The Shi‘i State and the Socioeconomic Challenges of the Sunni Communities in Iran

Although Iran is one of the most diverse nations in the Middle East, the state historically has been reluctant to adapt a pluralistic approach to both socio-political and economic development. This chapter focuses on the Sunni population in Iran, which is often overlooked in studies dealing with state-minority relations in Iran. It examines the socio-economic challenges of the Sunni population under both the Pahlavi dynasty and the Islamic Republic. Although the Islamic Republic based its ideology both on redistribution of wealth and empowerment of the impoverished, the ethnic Sunni Iranians who lived in the most impoverished regions of the country received very little attention from the new post-revolutionary order.

Communities in the Playing Field of Pluralism

This chapter aims to examine critically the concept of pluralism in the Middle East as a multidimensional site of negotiation and contestation. It approaches the question of pluralism and community in the Middle East as the lived experience of populations constantly negotiating the state-sanctioned inclusion and exclusion mechanisms. Rather than addressing the question of pluralism and community through the framework of "minorities," this chapter aims to offer a wider perspective on the impact of state policies on the diversity and heterogeneity of national identities as manifested at multiple levels, including education, law, cultural heritage, urbanism, economic activities and citizenship.

Millet Ethnicity

This chapter examines how increasing media reports of some Turkish Muslims coming to terms with their Armenian ancestry is challenging traditional notions of Armenian identity that maintained a synonymy of Armenian-ness with Christianity, specifically that of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Using the concept of "millet ethnicity"--the ethnicization of religious identities--the author argues that the ethnic gulf that separates the Armenian Christians from the Turkish Muslims remains a potent legacy of the millet system in the Republic of Turkey. However, two groups within Turkey blur the boundaries: the Hopa Hemshin (Armenian-speaking Muslims from Eastern Turkey) and the "Islamized" Armenians. This chapter therefore details the debate regarding the Armenian-ness of the Hopa Hemshin and Islamized Armenians, coupled with the enthusiastic engagement by the Diaspora with these two groups, in order to demonstrate how modern conceptions of what it is to be an Armenian are changing.

The Ruling Family’s Hegemony

This chapter examines the question of how the ruling family proactively continues to consolidate its own position within Qatari society. The state adopts three primary means to reproduce and stimulate the existing inclusion and exclusion schemes in Qatari society. First, it promotes the dominant Arab social values, culture, traditions, and customs that perpetuate a scheme of inclusion and exclusion and secure the position of the ruling family and Arab tribal social actors at the apex of the social hierarchy of the state. Second, it narrows down the definition of national identity in order to limit vertical social mobility in society only to certain tribal families. Third, through articles of the Constitution, the legal system and implicit family policies related to marriage and nationality, the state has been influencing individuals, insofar as marriage choices are concerned, as a further means of preventing social mobility to wider strata of society.

Between Faith and State

This chapter examines the politics of law that are mapped out in the various trends of analysis within both Islamic and international law. Disrupting the notion of a "fixedness" in these legal discourses and reimagining each in their political self is a critical first step in addressing the challenge--one that preoccupies much of the literature that looks at Islam and rights--as to how to open a space in the human rights project where faith and reason can be accommodated. In undertaking this task, the chapter discusses how the human rights project engages with religion in the public sphere before turning to how these concepts have been engaged where Islam and human rights intersect generally, and then specifically when applied to states in the Middle East. The second part of the chapter focuses on the plural readings of Islamic formulations of law and details the trends of analysis within political transformations that have unfolded (and continue to unfold) across the MENA region in the wake of the so-called Arab Spring.

Colorblind or Blinded by Color?

This chapter considers issues of race and ethnicity in Iran, as well as in its borderlands with Iraq and the Persian Gulf. It interrogates the concepts of "Arabness" and "Persianness" as espoused by both indigenous and Western writers, especially in the nineteenth century when the academic interest in race and language gained popularity. The chapter parses anthropological assumptions about the differences in the racial and ethnic communities of southern Iran, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf and traces the ways in which these ideas gained fluency in political tracts and state-building efforts. Finally, the chapter argues that racism remained problematic in Iranian popular culture despite the country's solidarity with many Afro-Asian liberation movements in the second half of the twentieth century.

Cultural Cleansing and Iconoclasm Under the Islamic State

This chapter analyzes the destruction of heritage perpetrated by the "Islamic State" (IS) in Iraq and Syria. It takes as its empirical focus the targeting of both Yezidi and Christians and their heritage in Iraq and Syria. To date, little attention has been paid to the intersection between the human suffering and the heritage destruction undertaken by the IS. This chapter also examines the cultural cleansing undertaken by the IS against these two fragile minorities by also looking at the iconoclastic acts against the tangible representations of their heritage. This chapter situates the discussion within the conceptual framework of heritage, community, and violence, by arguing that attacks on heritage sites in conjunction with genocidal pogroms or ethno/religious conflict occur precisely because heritage plays such a critical role as the tangible manifestation of the community.

Inclusion and Exclusion in the Arab City

The urban world underwent a massive transformation at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century. No region has escaped these changes, and many countries in the Arab Middle East have been particularly affected by them. This chapter analyzes how the construction of the Middle East as a concept has affected the evolution of a placeless urbanism in the region. In doing so, it illustrates the fluidity of identity under both colonial and modern conditions, but also discusses how old ethnic conflicts and religious rivalries in the age of globalization perpetuate different forms of exclusion that shape the contemporary Arab Middle Eastern City.

Formal Education Systems as Arenas of Inclusion and Exclusion

This chapter focuses on formal education in Lebanon and Syria to discuss inclusion and exclusion in plural societies. Both countries are linguistically, religiously, and ethnically heterogeneous but manage this diversity in very different ways in the educational systems. Empirical material used stretches from the 1980s until today. Curriculum theory provides a theoretical frame of reference for an analysis of school subjects such as civics, religious education and history. What is included and what is excluded is an indicator of values propagated by the educational authorities.