Understanding Everyday Homes of Urban Communities: The Case of Local Streets (Hawari) of Old Cairo

This paper aims at investigating architectural and urban heritage from the socio-cultural point of view, which stands on the human asset of traditional sites such as the hawari of old Cairo. It analyzes the social practice of everyday life in one of the oldest Cairene hawari, Haret al-Darb al-Asfar. The focus is on architectural and spatial organization of outdoor and indoor spaces that coordinate the spatial practices of local community. A daily monitoring of people’s activities and interviews was conducted in an investigation of how local people perceive their built environment between the house’s interior and the outdoor shared space. It emerges that people construct their own field of private spheres according to complex patterns of daily activities that are not in line with the classical segregation between private and public in Islamic cities. This paper reports that the harah is basically a construct of social spheres that are organized spatially by the flexible development of individual buildings over time and in response to changes in individuals’ needs and capabilities. In order to achieve sustainability in old urban quarters, the paper concludes, the focus should be directed towards the local organization of activities and a comprehensive upgrading of deteriorating buildings to match the changing needs of current population.

A Socio-Legal Analysis of Jihad

Since many offensive and defensive wars or acts of terrorism, such as the atrocities of 11 September in the United States and the July 2005 bombings in London, are committed under the banner of Islam and the duty of jihad, it is important to shed some light upon the Islamic laws of war in general, and the controversial concept of jihad in particular. This article traces the origins of, and rationale for, the use of force within the Islamic tradition, and assesses the meaning and evolution of the contentious concept of jihad within its historical context. Following an analysis of the opposing doctrinal views on the potential implications of jihad, the study argues that the concept of jihad should not be interpreted literally, but be adjusted in accordance with new historical and international conditions, and conducted by peaceful means, rather than by the sword.

The Architecture of Home in Cairo: Socio-Spatial Practice of the Hawari's Everyday Life

The hawari of Cairo - narrow non-straight alleyways - are the basic urban units that have formed the medieval city since its foundation back in 969 AD. Until early in the C20th, they made up the primary urban divisions of the city and were residential in nature. Contemporary hawari, by contrast, are increasingly dominated by commercial and industrial activity. This medieval urban maze of extremely short, broken, zigzag streets and dead ends are defensible territories, powerful institutions, and important social systems. While the hawari have been studied as an exemplar for urban structure of medieval Islamic urbanism, and as individual building typologies, this book is the first to examine in detail the socio-spatial practice of the architecture of home in the city. It investigates how people live, communicate and relate to each other within their houses or shared spaces of the alleys, and in doing so, to uncover several new socio-spatial dimensions and meanings in this architectural form.

In an attempt to re-establish the link between architecture past and present, and to understand the changing social needs of communities, this book uncovers the notion of home as central to understand architecture in such a city with long history as Cairo. It firstly describes the historical development of the domestic spaces (indoor and outdoor), and provides an inclusive analysis of spaces of everyday activities in the hawari of old Cairo. It then broadens its analysis to other parts of the city, highlighting different customs and representations of home in the city at large. Cairo, in the context of this book, is represented as the most sophisticated urban centre in the Middle East with different and sometimes contrasting approaches to the architecture of home, as a practice and spatial system.

In order to analyse the complexity and interconnectedness of the components and elements of the hawari as a 'collective home', it layers its narratives of architectural and social developments as a domestic environment over the past two hundred years, and in doing so, explores the in-depth social meaning and performance of spaces, both private and public.

Mapping Medieval Geographies: Geographical Encounters in the Latin West and Beyond, 300–1600

'Mapping Medieval Geographies' explores the ways in which geographical knowledge, ideas and traditions were formed in Europe during the Middle Ages. Leading scholars reveal the connections between Islamic, Christian, Biblical, and Classical geographical traditions from Antiquity to the later Middle Ages and Renaissance. The book is divided into two parts: Part I focuses on the notion of geographical tradition and charts the evolution of celestial and earthly geography in terms of its intellectual, visual and textual representations; whilst Part II explores geographical imaginations; that is to say, those 'imagined geographies' that came into being as a result of everyday spatial and spiritual experience. Bringing together approaches from art, literary studies, intellectual history and historical geography, this pioneering volume will be essential reading for scholars concerned with visual and textual modes of geographical representation and transmission, as well as the spaces and places of knowledge creation and consumption.

