blindspots. preservation of traditional values’. And Mohammad Nafi ssi is a Research Associate Pargeter’s narrative fl uency comes at the two pages later, the Brotherhood’s current of LMEI

June-July 2013 The Middle East in London 25 RREVIEWS:EVIEWS: BOOKSBOOKS UUnfreenfree iinn PPalestine:alestine: RRegistration,egistration, DDocumentationocumentation aandnd MMovementovement RRestrictionestriction By Nadia Abu-Zahra and Adah Kay

Pluto Books (2013), £17.09

Reviewed by Lauren Banko

nfree in Palestine is an extensive of the Palestinian Arabs aft er the 1948 by the state of Israel, as the basis for either account of the entire system declaration of Israeli statehood, but this granting or denying identifi cation and Uof movement restriction and discussion lacks the crucial historical residency documents to Palestinian Arabs population registration and documentation background information that would make in Israel (and aft er 1967, the West Bank and of Palestinian Arabs within the armistice the argument of denationalisation clearer. Gaza). Th e central thesis is that identity lines that form Israel and in the occupied For instance, the authors do not explain documentation of the Palestinian Arabs territories. Th e background of its authors, what nationality the Palestinian Arabs lost ‘constructs, rather than refl ects, reality.’ For Nadia Abu-Zahra and Adah Kay, are between 1948 and 1952. As nationality example, the hawiyya (identity card that valuable assets to the structure of the book and statelessness are central components Palestinians must always carry) places its and its extensive research conclusions. of the book, it would be useful to better holder into created categories that do not Abu-Zahra researches in the sphere of understand that the Palestinian Arabs refl ect citizenship or nationality such as international development, including and Palestinian Jewish immigrants in present absentee resident of Israel, East human rights, and her work shows how mandate Palestine were alike as colonial Jerusalem resident, or West Bank resident. documentary identity systems are used citizens, but neither lost the nationality of Th e population register and system of by modern states over their populations. a sovereign nation-state aft er 1948. Th e identity cards allow the Israeli military to Adah Kay teaches at City University’s Cass citizenship held by Palestinians in the obstruct the movement of Arabs in Israel Business School in London and like her co- mandate period came only through order and in the occupied territories through author, has worked extensively on Palestine, of the British government in accordance an elaborate and high-functioning system including issues of education and the with the Treaty of Lausanne, but this was of surveillance, control, road networks, detention of children by the Israeli military. not a nationality. Jews oft en retained their checkpoints and the separation wall. Th is Th e book combines historical accounts birth nationality even once they immigrated system in turn impacts on how Palestinians with ethnographic research, using a wide to Palestine, whereas the Arabs lost their lose or must bargain for access health care, variety of primary sources and literature former Ottoman nationality to be replaced employment and education, and Abu-Zahra on the bureaucracy of occupation such with mandate citizenship. Th is citizenship and Kay show this poignantly through as oral testimonies, archived interviews off ered rights in a socio-communal sense oral testimony. with Israelis and Palestinian Arabs, only and so diff ered from an ethno-political Th e book is aimed more at a specialist reports of non-governmental and nationality. Th e latter was not lost aft er audience who has some background on development organisations, and documents 1948 because it never existed in Palestine. the history of Israeli control over its Arab from the Ottoman, British and Israeli Th e book is not organised strictly population and the occupied territories; administrations. chronologically and oft en switches focus however, it can certainly off er insights to Th e book is the fi rst to analyse the between time periods. Each chapter more general readers on the developments history of movement restriction, identity chronicles the development of specifi c of a system of population control by a cards, population registration and means of population control, starting with settler-colonial state. denationalisation. Its early chapters the Arab population registers compiled by describe the eff ects of the denationalisation Zionist offi cials before 1948 and continued Lauren Banko is a PhD student at SOAS

26 The Middle East in London June-July 2013 RREVIEWS:EVIEWS: BOOKSBOOKS ININ BRIEFBRIEF KKhatami’shatami’s IIran:ran: TThehe IIslamicslamic RRepublicepublic aandnd tthehe TTurbulenturbulent PPathath ttoo ReformReform By Ghoncheh Tazmini

Th is book off ers a close-up analysis of Mohammad Khatami the man and the reform movement that supported him. It provides a comprehensive introduction to the subtleties of contemporary Iran's complex political culture. At the same time it is a reference point for a critical period of Iran's post-revolutionary trajectory, especially given the controversial developments in the country aft er the re-election of President Ahmadinejad in 2009. With new presidential elections looming in 2013, and the importance of Iran once again becoming paramount, this book off ers analysis for all of those interested in the future of Iranian politics.

Feb 2013, IB Tauris, £10.49 AAshesshes ooff HHama:ama: TThehe PPerilouserilous HHistoryistory ooff SSyria’syria’s MMuslimuslim BBrotherhoodrotherhood

By Raphaël Lefèvre

Little has been published on militant Islam in Syria since Hafez Assad's regime destroyed the Islamist movement in its stronghold of Hama in February 1982. Th is book bridges that gap by providing readers with an account of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood's history to date. In this account of Syria's most prominent, yet highly secretive, Islamist organisation, the author draws on the memoirs of former Syrian jihadists; British and American archives; and also a series of interviews with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood's historical leaders as well as those who battled against them - many speaking on the record for the fi rst time.

Apr 2013, Hurst, £30 AAfterfter Zionism:Zionism: OOnene SStatetate forfor IIsraelsrael aandnd PPalestinealestine

Edited by Antony Loewenstein & Ahmed Moor

Aft er Zionism brings together some of the world’s leading thinkers on the Middle East question to dissect the confl ict between Zionism and the Palestinians, and to explore possible forms of a one-state solution. Time has run out for the two-state solution because of the unending and permanent Jewish colonisation of Palestinian land. Although mistrust exists on both sides of the confl ict, growing numbers of Palestinians and Israelis, Jews and Arabs are working together to forge a unifi ed future. Th is collection includes essays by Omar Barghouti, Jonathan Cook, Joseph Dana, Jeremiah Haber, Jeff Halper, Ghada Karmi, Saree Makdisi, John Mearsheimer, Ilan Pappe, Sara Roy and Phil Weiss.

Mar 2013, Saqi Books, £8.99

June-July 2013 The Middle East in London 27 RREVIEWS:EVIEWS: BOOKSBOOKS ININ BRIEFBRIEF TThehe YYoungoung AAtaturk:taturk: FFromrom OttomanOttoman SoldierSoldier toto StatesmanStatesman ofof TurkeyTurkey By George W. Gawrych

Mustafa Kemal - latterly and better known as Atatürk - is a towering fi gure of modern Turkish history. But what was his path to power? Th e Young Atatürk tracks the lesser covered period of Kemal's life - from the War of Independence to the founding of the Republic - and shows that it is only by understanding Kemal's military career that one can comprehend how he evolved as one of the twentieth century’s most extraordinary statesmen. Delving into Kemal's military writings, orders, and political decisions, speeches, proclamations and private correspondences, this book provides a rounded portrait of the making of a major statesman.

