Minorities in the Middle East

Minority is a difficult concept to deal with as there is no internationally agreed definition that specifies which groups are minorities. Minority is not simply a neutral term but is rather a sociological concept laden with meanings. Even in consolidated democracies, a parliamentary minority, for example, by definition lacks power. Any definition of the concept of minority must account for both objective and subjective factors. A minority must be a separate ethnic, linguistic, religious, or sectarian group, and clearly perceiving itself as a minority. A widely accepted definition is that of Francesco Capotorti, who believes that a minority must be numerically inferior to the rest of the population of a state and has to be in non-dominant position. The later principle of non-dominance might create some difficulties in defining minorities in the Middle East. For example, a numerical minority in Syria, the Alawites, are in power, so was the Sunni numerical minority in Iraq until the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003. However, in this article, I do not treat politically dispossessed majorities as minorities. Indeed, the oppressed majority “perceives” itself as a “majority” that is deprived of its rightful power privileges, and not as an oppressed minority. Additionally, looking at ethnic groups at the regional level, not state-level, we do have clear majorities and minorities: the Persians, the Arabs, the Turks are a majority and every other ethnicity is a minority; looking at religious groups, Sunni Muslims are a majority and every other religion is a minority. The Middle East is the cradle of ancient civilizations, the birthplace of the three monotheistic religions, and the land of a multitude of ethnic and religious minorities. However, most scholars who study the Middle East focused on wars, oil, and geopolitics and ignored minorities. But the tumultuous Arab Spring demonstrated that the fate of the region is intricately related to the fate of its minorities and that various minorities are positioned to play a crucial role in shaping the region. Minorities are not simply subjects of state persecution or minoritization processes but have become in some instances energetic actors and dynamic agents. Discrimination against minorities is common among almost all Middle Eastern countries. Historically speaking, minorities have been oppressed, marginalized, under-represented, and subjected to variable degrees of repression and violence. Many clerics, especially the Wahhabis, decry minorities, such as the Shiʿi, the Bahaʾis, and Yezidis as heretics, thus justifying and even encouraging violence against them. Religious freedom is another major issue that besets the region. The Sunni- Shiʿite divide has become a major fault line that shapes politics in the region, especially the Iranian-Saudi rivalry. Tensions between Muslims and Christians are still apparent in many countries, especially in Egypt and in Iraq.

Collective References and Identity Threat among Lebanese and Lebanese-Armenians in the Context of Continuous Intergroup Conflict

How people deal with adversity, in terms of threats to their social or ethnic identity has been extensively investigated. However, most studies have focused on samples (e.g. minority groups) from prototypical Western contexts. It is unclear how individuals perceive and deal with identity threats within non-Western plural contexts characterized by intergroup conflict. We therefore assess whether self-affirmation by recalling a past success can buffer against identity threat in the plural, non-Western context of Lebanon. In two studies we investigate how threats are negotiated at a national (Lebanon) (Study 1) and ethnic minority (Armenian) level (Study 2). In Study 1, we show that in a context characterized by a history of intergroup conflict, a superordinate national identity is non-salient. When investigating the content of memories of a sectarian group in Study 2, we find a hypersalient and chronically accessible ethnic identity, a pattern specific to Armenian Lebanese. We suggest that this hyper-salience is employed as a spontaneous identity management strategy by a minority group coping with constant continuity threat. Our findings point to the importance of expanding the study of identity processes beyond the typically Western contexts and in turn, situating them within their larger socio-political and historical contexts.

Evidence of Sectarian Redaction in the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Masoretic Text

This chapter provides the theoretical and methodological foundation for the second central thesis of the book. The chapter systematically explores examples in the HB of growing redactional competition between the Masoretic Text and the Samaritan Pentateuch, with each sectarian group making slight alterations to key texts in order to promote their respective holy mountains and denigrate the others’. This leads to the presentation of evidence for a third compelling thesis: that the Moriah mentioned in conjunction with Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac in Gen. 22 originally read Moreh, and was initially a reference to the Oak of Moreh near Shechem in the shadow of Mt. Gerizim. To combat this, the hapax legomenon Moriah was created to remove the central theophany from the holy Samaritan mountain, Gerizim, and later, utilizing a gloss in 2 Chron. 3:1, was relocated from the desert to Jerusalem.

