Various Western intellectuals, ranging from Thomas Friedman to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, have argued over the past decades that Muslims need their own Martin Luther to save themselves from intolerance and dogmatism. The Protestant Reformation that Luther triggered exactly 500 years ago, these intellectuals suggest, can serve as a model for a potential Muslim Reformation. But is there such […]
It is the business of the counterfactual historian to yearn for the former Ottoman Empire when reflecting on the recent incessant regional instability. However, the fact that the empire was in free fall from 1798 onward makes a mockery of this view. Nevertheless, from Libya to Yemen, and Syria to Iraq, conflict typifies the ruptures […]
Turkish troops swept into Syria this weekend to recover remains from the first Ottoman sultan’s ancestor, who can’t rest in peace 800 years after his death. Read Here – The Atlantic
A different map of the Middle East would be a strategic game changer for just about everybody, potentially reconfiguring alliances, security challenges, trade and energy flows for much of the world, too, writes Robin Wright Read Here – The New York Times
As the tear gas wafts over Taksim Square, there is no question that Erdogan still holds the reins of power. For one, it is hard to see how Turkey’s moribund opposition can capitalize on his missteps. Further, although AKP supporters are watching the protests with consternation, they are not ditching their membership cards. Read […]
What started as a small sit-in over government plans to bulldoze a park in Taksim to build a shopping mall mushroomed into a countrywide expression of discontent with Erdogan’s Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP)—which may have only itself to blame for the protests. Read Here – Businessweek
Turkish self-confidence is high these days – perhaps higher than ever in the history of the modern republic founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Ataturk envisioned a pro-western and strictly secular nation-state that would look towards “contemporary civilizations” –that is, Europe –and turn its back on 500 years of coexistence with Arabs. Today’s Turkish leaders yearn […]
In the days of the Ottoman Empire, British diplomats referred to the Arabic-speaking territories of the empire as “Turkish Arabia.” It was these Arabic-speaking lands that Britain and France, in the aftermath of the First World War, divided into the modern Arab states we know today: Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon. Those arbitrary colonial boundaries […]
Instead of leading the post-Arab Spring Middle East, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is setting a sad new standard for gratuitous intolerance. Three weeks ago, Turkey’s dominant political figure took time out of his busy schedule to threaten the makers of Turkey’s most popular soap opera. The program ‑ “Magnificent Century” ‑ is a […]
After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, when the Arab (and Persian) world was set to reach a new age of political modernity, discussions erupted mostly between the factions backing “Arabism” and “Islamism,” respectively. Sati al-Husri (1880-1967), the father of Arabist ideology, believed that Islamism was not able to guarantee national unity because of the […]
looking beyond borders 