Feb 2013, IB Tauris, £21.46 DDestroyingestroying LLibyaibya aandnd WWorldorld OOrder:rder: TThehe TThree-Decadehree-Decade UU.S.S CCampaignampaign ttoo TTerminateerminate tthehe QQaddaaddafi RevolutionRevolution By Francis A Boyle Francis Boyle provides a history and critique of American foreign policy toward Libya from when the Reagan administration came to power in January of 1981 up to the 2011 NATO war on Libya. He sets the record straight on the series of military confl icts and crises between the United States and Libya, exposing the Reagan administration’s fraudulent claims of Libyan instigation of international terrorism. Th is book is not only a classic case study of the conduct of US foreign policy as it relates to international law, but a damning indictment of the newly-contrived R2P doctrine as legal cover for Western intervention into third world countries.

Mar 2013, Clarity Press, £11.23 RRevolutionaryevolutionary IIran:ran: A HistoryHistory ooff tthehe IIslamicslamic RRepublicepublic

By Michael Axworthy

Ayatollah Khomeini's return to Tehran in February 1979 was a key moment in post-War international politics. A large, well-populated and wealthy state suddenly committed itself to a new path: a revolution based on the supremacy of Islam and contempt for both superpowers. For over 30 years the Islamic Republic has resisted widespread condemnation, sanctions, and sustained attacks by Iraq in an eight-year war. Many policy-makers today share a weary wish that Iran would somehow just disappear as a problem. But with Iran's continuing commitment to a nuclear programme and its reputation as a trouble-maker in Afghanistan, Lebanon and elsewhere, this is unlikely any time soon.

Mar 2013, Allen Lane, £16

28 The Middle East in London June-July 2013 LISTINGS EEventsvents iinn LLondonondon

Masih Alinejad. Admission free - Pre-registration is required. Brunei Gallery Lecture Th eatre, SOAS. E [email protected]

7:30 pm | Kayhan Kalhor & Brooklyn Rider (Concert) Organised by: Th e Barbican. Four- time Grammy Award nominated Iranian kamancheh maestro Kayhan Kalhor and the New York- based string quartet Brooklyn Rider. Tickets: £12.50-£25. Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS. T 020 7638 8891 W www. barbican.org.uk

8:30 pm | Maz Jobrani (Performance) Iranian-American comedian Maz Jobrani is back in London for a one-night show Jumana Manna, from Imagined Cities (work in progress). Young Artist of the Year Award 2012 following on from his tours Axis (See Exhibitions, page 38) of Evil, Brown and Friendly and I Come In Peace! Tickets: See contact details below. Cadogan Hall, 5 HE EVENTS and Square, London WC1H 0XG (Talk) Organised by: Southbank Sloane Terrace, SW1X 9DQ. W organisations listed LSE – London School of Economics Centre. Part of London Lit Festival www.kweekweek.com/activities/ Tbelow are not necessarily and Political Science, Houghton 13. In his new book Antifragile: maz-jobrani-at-the-cadogan-hall endorsed or supported by The Street, London WC2 2AE How to Live in a World We Don't Middle East in London. The Understand, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Monday 3 June accompanying texts and images the Lebanese American essayist and are based primarily on information JUNE EVENTS scholar, develops his thinking to 6:00 pm | Th e Utopian Temple Plan provided by the organisers and do create a manifesto for how we might of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Lecture) not necessarily reflect the views actually benefi t from the shocks and Lawrence H Schiff man, Yeshiva of the compilers or publishers. Saturday 1 June chaos that rule our lives. Tickets: University, New York. Organised by: While every possible effort is £10/conc. 50% off . Purcell Room, Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society made to ascertain the accuracy of 11:00 am & 3:00 pm | Sufi Daf Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, and the Institute of Archaeology, these listings, readers are advised Workshops Organised by: Khaled London SE1 8XX. T 020 7960 4200 UCL. Lecture following the Society's to seek confirmation of all events Hakim. Every Saturday. An W www.southbankcentre.co.uk AGM at 5:15pm. Admission free. using the contact details provided opportunity for beginners and Lecture Th eatre G6, Institute of for each event. improvers to learn the classic Sufi 2:00 pm | A Review of the Archaeology, UCL, 31-34 Gordon Submitting entries and updates: rhythms played in the Middle East. Performance of the Feminist Square, London WC1H OPY. T 020 please send all updates and Framedrums will be provided Movement in Iran aft er the 8349 5754 W www.aias.org.uk submissions for entries related at the venues. Tickets: £10/£5 Revolution of 1979 (Conference) to future events via e-mail to conc. Morning: Th e Music Room, Organised by: Centre for Supporters 6:30 pm | Iran's New [email protected] 203 Preston Road, Wembley & of Human Rights. Keynote Speaker: Intellectualism: Trends in Aft ernoon: Gloucester Road, Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize Contemporary Conscious Music BM – British Museum, Great Chelsea. T 07821 184696 W www. Laureate 2003. Participants include: (Talk) Malihe Maghazei, LSE. Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG silkroads.co.uk Ziba Mir-Hosseini; Mahnaz Organised by: LSE Middle East SOAS –SOAS, University of Parakand; Asieh Amini; Mansoureh Centre. Dr Maghazei will discuss London, Th ornhaugh Street, Russell 1:00 pm | Nassim Nicholas Taleb Shojaei; Khadijeh Moghadam; the formation of a multi-genre