Getting In and Staying In: Another Look at 4QMMT and Galatians

E. P. Sanders criticized the previous New Testament scholarship’s stereotypical portrait of Second Temple Judaism as a legalistic religion, proposing that it can be typically described in what he calls ‘covenantal nomism’, that is, one ‘gets in’ the covenant by God’s gracious election and ‘stays in’ the covenant by obedience to the law. However, this does not describe the Qumran sectarian group who required the works of the law and their particular halakhoth not only to ‘stay in’ but also to ‘get in’ the sectarian covenant. Comparison between 4QMMT and Galatians, and a mirror reading of Galatians suggest that Paul’s opponents persuaded the Galatians to do the works of the law not only to ‘stay in’ but also to ‘get in’ the true covenant of God, to become full members of God’s covenant people, for one is justified by the works of the law, in addition to faith in Christ.

Communal Religious Practice and Support for Armed Parties

Does religion inevitably promote support for militant politics? Using a new and unique data set compiled from a nationally representative survey in Lebanon, we examine the conditions under which communal religious practice may serve to promote support for or opposition to armed parties. We argue that this relationship, far from being unidirectional and consistent, depends on the interests of the individual sectarian group. For groups engaged in conflict, communal prayer may increase support for arming political parties. For noncombatant groups, however, religion tends to promote opposition to such militarization. Using both observational and experimental evidence, we demonstrate that communal religion increases the salience of group interests through both identity and informational mechanisms. For regular worship attenders, communal religious practice increases the salience of sectarian identity. For nonattenders, informational primes about sectarian interests have the same effect. Among noncombatant groups, this increased salience leads to opposition to armed parties whose presence would threaten the livelihoods and security of those on the sidelines.

‘Foretelling the judgements of God’: authorship and the prophetic voice in Elizabeth Poole’s A Vision (1648)

A Vision: Wherein is Manifested the Disease and Cure of the Kingdome (1648) is Elizabeth Poole’s account of the prophecies she delivered before Cromwell and the Puritan Army’s General Council as they debated the regicide of Charles I at the end of the first English Civil War in 1648-49. This article discusses the prophetic voice in Elizabeth Poole’s texts as she uses strategies of ‘self’ and ‘others’ to establish her authority before her audience and her own sectarian group. While the circumstances surrounding Poole’s participation in the Whitehall deliberations are unclear, her appearance represents a rare case of a woman’s direct involvement in the mid-seventeenth-century discussions of the scope and legitimacy of government. With her defying anti regicidal speech, Poole builds her authorial voice beyond the divine mandate of her prophetic identity.

Framing Dissent in Contemporary China: Irony, Ambiguity and Metonymy

Social movement theorists have posited that it is not simply the existence of grievances but the manner in which they are interpreted and transmitted that contributes to the mobilization of dissent. Research conducted largely in liberal Western polities suggests that successful social movement “frames” clearly define problems, assign blame to a specific agent and suggest courses for remedial action. Yet dissenters in repressive authoritarian or totalitarian regimes face very different risks and political opportunity structures. Two popular contentious practices in contemporary China – ironic or ambiguous doorway hangings, and the body cultivation techniques of the recently outlawed sectarian group falun gong – demonstrate that ironic, ambiguous or metonymic frames represent adaptive strategies for the articulation of dissenting views in the face of repressive state power.

Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls

One of the fundamental innovations of the early Church was the abolition of an ancient, venerable institution—divorce, the practice of which was as widespread as marriage itself. The explicit ban on divorce found in the Gospels ran counter to legal systems of the known world, with one notable exception: among the sectarian group whose rules are enshrined in the Dead Sea Scrolls, a stance against divorce can be verified, implying that a legal innovation of early Christianity can be tracked back to its origins in Sectarian Judaism.By the time Christianity was emerging, marriage and divorce had already co-existed for a long time; in Mesopotamia marriage contracts had for two millennia been anticipating the possibility of divorce, with litigation governing the dissolution of marriage and division of properties. The best evidence, however, for the precursors to late Hellenistic (i.e. pagan, Jewish, and Christian) legal practice derives from a group of Neo-Babylonian marriage contracts dating from the seventh to third centuries B.C.