Home Is Where the Self Is: Monodrama, Journey-Play Structure, and the Modernist Fairy Tale

The first decade of the twentieth century witnessed the creation of two of the most beloved works of children’s literature ever produced. L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel The Wizard of Oz and Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1908 play each gave rise to many adaptations, including, well beloved film versions, and both have become a deeply ingrained part of the cultural memory and construction of childhood in both Europe and the United States. And while these works are deeply original in content and detail, the structure of these works harkens back to the form of the journey play (traceable, on some level, back to the medieval morality play Everyman), a form that had undergone a considerable revival in the second half of the nineteenth century in the work of writers such as Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg. This article explores the structural and conceptual links between Baum and Maeterlinck’s children’s classics, Ibsen’s Norwegian folk play Peer Gynt, and August Strindberg’s Lucky Per’s Journey and The Road to Damascus, Part I. In these works, the protagonists, disenchanted with their homes or current situations, set out on an epic journey in which they come upon characters and situations that act as commentary upon their situations before the journey. Ultimately, the characters return to where they started, with the journey seeming to have been a dream or merely a pointless excursion. But in these journeys of self-discovery, the protagonist that emerges at the end has undergone a significant transformation, a process at the heart of all of these works.

Foreign Policy Essay: Hamas's Islamist Foes

Editor’s Note: The United States rightly regards the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Palestinian organization Hamas as a terrorist group, but Hamas is also the de facto government of the Gaza Strip. There it juggles the responsibilities of governing Gaza and the associated need to mollify Israel with its self-image as an Islamic “resistance” movement. Making this difficult act even harder, Hamas faces a terrorism problem of its own. Gaza is home to a range of groups that see Hamas as too accommodating toward Israel and too lenient when it comes to imposing Islamic law at home. Beverley Milton-Edwards, a professor at Queen’s University Belfast and renowned expert on Hamas, assesses these Islamist rivals and the risks for Hamas of being too confrontational or too passive in dealing with them.

Between Tradition and Modernity: Determining Spatial Systems of Privacy in the Domestic Architecture of Contemporary Iraq

The notion of privacy represents a central criterion for both indoor and outdoor social spaces in most traditional Arab settlements. This paper investigates privacy and everyday life as determinants of the physical properties of the built and urban fabric and will study their impact on traditional settlements and architecture of the home in the contemporary Iraqi city. It illustrates the relationship between socio-cultural aspects of public/private realms using the notion of the social sphere as an investigative tool of the concept of social space in Iraqi houses and local communities (Mahalla). This paper reports that in spite of the impact of other factors in articulating built forms, privacy embodies the primary role under the effects of Islamic rules, principles and culture. The crucial problem is the underestimation of traditional inherited values through opening social spaces to the outside that giving unlimited accesses to the indoor social environment creating many problems with regard to privacy and communal social integration.

Authenticity, Identity and Sustainability in Post-war Iraq: Reshaping the Urban Form of Erbil City

Issues of authenticity and identity are particularly significant in cities where social and cultural change is shaping active transformation of its urban fabric and structure in the post-war condition. In search of sustainable future, Iraqi cities are stretched between the two ends of the spectrum, authentic quarters with its traditional fabric and modern districts with their global sense of living. This paper interrogates the reciprocal influences, distinct qualities and sustainable performance of both authentic and modern quarters of Erbil, the
capital of the Iraqi province of Kurdistan, as factors in shaping sustainable urban forms for Iraqi cities. In doing so, the paper, firstly, seeks to highlight the urban identity as an effective factor in relation to sustainable urban form. Secondly, the city of Erbil in Iraq has been chosen as a field study, due to its regional, social, political and historical role in the region. Thirdly, the study emphasises the dynamic activities and performance of residential projects according to rational sustainable criteria. The research concludes that urban identity and the sense of place in traditional and historical places should inform design strategies in order to achieve a more sustainable urban context.

Recent Developments in the Analysis of the Black Mat Layer and Cosmic Impact at 12.8ka

Recent analyses of sediment samples from "black mat" sites in South America and Europe support previous interpretations of an ET impact event that reversed the Late Glacial demise of LGM ice during the Bølling Allerød warming, resulting in a resurgence of ice termed the Younger Dryas (YD) cooling episode. The breakup or impact of a cosmic vehicle at the YD boundary coincides with the onset of a 1-kyr long interval of glacial resurgence, one of the most studied events of the Late Pleistocene. New analytical databases reveal a corpus of data indicating that the cosmic impact was a real event, most possibly a cosmic airburst from Earth's encounter with the Taurid Complex comet or unknown asteroid, an event that led to cosmic fragments exploding interhemispherically over widely dispersed areas, including the northern Andes of Venezuela and the Alps on the Italian/French frontier. While the databases in the two areas differ somewhat, the overall interpretation is that microtextural evidence in weathering rinds and in sands of associated paleosols and glaciofluvial deposits carry undeniable attributes of melted glassy carbon and Fe spherules, planar deformation features, shock-melted and contorted quartz, occasional transition and platinum metals, and brecciated and impacted minerals of diverse lithologies. In concert with other black mat localities in the Western USA, the Netherlands, coastal France, Syria, Central Asia, Peru, Argentina and Mexico, it appears that a widespread cosmic impact by an asteroid or comet is responsible for deposition of the black mat at the onset of the YD glacial event. Whether or not the impact caused a 1-kyr interval of glacial climate depends upon whether or not the Earth had multiple centuries-long episodic encounters with the Taurid Complex or asteroid remnants; impact-related changes in microclimates sustained climatic forcing sufficient to maintain positive mass balances in the reformed ice; and/or inertia in the Atlantic thermohaline circulation system persisted for 1kyr. 