June-July 2013 The Middle East in London 29 conscious music in Iran in recent of Jewish and Muslim musicians by: London Middle East Institute, (Lecture) Kathryn Spellman, AKU- years. Chaired by Laudan Nooshin, returns to the Barbican. Tickets: SOAS. A Response by Poets, ISMC. Organised by: Institute for the Centre for Music Studies, City £17.50-£25. Barbican Centre, Silk Artists, and Writers to the March Study of Muslim Civilisations, Th e University London. Admission free. Street, London EC2Y 8DS. T 020 5, 2007 Bombing of Baghdad's Aga Khan University (International) Alumni Th eatre, New Academic 7638 8891 W www.barbican.org.uk "Street of the Booksellers." A talk, in the United Kingdom (AKU- Building, LSE. T 020 7955 6250 reading, and slide show of work ISMC). Admission free. Room 2.3, E [email protected] W Tuesday 4 June from this international project by Level 2, AKU-ISMC, 210 Euston www2.lse.ac.uk/middleeastcentre its founder Beau Beausoleil. Beau Road, London NW1 2DA. T 020 7:00 pm | Screening: El Gusto Beausoleil is a Poet and Bookseller 7380 3865 E Anne.Czambor@aku. 7:00pm | Sneak Preview BBC (Documentary) Organised by: in San Francisco, California, he is edu W www.aku.edu Persian Screening: Ahmadinejad Th e Frontline Club. Chaabi music the author of 10 books of poetry, - Th e Populist and the Pariah used to be the heart and soul of the latest being Ways To Reach Th ursday 6 June (Documentary) Organised by: Algiers, uniting Muslim and Jewish Th e Open Boat, published by BBC Persian Service. A look at the traditions. By the start of the Barley Books in the UK in 2012. 4:00 pm | Th e Nabataean Palace rise of Ahmadinejad and how this Algerian War of Independence in Chaired by Nadje Al-Ali, Centre for Structures on Umm Al-Biyara, provincial politician with a PhD 1954 the two communities were no Gender Studies, SOAS & London Petra (Lecture) Piotr Bienkowski, in traffi c management became a longer allowed to work together but Middle East Institute, SOAS. University of Manchester. Organised personality to be reckoned with. half a century later they got together Admission free. Khalili Lecture by: Palestine Exploration Fund Followed by a panel discussion. again for an extraordinary concert Th eatre, SOAS. E [email protected] (PEF) and the BM. Iain Browning Tickets: £10/£8 conc. Th e Frontline and the start of a new musical career. W www.economist.com/blogs/ Memorial Lecture following the Club, 13 Norfolk Place, London Followed by a Q&A with director prospero/2012/12/al-mutanabbi- PEF's AGM. Professor Bienkowski W2 1QJ. T 020 7479 8940 W www. Safi nez Bousbia. Tickets: £10/£8 street-starts-here / www.soas.ac.uk/ will talk about the latest results frontlineclub.com conc. Th e Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk lmei/events/ from his on-going excavations on Place, London W2 1QJ. T 020 7479 the mountain of Umm al-Biyara in 8:00 pm | El Gusto Orchestra of 8940 W www.frontlineclub.com Wednesday 5 June Petra, long known to be an Edomite Algiers (Concert) Organised by: centre, but now revealing palatial Th e Barbican. Separated by history 7:00 pm | Al-Mutanabbi Street 1:00 pm | Manifestations of Ashura remains from the Nabataean period. for fi ft y years, the 25-piece orchestra Starts Here - London Organised among Young Shias in Britain Admission free. Stevenson Lecture

NEW THE CYRUS CYLINDER The Great Persian Edict from Babylon

EDITED BY IRVING FINKEL

‘a very significant addition to existing studies of this iconic object, which only seems to grow in stature with the passage of time.’ – David Stronach, OBE, Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Archaeology, University of California, Berkeley

160 pages 193 x 257mm Hardback 9781780760636 £25.00 www.ibtauris.com 30 The Middle East in London June-July 2013 Th eatre, Clore Education Centre, - Saturday 8 June) See listing on BM. T 020 7935 5379 E execsec@ Friday 7 June for more information. pef.org.uk W www.pef.org.uk 12:30 pm | When Sleeping Women 8:00 pm | Asaf Avidan (Concert) Wake, Mountains Move (Various) Organised by: Th e Barbican. Israeli Organised by: Justice for Iran. singer-songwriter Asaf in London Keynote Speaker: Ahmed Shaheed, as part of his European tour. Tickets: UN Special Rapporteur on the £22.50. Union Chapel, Compton situation of human rights in the Avenue, London N1 2XD. T 020 Islamic Republic of Iran. Tickets: 7226 1686 W www.barbican.org.uk See contact details below. Tuke / www.unionchapel.org.uk Hall, Regent's College Inner Circle Regent's Park, NW1 4NS. E info@ Friday 7 June justiceforiran.org W www.facebook. com/events/444753218950528/ 9:30 am | Global Futures Forum 2013: 10 Years On: Art and 7:30 pm | Rastak (Concert) Everyday Life in Iraq and Iran Organised by: Th e Barbican. Th e (Two-Day Forum: Friday 7 June music ensemble for contemporary - Saturday 8 June) Organised by: Iranian folk, singing in a number Ibraaz and the Winchester Centre of Iranian ethnic languages, for Global Futures in Art and dialects and accents. Tickets: £15- Design. Panel discussions, keynote £45. Barbican Centre, Silk Street, speeches and performances will London EC2Y 8DS. T 020 7638 explore issue about civil society, 8891 W www.barbican.org.uk culture and everyday life in Iraq and Iran. Speakers include journalist Sunday 9 June Rageh Omar, artist Wafaa Bilal and academic Jonathan Harris. Tickets: 1:00 pm | Karim Said (Concert) See contact details below. Th e Organised by: Southbank Centre. Mosaic Rooms, Tower House, 226 Karim Said's, the young Jordanian- Cromwell Road, London SW5 0SW. born pianist and protégé of Daniel E [email protected] W Barenboim, fi nal recital in his trio www.soton.ac.uk / www.ibraaz.org of concerts tracing the progress th of piano music through the 20 Tarek Al-Ghoussein, Untitled 10 (Self Portrait Series), 2002 - 2005 Archival 6:30 pm | Iranian Election 2013: century. Tickets: £12/£10/conc. Matte Digital Print, 107 x 80 cm framed. From Palestine with Hope questions of cultural identity 50% off . Purcell Room, Southbank (See Exhibitions, page 38) (Panel Discussion) Organised by: Centre, Belvedere Road, London BM. On the eve of the Iranian SE1 8XX. T 020 7960 4200 W www. 7:00 pm | Constructing the issues of the day. Th e author will be Presidential election, this panel southbankcentre.co.uk Imperial Image: Fath 'Ali Shah’s discussing media reporting on the discussion chaired by Ali Ansari Portraits and Early Qajar Politics Palestine-Israel confl ict with former will consider Iran’s unique cultural (Lecture) Francesca Leoni, BBC Middle East Correspondent, traditions, contemporary artistic Wednesday 12 June Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Tim Llewellyn and foreign leader concerns, and wider events in the Organised by: Islamic Art Circle writer for the Guardian, David Middle East since 2009. Th is event 4:00 pm | Reopening Turkey’s at SOAS. Part of the Islamic Art Hearst. Tickets: £12.50/£10 conc. is part of Behind the headlines, a Kurdish Opening (Talk) Michael Circle at SOAS Lecture Programme. Th e Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk series of occasional events at the Gunter, Tennessee Tech University. Chaired by Doris Behrens-Abouseif, Place, London W2 1QJ. T 020 7479 British Museum exploring the Organised by: LSE Middle East SOAS. Admission free. Khalili 8940 W www.frontlineclub.com cultural context behind news stories Centre. Professor Gunter will talk Lecture Th eatre, SOAS. T 0771 408 from across the world. Tickets: about how recent events off er hope 7480 E [email protected] Th ursday 13 June £5/£3 Members/Conc. – Pre- that the time to renew the dialogue W www.soas.ac.uk/art/islac/ registration required. BP Lecture and resume direct negotiations 6:00 pm | Cultural Heritage in Th eatre, BM. T 020 7323 8181 W between the Turkish government 7:00pm | Critiquing the media’s Wartime: the Work of the Blue www.britishmuseum.org and the PKK may have arrived. approach to the Israel-Palestine Sheild (Lecture) Organised by: Discussant: Zeynep Kaya, London confl ict (Book Launch) Organised Centre for Hellenic Studies & Centre for Social Studies & LSE. by: Middle East Monitor (MEMO). the Department of War Studies, Saturday 8 June Chaired by Robert Lowe, LSE. Event to mark the publication of King's College London. Karl von Admission free. 32L.G.03, 32 Memo to the Editor, a compilation Hapsburg, Austrian National Blue 9:30 am | Global Futures Forum Lincoln's Inn Fields, LSE. T 020 of letters authored by Ibrahim Shield Committee & Association 2013: 10 Years On: Art and 7955 6250 E r.sleiman-haidar@ Hewitt, the Middle East Monitor’s of Committees of the Blue Shield. Everyday Life in Iraq and Iran lse.ac.uk W www2.lse.ac.uk/ senior editor, and addressed to the In 2011 von Hapsburg visited (Two-Day Forum: Friday 7 June middleeastcentre editors of major newspapers on Libya, to inspect war damage,

