Religious Minorities in the Middle East PDF Download

Author: Anh Nga Longva
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004207422
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
Focusing on the situation of both Muslim and non-Muslim religious minorities in the Middle East, this volume offers an analysis of various strategies of resilience and accommodation from a historical as well a contemporary perspective.

Author: John Eibner
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498561977
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
This book discusses the rapid erosion of social pluralism and the concomitant “religious cleaning” of religious minorities in the Middle East. It focuses on five crucial years between the “Arab Spring” uprisings of 2011 and the U.S. government’s genocide determination in 2016 regarding religious minorities in the Middle East.

Author: Anne Sofie Roald
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004216847
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
Focusing on the situation of both Muslim and non-Muslim religious minorities in the Middle East, this volume offers an analysis of various strategies of resilience and accommodation from a historical as well a contemporary perspective.

Author: George D. Chryssides
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317095677
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Minority religions, not only New Religious Movements, are explored in this innovative book including the predicament of ancient religions such as Zoroastrianism, ‘old new’ religions such as Baha’i, and traditional religions that are minorities elsewhere. The book is divided into two parts: the gathering of data on religious minorities ("mapping"), and the ways in which governments and interest groups respond to them ("monitoring"). The international group examine which new religions exist in particular countries, what their uptake is, and how allegiance can be ascertained. They explore a range of issues faced by minority religions, encompassing official state recognition and registration, unequal treatment in comparison with a dominant religion, how changes in government can affect how they fare, the extent to which members are free to practise their faith, how they sometimes seek to influence politics, and how they can be affected by harassment and persecution. Bringing together debates concerning the social and political issues facing new religions in Europe and the Middle East, this collection extends its focus to Middle Eastern minority faiths, enabling exposition of spiritual movements such as the Gülen Movement, Paganism in Israel, and the Zoroastrians in Tehran.

Author: Joshua Castellino
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191668885
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
Within the Middle East there are a wide range of minority groups outside the mainstream religious and ethnic culture. This book provides a detailed examination of their rights as minorities within this region, and their changing status throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The rights of minorities in the Middle East are subject to a range of legal frameworks, having developed in part from Islamic law, and in recent years subject to international human rights law and institutional frameworks. The book examines the context in which minority rights operate within this conflicted region, investigating how minorities engage with (or are excluded from) various sites of power and how state practice in dealing with minorities (often ostensibly based on Islamic authority) intersects with and informs modern constitutionalism and international law. The book identifies who exactly can be classed as a minority group, analysing in detail the different religious and ethnic minorities across the region. The book also pays special attention to the plight of minorities who are spread between various states, often as the result of conflict. It assesses the applicable domestic legislative instruments within the three countries investigated as case studies: Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, and highlights key domestic remedies that could serve as models for ensuring greater social cohesion and greater inclusion of minorities in the political life of these countries.

Author: Eliz Sanasarian
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 113942985X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
Eliz Sanasarian's book explores the political and ideological relationship between non-Muslim religious minorities in Iran and the state during the formative years of the Islamic Republic to the present day. Her analysis is based on a detailed examination of the history and experiences of the Armenians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Jews, Zoroastrians, Bahais and Iranian Christians, and describes how these communities have responded to state policies regarding minorities. Many of her findings are constructed out of personal interviews with members of these communities. While the book is essentially an empirical study, it also highlights more general questions associated with exclusion and marginalization and the role of the state in defining these boundaries. This is an important and original book which will make a significant contribution to the literature on minorities and to the workings of the Islamic Republic.

Author: Gerard Russell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1471114724
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Despite its reputation for religious intolerance, the Middle East has long sheltered many distinctive and strange faiths: one regards the Greek prophets as incarnations of God, another reveres Lucifer in the form of a peacock, and yet another believes that their followers are reincarnated beings who have existed in various forms for thousands of years. These religions represent the last vestiges of the magnificent civilizations in ancient history: Persia, Babylon, Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs. Their followers have learned how to survive foreign attacks and the perils of assimilation. But today, with the Middle East in turmoil, they face greater challenges than ever before. In Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms, former diplomat Gerard Russell ventures to the distant, nearly impassable regions where these mysterious religions still cling to survival. He lives alongside the Mandaeans and Ezidis of Iraq, the Zoroastrians of Iran, the Copts of Egypt, and others. He learns their histories, participates in their rituals, and comes to understand the threats to their communities. Historically a tolerant faith, Islam has, since the early 20th century, witnessed the rise of militant, extremist sects. This development, along with the rippling effects of Western invasion, now pose existential threats to these minority faiths. And as more and more of their youth flee to the West in search of greater freedoms and job prospects, these religions face the dire possibility of extinction. Drawing on his extensive travels and archival research, Russell provides an essential record of the past, present, and perilous future of these remarkable religions.

