New Releases

Turkish-Saudi Relations: Cooperation and Competition in the Middle East

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Are the Middle East’s two heavyweights, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, friends or foes? What are the main drivers behind their rivalry or cooperation? The nature of their relationship has region-wide repercussions, affecting t...

The Arab Gulf’s Pivot to Asia:

From Transactional to Strategic Partnerships

(ed.) –

Over the last two decades the relations between the countries of the Gulf and Asia have expanded beyond the economic domain to include political and even security arrangements. While oil and non-oil trade are still the f...

Britain’s Departure from Aden and South Arabia:

Without Glory but Without Disaster

(eds.) –

Britain’s hasty departure from Aden and South Arabia after 128 years has often been presented as a humiliation at best and a disaster at worst. London’s hopes of handing power and sovereignty over to a friendly federal r...

Diplomacy of Quasi-Alliances in the Middle East

with a foreword by Tim Niblock

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Quasi-alliance refers to the ideation, mechanism and behavior of policy-makers to carry out security cooperation through informal political and security arrangements. As a “gray zone” between alliance and neutrality, qua...

The Trucial Coast Diaries (1948-1957):

On the Way from Pearls to Oil in the Trucial States of the Gulf

(ed.) –

The Trucial Coast Diaries are the secret reports written in Dubai by the Representatives of the London based group of oil companies, the Iraq Petroleum Company, known on the Trucial Coast as Petroleum Development (Trucia...

Desert Dispute: the Diplomacy of Boundary-Making in South-Eastern Arabia

Volume 3

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This is the third and final volume of a previously unpublished study by the foremost authority on the subject. The book is based on thorough research in the relevant archives and direct experience of the dispute. As such...

Desert Dispute: the Diplomacy of Boundary-Making in South-Eastern Arabia

Set, Volumes 1-3

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This new and previously unpublished study, by the foremost authority on the subject, is an exhaustive one, based on thorough research in the relevant archives and direct experience of the dispute. As such it will be the ...

Islamic Theological Discourses and the Legacy of Kalam. Gestation, Movements and Controversies

Set, Volumes 1-3

(ed.) –

With a concern for context and history, this major reference work presents key academic contributions devoted to the study of early, classical and pre-modern Islamic theological thought. The aim is to provide a balanced...

Occidentalism, Conspiracy and Taboo. Collected Essays on Islam and Politics

Volume 4

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Sadik J. Al-Azm was one of the foremost Arab public intellectuals, who offered innovative, often controversial challenges to conventional narratives on Islam and the West, Secularism, Orientalism, and the Israel-Palestin...

The Struggle for the Meaning of Islam. Collected Essays on Islam and Politics.

Set, Volumes 1-4

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Sadik Jalal Al-Azm was an internationally respected scholar and political commentator who offered innovative, often controversial challenges to conventional narratives on issues surrounding Islam and the West, secularism...

Kuwait's Politics Before Independence: The Role of the Balancing Powers

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This book re-examines the historiography of constitutional development in Kuwait. It argues that existing scholarship on the subject has several shortcomings due to the lack of consideration given to the role played by s...

Forthcoming Publications

The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East

Volume 1: Problems in the Literary Source Material

(eds.) –

This volume focuses on the problems researchers face when using (Byzantine) Greek, Syriac and Arabic sources together for the reconstruction of Near Eastern history from 400–c. 800. Contributions to the volume set the s...

The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East

Volume 2: Land Use and Settlement Patterns

(eds.) –

This volume revisits archaeological evidence from Syria, Palestine, the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and Egypt describing a variety of land-use patterns and the development of a particular type of settlement across the Near E...

The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East

Volume 3: States, Resources and Armies

(ed.) –

A comparative analysis of Byzantine, Sasanian and Muslim armies and their impact on state resources. Contributions discuss the organization and financing of the army in the late Roman state, the transformations and conti...

The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East

Volume 4: Elites Old and New

(eds.) –

A collection of critical analyses of the structure, historical development, and composition of the elite strata of late Roman, Byzantine, and early Islamic societies in the eastern Mediterranean basin. Culture change, ec...

The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East

Set, Volumes 1-4

(eds.) –

Volume 1: Problems in the Literary Source Material focuses on the problems researchers face when using (Byzantine) Greek, Syriac and Arabic sources together for the reconstruction of Near Eastern history from 400–ca. 800...

The Christian Communities of Palestine from Byzantine to Islamic Rule.

An Historical and Archaeological Study

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An assessment of the nature and social continuity of Christian communities in Palestine from 602–813. By synthesizing literary and archeological evidence, it provides a detailed discussion of disparate historical and arc...

The Early Arabic Historical Tradition.

A Source-Critical Study

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Translation of Albrecht Noth’s Quellenkritische Studien (1973), co-authored by Lawrence I. Conrad. It presents criteria to evaluate the character and content of the early Islamic historical tradition, i.e. historiographi...

Studies in Early Islamic History

with an Introduction by G. R. Hawting

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Collection of all of Martin Hinds’ (1941–1988) full-length articles which appeared in journals as well as one of his articles for the Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd Edition. Most of the articles have to do with the early pe...

A Gateway To Hell, A Gateway To Paradise.

The North African Response to the Arab Conquest

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This book is a study of the early history of the lbadiyya in North Africa, a "moderate" movement among the Kharijis which from its base in Basra gradually spread among the Berbers of the Maghrib in the 750s. Th...

Arabs and Others In Early Islam

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This work investigates available early Arabic hadith and exegetical literature in order to determine the great complexity of how Arabs, Muslims and Arab-Muslims viewed themselves and members of other communities. In par...

The Continuatio of the Samaritan Chronicle of Abu l-Fath al-Samiri al-Danafi

Annotated TranslatIon

(ed.) –

A complete facsimile edition of the previously unedited Samaritan sequel to the Kitab al-Ta‘rikh by Abu l-Fath Ibn Abi l-Hasan al-Samiri al-Danafi (d. ca. 1355). The edition of this chronicle photographically reproduces ...

The Earliest Biographies of the Prophet and Their Authors

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Josef Horovitz (1874-1931) wrote this classic monograph a century ago in two parts in German. The editor added footnotes, corrections and the preface, and it is now a book in its own right. The translation was prepared ...

Narratives of Islamic Origins:

The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing

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How and why did Muslims first come to write their own history? The author argues in this work that the Islamic historical tradition arose not out of idle curiosity, or through imitation of antique models, but as a respon...

Ibn Asakir and Early Islamic History

(ed.) –

Ibn Asakir’s massive Tarikh madinat Dimashq (TMD) is a veritable gold mine of information for our understanding of the first five and one-half centuries of Islamic history. This book offers important insights on the mech...

Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic

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A detailed study on the nature of Muslim apocalyptic material in Islam, both Sunni and Shi‘i . Taking a transcultural perspective by also discussing Christian and Jewish apocalyptic traditions, it offers in eight studies...

The Late Antique World of Early Islam:

Muslims among Christians and Jews in the East Mediterranean

(ed.) –

This book offers a number of innovative studies on the three main communities of the East Mediterranean lands—Muslims, Jews and Christians—in the aftermath of the seventh-century Arab conquests. It focuses principally on...

The Place to Go: Contexts of Learning in Baghdad, 750-1000 C.E.

(eds.) –

This work focuses on the intellectual and educational history of Baghdad in the early ‘Abbasid and Buyid periods (8th–10th centuries). It covers a wide range of disciplines taught in the metropolis before the institution...