June-July 2013 The Middle East in London 31 Department of the Languages and Cultures of the Near and Middle East

Ivory Trade and Exchange in Late AnƟ quity and Early Islam

Veroli casket, ConstanƟ nople, second half of 10th century, Wood overlaid with carved ivory and bone plaques with traces of polychrome and gilding, London, Victoria & Albert Museum (inv. 216-1865) Colloquium Part of the Leverhulme research project: Bridging Religious Diī erence in a MulƟ cultural Eastern Mediterranean 18 and 19 June 2013 Society: CommuniƟ es of ArƟ sans and their Commercial Networks in Egypt from The Warburg InsƟ tute JusƟ nian to the ‘Abbasids (6th-10th centuries) Woburn Square London WC1H 0AB Convened by: Hugh Kennedy and Myriam Wissa Admission (both days): £30/£15 Students

Enquiries & Pre-registraƟ on: Organised with the support of the Tel. 020 7898 4490 E-mail: [email protected] London Middle East InsƟ tute at SOAS and The Warburg InsƟ tute Website: www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/events/

Held in associaƟ on with The Leverhulme Trust

32 The Middle East in London June-July 2013 accompanied by Hafed Walda of relatively organised oil labor Edinburgh. Organised by: Th e sites dating to 10,000–7000 BC in the Centre for Hellenic Studies. In movement, whose general strike in Iran Society. Lecture following the the Central Zagros region covering this talk he will present the work of the fall of 1978 fi nally tipped the Society's AGM (AGM at 6:00pm). both western Iran and eastern Blue Shield, both in Libya and more balance against the Monarchy in Admission free for members + Iraq and will highlight the value generally. Admission free - Pre- the 1979 Iranian revolution, was one guest. See website below for of multi-disciplinary approaches registration required. K2.31 (JKTL gradually transformed into today's dresscode. Marlborough Rooms, in interpreting the transition from Nash Lecture Th eatre): Strand disorganised movement with Army & Navy Club, 36-39 Pall Mall, hunter-forager to farmer-herder. Campus, King's College London, little collective bargaining power? London SW1Y 5JN. T 020 7235 Admission free - Pre-registration Strand, London WC2R 2LS. T Chaired by Hassan Hakimian, 5122 E [email protected] W advised. BP Lecture Th eatre, 020 7848 2343 E [email protected] W London Middle East Institute & www.iransociety.org BM. T 020 7323 8315 E asmith@ www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/chs/ SOAS. Admission free. Khalili thebritishmuseum.ac.uk W www. eventrecords/2012-13/blueshield. Lecture Th eatre, SOAS. T 020 7898 5:30 pm | Cultural Wars and Dual britishmuseum.org aspx 4330 E [email protected] W www. Society in Iran (Lecture) Houchang soas.ac.uk/lmei-cis/events/ Esfandiar Chehabi, Boston Saturday 22 June Tuesday 18 June University. Organised by: Th e 7:30 pm | Th e Comedy Of Oedipus British Institute of Persian Studies 10:30 am | Ottoman Pasts, Present 10:00 am | Ivory Trade and (Play) Until Saturday 13 July. What (BIPS). BIPS Summer Lecture. Cities: Cosmopolitanism and Exchange in Late Antiquity and if Oedipus lived in Ancient Egypt, Admission free. British Academy, Transcultural Memories Sahar Early Islam (Two-Day Colloquium: killed the Sphinx, and became a 10 Carlton House Terrace, London Hamouda, University of Alexandria, Tuesday 18 - Wednesday 19 June) personality cult - his face on teh SW1Y 5AH. E [email protected] W Egypt, Alexandria Center for Organised by: Department of the cover of Time, Oedipus dolls in www.bips.ac.uk Hellenistic Studies, & Alexandria Languages and Cultures of the Near shops and non-stop coverage on and Mediterranean Research Center and Middle East, SOAS with the every TV and radio station? Ali Th ursday 20 June at the Biblioteca Alexandrina; London Middle East Institute, SOAS Salem's 1970 satire captures the Gabriel Koureas, Birkbeck College. and Th e Warburg Institute. Held in absurdities and incongruities of 6:00 pm | Mudhifs in the Marshes: Discussant: Jay Prosser, University association with Th e Leverhulme mass communication. Tickets: Preserving Cultural Identity of Leeds. Organised by: University Trust. In recent years Andalusian See contact details below. Lion & (Lecture) Organised by: Th e British of Westminster & Institute of and Siculo-Arabic ivory carving has Unicorn Th eatre, 42-44 Gaisford Institute for the Study of Iraq Germanic & Romance Studies. received a huge amount of attention, Street, London NW5 2ED. W http:// (Gertrude Bell Memorial).Th e travel Tickets: See contact details below. this conference will aim to go www.seetickets.com/tour/the- writer and fi lm maker, Mike Laird Room 246, Institute of Germanic beyond the narrow confi nes of art comedy-of-oedipus delivers the 31st Bonham Carter & Romance Studies, Senate House, history and archaeology, focusing Lecture for the BISI. Admission Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HU. on the history of trade and exchange, Wednesday 19 June free - Pre-registration required.Th e E [email protected] W socio-political and diplomatic British Academy, 10 Carlton House http://ottomancosmopolitanism. relations in Late Antiquity and early 10:00 am | Ivory Trade and Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AH. T wordpress.com/ Islam, whilst combining carving Exchange in Late Antiquity and 020 7969 5274 E [email protected] and the transmission of techniques. Early Islam (Two-Day Colloquium: W www.bisi.ac.uk 7:30 pm | Shubbak Festival Convened by Myriam Wissa, Tuesday 18 - Wednesday 19 June) Opening Night: Rachid Taha & SOAS and Hugh Kennedy, SOAS. See listing on Tuesday 18 June for 7:00 pm | Reza Ghassemi - A Souad Massi (Concert) Th e city’s Tickets: £30/£15 students (includes more information. documentary by Mohammad Abdi celebration of contemporary Arab coff ee/tea and a reception) - Pre- Organised by: Centre for Iranian art and culture opens with a double registration online required. Th e 6:45 pm | Contemporary Lebanese Studies, SOAS. Documentary on bill bringing together Algeria’s Warburg Institute, University of Literature (Reading) Wen-Chin the Iranian author, Reza Ghassemi. Rachid Taha and Souad Massi. London, School of Advanced Study; Ouyang, SOAS. Organised by: Followed by Q&A with the director. Th e Shubbak Festival provides an Woburn Square, London WC1H Centre for Cultural, Literary and Film and Q&A in Persian. Tickets: opportunity to discover the wealth 0AB. T 020 7898 4330/4490 E vp6@ Postcolonial Studies (CCLPS), £7 on the door. Khalili Th eatre, of creativity of Arab artists, and soas.ac.uk W www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/ SOAS and P21 Gallery. Part of SOAS. T 020 7898 4330 E vp6@ to celebrate London’s Arab artists events/ the CCLPS and P21 Gallery soas.ac.uk W www.soas.ac.uk/lmei- with a wider public. Th e Festival Reading Group Th e Word and the cis/events/ will off er nine exhibitions and over 6:00 pm | Th e Political Agency World: Literatures, Cultures and fi ft y individual events, including of the Oil Labor in the Post- Histories of the Islamicate World. Friday 21 June theatre, dance, music, architecture, revolutionary Iran (Seminar) Convened by Karima Laachir and fashion, fi lm, literature, talks and Mohammad Maljoo, Centre for AbdoolKarim Vakil. Admission 6:00 pm | Early steps towards guided tours. For the full Festival Iranian Studies, SOAS. Organised free - Pre-registration required. P21 farming in the Zagros Mountains of programme W www.shubbak. by: Centre for Iranian Studies, Gallery, 21 Chalton Street, NW1 Iran and Iraq: new archaeological co.uk Tickets: £15–£22.50. Barbican SOAS. Talk by Mohammad Maljoo, 1JD. T 020 7121 6190 E info@p21. investigations (Lecture) Roger Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y Iran Heritage Foundation (IHF) org.uk W Matthews, University of Reading. 8DS. T 020 7638 8891 W www. Visiting Fellow at the Centre Organised by: BM. Vladimir G barbican.org.uk for Iranian Studies, SOAS on 7:00 pm | Th e world as the Lukonin Memorial Lecture 2013. the Iranian oil labor movement. Mongols saw it: the evidence of Matthews presents the latest results 7:30 pm | Planet Egypt Live Music What were the post-revolutionary the Edinburgh al-Biruni paintings from ongoing fi eldwork, surveys Party With Josephine Wise, one mechanisms through which the (Lecture) Robert Hillenbrand, and scientifi c analyses at Neolithic of the UK 's leading exponents