Author: Ibrahim Zabad
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131709672X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
This is a comprehensive survey of minorities in the Middle East with a special focus on the post Arab Spring era. Minority communities in the Middle East are the most susceptible to the turbulence engulfing the region; the majority may suffer physical violence and socioeconomic loss, but minorities could potentially vanish. Instead of ushering in democracy and inclusive politics, the revolutionary upheavals have prompted chaos and fear and reinforced the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism throughout the region. Zabad uses historical sources as well as first-hand interviews to vividly describe the current status of minorities in the Middle East, explaining attitudes towards the revolutionary upheavals as well as the various strategies they used to avail themselves of the opportunities presented and to confront the risks posed. The question of ethnic, sectarian and religious minorities is situated in the context of the broader history of the region in order to explain the underlying institutional and ideological factors that caused their predicament and problematized their relationship with the majority. The book providesa rich trove of information and insights generated from ten case studies that covered the Shī‘a in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Lebanon and Egypt, the Druze, the Alawites, Christians and Kurds in Syria, the Copts in Egypt, and the Zaydis in Yemen.

Author: Paul S Rowe
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317233794
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
The Routledge Handbook of Minorities in the Middle East gathers a diverse team of international scholars, each of whom provides unique expertise into the status and prospects of minority populations in the region. The dramatic events of the past decade, from the Arab Spring protests to the rise of the Islamic state, have brought the status of these populations onto centre stage. The overturn of various long-term autocratic governments in states such as Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, and the ongoing threat to government stability in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon have all contributed to a new assertion of majoritarian politics amid demands for democratization and regime change. In the midst of the dramatic changes and latent armed conflict, minority populations have been targeted, marginalized, and victimized. Calls for social and political change have led many to contemplate the ways in which citizenship and governance may be changed to accommodate minorities – or indeed if such change is possible. At a time when the survival of minority populations and the utility of the label minority has been challenged, this handbook answers the following set of research questions.What are the unique challenges of minority populations in the Middle East? How do minority populations integrate into their host societies, both as a function of their own internal choices, and as a response to majoritarian consensus on their status? Finally, given their inherent challenges, and the vast, sweeping changes that have taken place in the region over the past decade, what is the future of these minority populations? What impact have minority populations had on their societies, and to what extent will they remain prominent actors in their respective settings? This handbook presents leading-edge research on a wide variety of religious, ethnic, and other minority populations. By reclaiming the notion of minorities in Middle Eastern settings, we seek to highlight the agency of minority communities in defining their past, present, and future.

Author: Saba Mahmood
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691153280
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
How secular governance in the Middle East is making life worse—not better—for religious minorities The plight of religious minorities in the Middle East is often attributed to the failure of secularism to take root in the region. Religious Difference in a Secular Age challenges this assessment by examining four cornerstones of secularism—political and civil equality, minority rights, religious freedom, and the legal separation of private and public domains. Drawing on her extensive fieldwork in Egypt with Coptic Orthodox Christians and Bahais—religious minorities in a predominantly Muslim country—Saba Mahmood shows how modern secular governance has exacerbated religious tensions and inequalities rather than reduced them. Tracing the historical career of secular legal concepts in the colonial and postcolonial Middle East, she explores how contradictions at the very heart of political secularism have aggravated and amplified existing forms of Islamic hierarchy, bringing minority relations in Egypt to a new historical impasse. Through a close examination of Egyptian court cases and constitutional debates about minority rights, conflicts around family law, and controversies over freedom of expression, Mahmood invites us to reflect on the entwined histories of secularism in the Middle East and Europe. A provocative work of scholarship, Religious Difference in a Secular Age challenges us to rethink the promise and limits of the secular ideal of religious equality.