Breaking and Creating Boundaries in the Middle East

THE ELEVENTH NORDIC CONFERENCE ON MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES “BREAKING AND CREATING BOUNDARIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST” www.helsinki.fi/en/conferences/breaking- and-creating-boundaries-in-the-middle-east @NSMES2019 KEYNOTES 14.8. 16.30-17.30 GARETH STANSFIELD PROFESSOR OF MIDDLE EAST POLITICS, AL-QASIMI PROFESSOR OF GULF STUDIES, AND THE DIRECTOR FOR THE CENTRE OF KURDISH STUDIES IN THE UNI- VERSITY OF EXETER RESILIENT BOUNDARIES AND FRAGILE STATES: THE PARADOX OF SOVEREIGNTY IN THE CONTEMPORARY MIDDLE EAST 15.8. 16.00-17.00 SARI HANAFI PROFESSOR IN SOCIOLOGY AT THE AMERICAN UNIVER- SITY OF BEIRUT BREAKING BOUNDARIES BETWEEN SECULARISTS AND ISLAMISTS: THE CASE OF THE GENDER EQUALITY DE- BATE IN TUNISIA 16.8. 9.00-10.00 BRYNJAR LIA PROFESSOR OF MIDDLE EAST STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF OSLO TABOOS AND BLINDSPOTS IN MIDDLE EAST STUDIES: SOME REFLECTIONS THE NORDIC CONFERENCE ON MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES PANELS AND ROUNDABLES WEDNESDAY 14.8. 9.30 – 11.00 SESSIONS I conducted not only against old enemies, Is- THE POLITICS OF ISLAM IN rael and the US, but also against a new threat THE MIDDLE EAST AND EU- manifested in the takfiri forces, supported by Israel, the US, and some Arab states. Hezbol- ROPE lah is therefore able to adapt to geopolitical CHAIR: ROLA EL-HUSSEINI, LUND UNIVERSITY realities and combine previously established These three papers by Lund university grad- discourses with new ones to mobilize its fol- uate students show the diversity of the poli- lowers. tics of Islam in the recent past and the contemporary world. All three papers analyze no- torious groups, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Lebanese Shia organization Hezbollah, and the Iranian “Islamic-Marxist” Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK). The papers ex- plore the discourse of these organizations through an analysis of the speeches of Hez- ORWA AJJOUB, LUND UNIVERSITY bollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, In April 2013, Abu Bakr Al- Baghdadi, leader the competing fatwas issued by the religious of the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), announced clerics of ISIS and its rival in Syria Jabhat al- his group’s expansion into Syria and merger Nusra, and defense speeches given in court by with Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) to form the Islamic senior MEK members in 1972. These three State in Iraq and al-Sham or ISIS. JN’s leader papers are based on discourse analysis con- Abu Mohammad al-Jolani denied the merger ducted while working on master’s theses at while accepting ties between the two groups. the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund Al-Jolani also swore an oath to the head of al- University. Qaeda Central, Aymen Al-Zawahiri. Tension escalated, and the dispute was referred to al- Zawahiri who ruled against the merger. A theological debate then emerged, dividing the Salafi-Jihadi ulamaʾ into those supporting DEMIAN VOKŠI, LUND UNIVERSITY and opposed to the merger. Each group’s po- sition was supported by texts from the Quran, This paper draws on the speeches of Hezbol- the Sunna, and narratives from Islamic his- lah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah be- tory. I contend that although Salafi-Jihadi tween 2013 and 2018, to examine how Hez- ulamaʾ used the same concepts (al-baya, bollah has attempted to legitimize their in- obedience and Muslims’ unity) to bolster volvement in the war in Syria. Hezbollah their argument, their distinct interpretations framed their discourse in several ways, in- of these concepts support the theological and cluding jihad and martyrdom, themes con- political divides between the different Salafi- nected to the issues of Lebanese unity in the Jihadi factions. face of adversity and nominal rejection of sec- tarianism, in addition to themes connected to the experience, zeal and readiness of the re- sistance. Hezbollah also framed the Syria war as both a local and a regional issue, where the future of the region will be decided. This was exclusively to men. In Syria and Egypt, and most of the medieval world, women’s involve- ment in travel, education, and public life, was often restricted. However, there were excep- tions, including the prolific writer and poet cĀ’ishah al-Bācūnīyah (d. 1517) who, as a JAMES ROOT, LUND UNIVERSITY women, crossed from the margins to the The Mojahedin-e Khalq was an Iranian “Is- mainstream of religious scholarship and liter- lamic revolutionary” guerrilla organisation, ary production. Drawing from historical and formed in the 1960s, and committed to biographical sources, and especially from armed insurrection against the ruling dicta- cĀ’ishah al-Bācūnīyah’s writings, I will exam- torship of Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi. Its ine her social and intellectual background, ideology, a synthesis of Islamic, Marxist, and her travels, and scholarly interactions in or- nationalist discourses, was the first elabora- der to highlight some of the social trends and tion of a revolutionary Shi’a ideology in the intellectual forces at