June-July 2013 The Middle East in London 33 of Egyptian dance. Tickets: £20. Development and the Department of the Arab world and remains one Drivers and Dynamics (Th ree- Th e Silk Bar and Restaurant 7 of Government Comparative of Tunisia's best-loved musicians. Day Conference: Monday 17 - Pratt Street, London NW1 0AE. E Politics and Political Th eory Groups, Claire Belhassine was in her 20s Wednesday 19 June) Organised by: [email protected] W www. LSE. Professor Shapiro discusses the when she discovered that Jouini was Centre for Syrian Studies, University planetegypt.co.uk theory of democratic transitions her grandfather. Th is fi lm charts of St Andrews. Th e Centre's 2nd form the perspective of recent Claire's journey as she unravels Postgraduate Conference on Monday 24 June successes, failures, and inconclusive her grandfather's legacy within Syria. Tickets: See contact details results in Africa and the Middle East. Tunisian popular culture and the below. University of St Andrews, 10:00 am | Middle Eastern Chaired by Mayling Birney, LSE. divisive eff ects his success had on St Andrews KY16 9AX. T 01334 Contemporary Art Auction at Th e Admission free. Graham Wallas her own family. Followed by a Q&A 462861 E [email protected] Auction Room (Sale) Organised Room, 5th Floor, Old Building, LSE. session with Claire Belhassine. W www.st-andrews.ac.uk/intrel/ by: Th e Auction Room. Auction T 020 7955 7455 E m.e.birney@lse. Tickets: Addmission free – Booking css/ featuring contemporary Middle ac.uk W www2.lse.ac.uk required. Stevenson Lecture Eastern art (see Exhibitions for Th eatre, BM. T 020 7323 8181 W Monday 24 June more information) Admission free. Saturday 29 June www.britishmuseum.org Gazelli Art House, 39 Dover Street, 9:00 am | BRISMES Annual London W1S 4NN. T 0207 499 4406 12:00 pm | Curator’s Talk: Yazan 14:00 pm | On Preservation and Conference 2013: Popular E georgia.spray@theauctionroom. Khalili (Talk) Organised by: Th e Nostalgia in Architecture (Panel Movements in the Middle East com W www.theauctionroom.com Mosaic Rooms. Curator of the Discussion) A discussison on and Islamic World (Th ree- Young Artist of the Year Award the approaches taken towards Day Conference: Monday 24 – 6:00 pm | A Celebration of 2012 exhibition discusses the architectural conservation in the Wednesday 26 June) Organised Professor Geza Fehervari's Life works on show (see Exhibitions). historical areas of Bahrain and by: British Society for Middle an Evening of Remembrance Admission free. Th e Mosaic the challenges of introducing Eastern Studies (BRISMES).Th is Organised by: Professor Doris Rooms, A M Qattan Foundation, contemporary architecture within year's conference will focus on the Behrens-Abouseif in association Tower House, 226 Cromwell Road, this urban context. Th e panel challenges posed for analysis both with his family, Professor Nasser London SW5 0SW. T 020 7370 9990 includes Sh. Mai Al Khalifa, by the emergence of new popular David Khalili amd Mr Richard E [email protected] W www. Minister of Culture, Bahrain. movements and by the resurgence De Unger. Th e evening will begin mosaicrooms.org Tickets: £5/£3 Members/Conc. of more traditional ones such with reminiscences and tributes – Booking required. Stevenson as religious organisations, tribal by former colleagues, friends and 2:15 pm | Contemporary artistic Lecture Th eatre, BM. T 020 7323 groupings, and trade unions across students followed by a reception. practice: responses to Middle 8181 W www.britishmuseum.org the region. Tickets: E brismes2013@ Admission free – Booking required. Eastern traditions (Talk) Organised keynotepco.ie. University College KLT, SOAS. E rosalindhaddon@ by: BM. Singer and composer Dublin. T 0191 33 45179 E gmail.com Merit Ariane Stephanos refl ects EVENTS OUTSIDE [email protected] W www. on her research into the musical LONDON brismes.ac.uk Wednesday 26 June heritage of Syriac and Byzantine traditions in Lebanon and fashion 5:00 pm | Th e Struggle for the 7:00 pm | Iran aft er Ahmadinejad designer Omarivs Ioseph Filivs Monday 17 June Post-Qadhafi Future: Islamists, (Panel Discussion) Organised by: Dinæ explores dressmaking Militias, and Foreign Powers Th e Frontline Club in association techniques from Palestine. Tickets: 7:00 pm | Th e Syrian Uprising: (Panel Discussion) Ambassador with BBC Persian Service. Following £5/£3 Members/Conc. – Booking the presidential election in Iran, a required. Stevenson Lecture panel of experts will deliberate the Th eatre, BM. T 020 7323 8181 W Critiquing the media's approach to the Israel-Palestine confl ict, (See June Events, page 31) results and what they mean for the www.britishmuseum.org future of the country. along with an in-depth look at Iran’s new president, 7:30 pm | Marcel Khalife and the exploring his affi liations and policies Al-Mayadeen Ensemble (Concert) at home and internationally. Tickets: Organised by: Th e Barbican in £12.50/£10 conc. Th e Frontline association with the Palestine Film Club, 13 Norfolk Place, London Foundation. Lebanese oud master, W2 1QJ. T 020 7479 8940 W www. Marcel Khalife and his orchestra frontlineclub.com inspired by Palestine’s beloved late poet, Mahmoud Darwish. Tickets: Th ursday 27 June £12.50-£25. Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS. T 020 2:00 pm | Luck, Leadership, 7638 8891 W www.barbican.org.uk and Legitimacy in Transitions to Democracy: Lessons from Sunday 30 June South Africa and the Middle East (Seminar) Ian Shapiro, 11:00 am | Papa Hedi Yale University. Organised by: (Documentary) Hedi Jouini has Department of International been described as the Frank Sinatra