19th-century diplomacy can help deal with 21st-century Russia

The West has failed to properly integrate Russia into its worldview since 1991, and there is an obvious vacuum of ideas for how to deal with it. The default reaction is to fall back on the Cold War paradigm - sanctions, containment, and hopes of Russian regime change.

This is folly. There’s no knowing how long it will take for Russia to change tack, if it ever does; nothing guarantees that a new regime in Russia would be any more pro-Western. There’s also apparently no idea how to handle Russia in the meantime, especially while it remains a crucial part of crises like those in Iran and Syria.

Ukraine has shown that the placeholder post-Cold War order Europe and Russia inherited urgently needs replacing. With a ceasefire in place at last, the search for an alternative is on. The Geneva talks in April this year could be its basis; but nothing truly transformative will be achieved until the US, EU, Russia and Ukraine all recognise the need for compromise.

A presença árabe-islâmica em Fernando Pessoa

Tese de doutoramento, Filosofia (Filosofia em Portugal), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Letras, 2015

Russia and the Arab Spring: supporting the counter-revolution

Russia’s response to the Arab Spring ranged from apprehension to deep anxiety and diverged significantly from the US and the EU responses. While initially welcoming the popular demands for political reform in North Africa, the Russian reaction rapidly became more critical as a result of Western military intervention into Libya and the threat of the spread of Islamist extremism. It was these twin fears which prompted the Russian leadership to adopt an uncompromizing stance towards Syria. While geopolitical factors certainly played a role in driving Russian strategy, domestic political factors were also more significant. As the Russian leadership felt internally threatened by the growing opposition within the country, conflict in the Middle East highlighted the perceived flaws of the imposition of Western liberal democracy and the virtues of Russia’s own model of state-managed political order. There was, as such, a significant ideational and ideological dimension to the Russian response to the Arab Spring.

Reflections on conducting research on the ‘war on terror’: religious identity, subjectivity and emotions

In recent years there has been an increase in literature which has explored the insider/outsider position through ethnic identities. However, there remains a neglect of religious identities, even though it could be argued that religious identities have become increasingly important through being prominent in international issues such as the ‘war on terror’ and the Middle East conflict. Through drawing on the concept of subjectivity, I reflect on research I conducted on the impact of the ‘war on terror’ on British Muslims. I explore the space between the insider/outsider position demonstrating how my various subjectivities – the ‘non-Islamic appearance I’, the ‘Muslim I’, the ‘personal I’, the ‘exploring I’, the ‘Kashmiri I’ or the ‘Pakistani I’, the ‘status I’ and the ‘outsider I’ – assisted in establishing trust, openness and commonality. I conclude by demonstrating how the ‘emotional I’ allowed me to manage my own emotions and participants emotions.

Citizenship, belonging and attachment in the ‘war on terror’

The ‘war on terror’ has had an enormous impact on citizens’ legal rights and legal status. Using data from interviews with British Pakistani Kashmiri Muslims, this paper explores how the change to citizens’ legal rights and legal status in the ‘war on terror’, the legal dimension of citizenship, has impacted the psychological dimension of citizenship. Through denoting legal rights, equality and status the study revealed the powerful role of the state and the police in shaping citizens’ perceptions of the legal dimension of citizenship. The paper explores how changes to participants’ perceptions of their legal status and legal rights are instrumental in shaping the psychological dimension of citizenship—participants’ sense of loyalty, belonging and attachment to their British identity and their Islamic identity.

Assessing the influence of the Responsibility to Protect on the UN Security Council during the Arab Spring

This article challenges those perspectives which assert first, that the Security Council’s engagement with the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) during the Arab Spring evidences a generally positive trend, and second, that the response to the Arab Spring, particularly Syria, highlights the need for veto restraint. With respect to the first point, the evidence presented in this article suggests that the manner in which R2P has been employed by the Security Council during this period evidences three key trends: first, a willingness to invoke R2P only in the context of Pillar I; second, a pronounced lack of consensus surrounding Pillar III; and third, the persistent prioritisation of national interests over humanitarian concerns. With respect to veto restraint, this article argues that there is no evidence that this idea will have any significant impact on decision-making at the Security Council; the Council’s response to the Arab Spring suggests that national interests continue to trump humanitarian need.