work in the late Mamlūk Iranian context. period. Through an analysis of speeches given by ar- rested Mojahedin members in court, I ex- plore their construction of counter-narratives to the prevailing state-nationalist discourse of the Iranian regime, juxtaposing Shia Islamic SEDGWICK MARK, AARHUS UNIVERSITY and socialist-revolutionary themes (such as state legitimacy, class solidarity, anti-imperi- John Gustaf Agelii, also known as Ivan Aguéli alism, historical paradigms, self-sacrifice and and as Abd al-Hadi al-Maghrabi, was born in apocalypse). Theoretically grounded in cul- 1869 in Sala, Västmanland, and broke artis- tural and genre analysis as well as notions of tic, political, geographical, and religious publics and counter publics, I argue that the boundaries. He became one of Sweden’s lead- Mojahedin reinterpreted the lessons of Is- ing painters, engaged in violent “direct ac- lamic and Iranian culture and history to build tion” in support of anarchist politics and ani- a narrative making the case that revolution mal rights in France, and was one of the first was not only just and legitimate, but inevita- people from the Nordic region to convert to ble. Islam and become a Sufi, while living in Egypt. After his early death in 1917, Aguéli became the subject of myth, both in Sweden and, as an early figure in the Traditionalist movement, in France and then America. This TRAVELERS, TRANSLATIONS paper looks at Aguéli’s life and at subsequent AND BIOGRAPHIES myth-making, especially at Aguéli’s signifi- CHAIR: SYLVIA AKAR, UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI cance for Traditionalism. THOMAS EMIL HOMERIN, UNIVERSITY OF ROCH- ESTER MENDIM AKITI, BALL STATE UNIVERSITY The Mamlūk period was a productive time for Sedgwick’s work focuses on Western Europe Arabic scholarship and literature, as Damas- and North America, however, some of the au- cus and Cairo arose as vibrant urban centers, thors he analyzes have been translated into attracting scholars and students from across languages and are read in places beyond the the Muslim world. This led to opportunities scope of his studies, in this case, Macedonia. for travel, education, and employment, yet These texts have exclusively been translated these opportunities had one common charac- by Edin Lohja, an Albanian scholar living in teristic: they were available almost Canada. This paper places Sedgwick’s THE NORDIC CONFERENCE ON MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES PANELS AND ROUNDABLES definition of Traditionalism in conversation student milieus in Beirut (2007-2016) and with Satareh Houman’s, situating Lohja at Montreal (2016-2019), it discusses how their intersection. Key to both definitions is young people arriving in a city they imagined Rene Guénon. Guénon, however, is absent without knowing have to learn how to navi- from Lohja’s translations. Instead of framing gate entangled social boundaries. Not only these texts through the lens of Guénonian does the discovery of these multiple potential Traditionalism, in his prefaces Lohja alludes fault lines affect their ability to interact with to a tug of war between extremists and mod- their surroundings but it also forces them to erates, framing Traditionalist Islam as the au- confront their understanding of their own thentic tradition lost in the struggle. This pa- life-trajectories as the “normal” direction of per provides an initial foray into the study of migration is reversed and several temporali- Traditionalism in the Albanian community ties collide with each other. Drawing on these within Macedonia – a context which forces us micro-sociological situations, this paper to rethink our definitions of Traditionalism. questions how we conceptualize basic notions such as “home”, “roots” or “belonging” when we study people and communities on the move and shifts the focus toward the complex TEMPORALITIES AND MA- interplay between roots/routes and iden- tity/alterity. TERIALITIES OF MOBILITY CHAIRS: ANITTA KYNSILEHTO, TAMPERE UNIVER- SITY & BRUNO LEFORT, TAMPERE UNIVERSITY In this panel, we draw on ethnographic ap- proaches to delve into the multiplicity of temporalities and materialities embedded within assorted configurations of mobile practices in the Middle East and North Africa. We discuss ELISA PASCUCCI, UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI migratory contexts in which forced and more The migration route from the Horn of Africa voluntary forms of mobilities come together, to the central Mediterranean is described one including people without a regular migration of the most dangerous in the world. Interna- status and returning diasporas, in a pace that tional organizations have promoted securit- may contrast with imagined timings of mov- ized protection policies for migrants travel- ing about and forging spaces where one could ling across the route, in which scant assis- feel as someone who belongs. Within these tance is associated with the repression of the encounters, multiple boundaries need to be networks facilitating mobility. However, re- challenged and transgressed, not all of which cent literature highlights the need for more are easy to foresee beforehand.

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