34 The Middle East in London June-July 2013 Middle EastMiddle East Summer SchoolSummer School 24 June – 26 July 201324 June – 26 July 2013

An intensive five-week programme which includes two courses: an Arabic Language Course (introductory or intermediate) and another on ‘Government and Politics of the Middle East.

Arabic 100 Government and Politics of the Middle East This is an introductory course in Modern Standard Arabic. It teaches students the Arabic script and This course serves as an introduction to the politics provides basic grounding in Arabic grammar and of North Africa (The Maghreb), the Arab East (The syntax. On completing the course, students should Mashriq) including the Gulf, the Arabian Peninsula, be able to read, write, listen to and understand simple Israel, Turkey and Iran. It gives, on a country by Arabic sentences and passages. This course is for country basis, an overview of the major political complete beginners and does not require any prior issues and developments in the region since the knowledge or study of Arabic. end of the First World War and addresses key themes in the study of contemporary Middle East politics, Arabic 200 including: the role of the military, social and economic development, political Islam, and the recent uprisings (the ‘Arab Spring’). This course focuses on reading, writing and grammar and provides training in listening. The course will also Its main aim is to develop the students’ understanding introduce modern media Arabic to prepare students to of the major trends in Middle Eastern politics and read newspapers, magazines and internet news sources their skills of political analysis through critical reading, published in the Arab world today. On completing the lectures, presentations and informed discussion. course, students should be able to read and understand texts of an intermediate level, compose short texts in Arabic on a variety of topics and be able to follow oral communication in Arabic. Students will also be trained in the basic skills necessary to read and understand Arabic news media with the aid of a dictionary.

This is an intermediate course. To qualify for entry into this course, students should have already completed at least one introductory course in Arabic.

FEES Session (5 weeks) Programme fee* Accommodation fee** 24 June–26 July 2013 (two courses) £2,500 from £300/week

* Early bird discounts of 10% apply to course fees before 1 March 2013.

*** Early Accommodation bird discounts of fees 10% must have beenbe paid extended by 1 March to course 2013 fees to beforesecure 15 accommodation. May 2013. Please check our website from mid-October 2012 for confi rmed prices.

For more information, please contact Louise Hosking on [email protected]. Or check our website www.soas.ac.uk/lmei June-July 2013 The Middle East in London 35 MA MEDIA AND THE MIDDLE EAST

The MA Media and the Middle East is the first degree in the UK to critically examine the role of communication, in its different forms, in contemporary political, cultural and social change in the Middle East. Avoiding an exclusively media-centric approach, it explores diverse historical and social perspectives on the region and encourages new ways of understanding the relationship between communicative processes, politics and culture that move beyond Eurocentric debates and approaches. CENTRE FOR MEDIA AND FILM STUDIES The Centre for Media and Film Studies is one of the few centres in the world which specializes in the study of non-Western media and film.

• MA Global Media and Postnational Communication • MA Critical Media and Cultural Studies • MA Media in Development • MA Media and the Middle East • MPhil/PhD in Media and Film Studies

To find out contact more: Dr Dina Matar, Chair, Centre for Media and Film Studies T: +44 (0)20 7898 4696 E: [email protected] W: http://www.soas.ac.uk/mediaandfilm/ : www.facebook.com/pages/Centre-for-Media-and-Film-Studies- SOAS/165851596722 Student Recruitment team T: +44 (0)20 7898 4034 E: [email protected]

36 The Middle East in London June-July 2013 Richard Northern, UK Ambassador undertaken to look at dress in also attend to cultural diasporas BM. T 020 7323 8181 E egyptian@ to Libya at the start of the 2011 Saudi Arabia, using a unique three- and their problematisation of britishmuseum.org W www. Uprisings; Jason Pack, Cambridge pronged approach combining art historical conceptions of place, and britishmuseum.org University & President of Libya history with ethnographic fi eld work what position the diaspora plays Analysis.com; Noman BenOtman, and Western travellers’ written and in defi ning contemporary Middle Friday 12 July Quilliam Foundation and former photographic archives to document Eastern culture. Convened by: leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting and discuss how people have used Hamid Keshmirshekan, Oxford 10:00 am | Nubia in the New Group. Organised by: Centre of the infl uence of global cultures in University. Tickets: £30/£10 students Kingdom: Lived experience, Islamic Studies, Cambridge, the their dress styles and materials. and conc. - Pre-registration online pharaonic control and indigenous World History Seminar and the Admission free. Arab-British required. Brunei Gallery Lecture traditions. (Two-Day Colloquium: Middle East Group. A discussion Chamber of Commerce, 43 Upper Th eatre, SOAS. T 020 7898 4330 E Th ursday 11 - Friday 12 July) See on contemporary Libyan politics Grosvenor Street, London W1K [email protected] / [email protected] W listing for Th ursday 11 July for more and history with three contributors 2NJ. E [email protected] www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/events/ information. to Th e 2011 Libyan Uprisings W www.saudibritishsociety.org.uk/ and Struggle for the Post-Qadhafi Saturday 6 July Future (2013, Palgrave Macmillan). Th ursday 4 July EVENTS OUTSIDE Admission free. Ramsden Room, St 9:00 am | Regional vis-à-vis Global LONDON Catherine's College, Trumpington 7:00 pm | Round Trip (Film) Discourses: Contemporary Art Street, Cambridge CB2 1RL. T Organised by:Th e Arab British from the Middle East (Two-Day 01223 335103 E [email protected] Centre in partnership with Conference: 5 - 6 July) See listing on 09:00 am | Th e Mandaeans W www.cis.cam.ac.uk the Dubai International Film Friday 5 July for more information. (Th ree-Day Conference: Monday Festival. For Walid, a taxi driver in 8 - Wednesday 10 July) Organised Damascus, the only place he can Th ursday 11 July by: ARAM Society for Syro- JULY EVENTS steal a private kiss with his love, Mesopotamian Studies.Tickets: See Suhair, is in his car. When Suhair is 10:00 am | Nubia in the New contact details below. Th e Oriental invited by her friend to visit Tehran, Kingdom: Lived experience, Institute, University of Oxford, Monday 1 July she and Walid together board a pharaonic control and indigenous Pusey Lane, Oxford OX12. T 01865 train from the Syrian capital to traditions (Two-Day Colloquium: 514 041 E [email protected] W 7:30 pm | Th e Comedy Of Oedipus Tehran where they fi nally have an Th ursday 11 - Friday 12 July) www.aramsociety.org (Play) Until Saturday 13 July. See opportunity to get to know each Annual Egyptological Colloquium. listing on Tuesday 18 June for more other outside of his taxi… Followed Organised by: BM. Colloquium 09:00 am | Christian Contribution information. by Q&A with Director Meyar Al exploring aspects of the cultural to Arab Renaissance (Th ree- Roumi and lead actor Ammar Haj entanglement between Egypt and Day Conference: Monday 15 - Tuesday 2 July Ahmad, led by journalist and writer Nubia in the second part of the Wednesday 17 July) Organised Malu Halasa. Preceded by two short second millennium BC. Speakers by: ARAM Society for Syro- 7:30 pm | Duo Amal (Concert) fi lms: Th e Curse Dir Fyzal Boulifa include Jamie Woodward, Mark Mesopotamian Studies. Tickets: See Part of the City of London (2012), UK, 16 min. & Familial Macklin, Derek Welsby, Charles contact details below. Th e Oriental Festival 2013. Palestinian-Israeli Fever Dir Amr Abdelhadi (2012), Bonnet, Pamela Rose, Kate Spence, Institute, University of Oxford, piano duo, Duo Amal present a Jordan, 13 min. All in Arabic with Neal Spencer, Dietrich Raue, Pusey Lane, Oxford OX12. T 01865 programme of works by Beethoven English subtitles. Tickets: £10/£8 Manfred Bietak, Vivian Davies, 514 041 E [email protected] W and Stravinsky interspersed with conc./£7 ICA Members. Institute Dominique Valbelle, Stuart Tyson www.aramsociety.org works by contemporary composers of Contemporary Arts (ICA), Th e Smith, Luc Gabolde, Julia Budka from Israel and Palestine. Tickets: Mall, London SW1Y 5AH. W www. and John Taylor.Tickets: Joint ticket 09:00 am | Th e Decapolis: £20/£10. Haberdashers Hall, 18 arabbritishcentre.org.uk/ (Sackler lecture and colloquium): History & Archaeology (Th ree- West Smithfi eld, London EC1A £55/£35 conc./£10 students (UK Day Conference: Monday 29 - 9HQ. T 0845 120 7502 W www.colf. Friday 5 July universities). BP Lecture Th eatre, Wednesday 31 July) Organised org / www.barbican.org.uk BM. T 020 7323 8181 E egyptian@ by: ARAM Society for Syro- 9:00 am | Regional vis-à-vis Global britishmuseum.org W www. Mesopotamian Studies. Tickets: See Wednesday 3 July Discourses: Contemporary Art britishmuseum.org contact details below. Th e Oriental from the Middle East (Two- Institute, University of Oxford, 5:30 pm | Dress in Saudi Arabia: Day Conference: 5 - 6 July) 6:00 pm | Nubia in the New Pusey Lane, Oxford OX12. T 01865 the Art of Heritage collection Organised by: London Middle Kingdom: the Egyptians at Kurgus 514 041 E [email protected] W and research project (Lecture) East Institute. Sponsored by: Th e (Lecture) Vivian Davies, BM. www.aramsociety.org Aisa Martinez, London Middle Barakat Trust, Goethe Institute, Th e 2013 Raymond and Beverley East Institute, SOAS (LMEI). Iran Heritage Foundation, Caspian Sackler Distinguished Lecture in Organised by: Th e Saudi-British Arts Foundation, Ibraaz, and Egyptology. Th e lecture presents EXHIBITIONS Society. Lecture following the Shubbak Festival.Th e conference the results of a project of survey and Society's AGM. Miss Martinez is will deal with the issue of how the epigraphic recording at the site of a Research Fellow working for the interpretation and contextualisation Kurgus on the Abu Hamed reach of Saturday 1 June Art of Heritage project, based at of contemporary art from the the Nile. Followed by reception in the LMEI which has, in partnership Middle East aff ect its understanding Egyptian Sculpture Gallery. Tickets: Until 22 June | Behind, A Cemera In with the Art of Heritage in Riyadh, at home and in global terms. It will £25/£20 conc. BP Lecture Th eatre, Front, A Hawza: A photographic

June-July 2013 The Middle East in London 37 Until 20 October | Saloua Raouda Alhroub, Bisan Abu Eiseh, and Choucair Th e fi rst exhibition in UK artists Jeremy Hutchison and the UK of Lebanese artist Saloua Olivia Plender in response to Raouda Choucair (b. 1916), contemporary questions around comprising over 120 works, many of nationalism and identity, history and which have never been seen before. place. Th e exhibition also features a Th is retrospective will celebrate seminal work by Ramallah-based Choucair’s extraordinary body artists Basel Abbas and Ruanne of work and her contribution to Abou-Rahme. Admission free. international modernism. Tickets: Institute of Contemporary Arts £10/£8.50 conc. Tate Modern, (ICA), Th e Mall, London SW1Y Bankside, London SE1 9TG. T 020 5AH. T 020 7930 3647 W www.ica. 7887 8888 W www.tate.org.uk/visit/ org.uk/ tate-modern Wednesday 3 July Saturday 22 June Until 22 September | Ibrahim El- Until 24 June | Exhibition Preview: Salahi: A Visionary Modernist Middle Eastern Contemporary Th e fi rst Tate Modern exhibition Art Auction at Th e Auction dedicated to African Modernism Room Paintings, photographs traces the life and work of Ibrahim and sculpture at all price points El-Salahi. Th is major retrospective from young emerging artists to brings together 100 works from established sought aft er names in across more than fi ve decades of the art world including pieces by his career, highlighting one of the Ahmed Alsoudani, Ghada Amer, most signifi cant fi gures in African Reza Derakshani, Mohamed Ehsai, and Arab Modernism. Tickets: Mona Hatoum, Hayv Kahraman, £11/£9.50 conc. (includes Gift Aid Sheree Hovsepian, Head # 2, 2013, bronze and wood, 30.5 x 18.4 cm. Tala Madani, Farhad Moshiri, donation) Tate Modern, Level 2, Domes (See Exhibitions, page 38) Ahmed Moustafa, Youssef Nabil, Bankside, London SE1 9TG. T 020 Nabil Nahas, Shirin Neshat, Parviz 7887 8888 W www.tate.org.uk exhibition by Massimiliano Fusari Until 29 June | Domes Iranian Tanavoli. Sale on Monday 24 June. Exhibition exploring the Hawza, artist Sheree Hovsepian's fi rst solo Admission free. Gazelli Art House, Tuesday 9 July the Muslim Shi’a seminaries, as a exhibition in the UK in which she 39 Dover Street, London W1S 4NN. scholarly institution and a place explores the mutability between T 0207 499 4406 E georgia.spray@ Until 21 July | FreshFaced + of learning, whose aims are the two kinds of photography, one an theauctionroom.com W www. WildEyed 2013 Annual exhibition transmission and re-formulation of extension of vision and a scientifi c theauctionroom.com showcasing the quality and breadth religious knowledge, the training manipulation of experience, the of graduates’ practices from of future religious experts and the other rooted in irreducible, physical Until 16 August | Young Artist of photographic courses across the scholarly and popular religious relationships. Admission free. the Year Award 2012 A selection UK. Twenty-two recent graduates leadership of the Shiite community. BISCHOFF/WEISS, 14a Hay Hill, of work by winners and fi nalists in have been selected from an open Photos were taken in Syria and London W1J 8NZ. T 020 7629 5954 the 2012 A M Qattan Foundation’s submission of over 300 applicants. Bahrain in 2010, just before the E info@bischoff weiss.com W www. Young Artist of the Year Award. Two fi nalists works (Julian Bonnin beginning of the uprisings in both bischoff weiss.com Th e biennial award – organised and Harry Mitchell) focus on countries. Admission free. Brunei by the Foundation’s Culture and Middle Eastern issues; the Israeli- Gallery, SOAS. T 020 7898 4046 E Until 3 August | From Palestine Arts Programme in Ramallah – is Palestinian confl ict and the events in [email protected] W www.soas. with Hope Featuring works by Jeff ar open to young artists under 30 of and around Tahir Square in Cairo. ac.uk/gallery Khaldi and Tarek Al-Ghoussein. Palestinian descent, from any part of Admission free. Th e Photographers' From Palestine With Hope will the world. Curator's Talk with Yazan Gallery, 16-18 Ramillies Street, Until 28 June | Hossein Valamanesh: challenge the viewers’ perceptions Khalili on Saturday 29 June (see June London W1F 7LW. T 020 7087 9300 Breath Valamanesh’s works range of the human cost in Palestine, Events). Admission free. Th e Mosaic W www.thephotographersgallery. from multi-media installations as well as their attitudes towards Rooms, A M Qattan Foundation, org.uk to sculpture, video, painting and the reality of the consequences of Tower House, 226 Cromwell Road, drawing. Breath, his fi rst solo confl ict. 20% of the sales proceeds London SW5 0SW. T 020 7370 9990 exhibition in London, will showcase from the exhibition will be directly E [email protected] W www. a selection of bronze sculptural donated to Medical Aid for mosaicrooms.org pieces, two installations and several Palestinians (MAP). Admission works on paper. Admission free. free. ARTSPACE London, 7 Milner Wednesday 26 June Rose Issa Projects, 82 Great Portland St, London SW3 2QA. T 020 7589 Street, London W1W 7NW. T 020 5499 E [email protected] Until 21 July | Points of Departure 7602 7700 E [email protected] W W www.artspace-london.com New works by Palestinian artists http://roseissa.com Jumana Emil Abboud, Bashar

38 The Middle East in London June-July 2013 CENTRE FOR IRANIAN STUDIES – SCHOLARSHIPS

SOAS, University of London, is pleased to announce the availability of several scholarships in its Centre for Iranian Studies (CIS). The Centre, established in 2010, draws upon the range of academic research and teaching across the disciplines of SOAS, including Languages and Literature, the Study of Religions, History, Economics, Politics, International Relations, Music, Art and Media and Film Studies. It aims to

build close relations with likeminded p 25 . of the School Oriental and African Studies, London, 2007, Treasures institutions and to showcase and foster the best of contemporary Iranian talent in art and culture. MA in Iranian Studies The members of CIS are launching an interdisciplinary MA in Iranian Studies, which will be off ered from the academic Suhaylī (Lights of the Canopus) Manuscript (Ref: MS10102) from: Anna Contadini (ed.) Objectsof Instruction: Image: Anvār-i year 2013/2014 onwards. Thanks to the generosity of the Fereydoun Djam Charitable Trust, a number of Kamran Djam scholarships are available for BA, MA and MPhil/PhD studies. MA in Iranian Studies For further details, please contact: Dr Nima Mina (Department of the Languages and Culture of the Middle East) Scholarships Offi cer E: [email protected] E: [email protected] T: +44 (0)20 7898 4315 T: +44 (0)20 7074 5091/ 5094 W: www.soas.ac.uk/nme/programmes/ W: www.soas.ac.uk/scholarships ma-in-iranian-studies Centre for Iranian Studies Student Recruitment Dr Arshin Adib-Moghaddam (Chair) T: +44(0)20 7898 4034 E: [email protected] E: [email protected] T: +44 (0)20 7898 4747 W: www.soas.ac.uk/lmei-cis

June-July 2013 The Middle East in London 39 40 The Middle East in London June-July 2013