Since the late nineteenth century, modern Palestinian resistance poetry has been an expression of the Palestinian peoples' national culture and their historical struggle for self-determination and a homeland. This study examines Palestinian resistance poetry written during the ten year period following the June War of 1967, which tripled the land area of the state of Israel. English translations of three prominent Palestinian poets: Fadw a T uq an, Mahm ud Darwish, and Samih al-Q asim, are preceded by commentaries on the history of Palestinian poetry prior to 1967, and on the post-1967 occupation of Palestine. The poetry is analyzed according to four themes: the identity theme, the wound theme, the freedom fighters, and woman's place. Through the study of Palestinian resistance poetry in its historical context, the reader may develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between Palestinian national culture and the struggle for a homeland.

This dissertation consists of two parts. Part one is a translation of the Egyptian history within the Futuh Misr wa Akhbaruha of Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam. The Futuh Misr, as I refer to it in this dissertation, is a ninth century history written by the Egyptian historian/legalist, Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam. Its pages encompass the history of pre-Islamic Egypt, as Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam saw it, the conquest of Egypt, North Africa and Spain. The section on Egypt, and even North Africa and Spain, is one of the oldest histories we have dealing with this conquest. The second half of this dissertation is an historical analysis of Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam's history on the conquest of Egypt. Although at first glance the Futuh Misr does not seem to yield much useful information, it is surprisingly deceptive, particularly the Egyptian section. I have examined this section and have analyzed the contents to see what they reveal about the history of that time. From the themes that emerge, it is obvious that Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam's Futuh Misr not only provides useful information about the Arab conquest of 640 CE, but gives modern scholars an incite into the mentality of the author and his time period, and thus adds to our understanding of the attitude of historians during the medieval period in the Islamic world.

Arabic literature mirrors the aspirations, sufferings and hopes of the Arabic people from the past to the future. In 1920, the Exiled Arab men of letters from Syria and Lebanon formed a literary guild, al-Rābiṭa al-galamiyya (The Pen League) which advocated innovation in Arabic literature to fortify their society in the struggle for liberation and progress. Iliya Abu Madi became the most celebrated poet of al-Rābiṭa; with the poetry of his third diwān (collection), al-Jadāwil (The Brooks), he cast a magnificent pearl into the treasury of Arabic literature. These poems portray the poet's views about his art, his struggle with life in the Exile and his hopes and fears for the homeland. Philosophically his poetic ideals are transmitted through a naturalistic imagry that gives a universal hue to his humanistic perspectives. It is hoped that the English translation of these poems, not previously translated from Arabic, will allow the English reader to feel and sense the universalistic world of The Brooks.

<p> This dissertation provides a history from below of Palestinian national movement and Arab society during the tumultuous decade of the 1930s. It argues that the influence and authority of the small group of factionalized and disunited notable politicians that are conventionally understood to have monopolized the leadership of the national struggle during the era of British Mandatory rule has been greatly overstated. This is especially so for the restive and rebellious middle period of the Mandate (1929-1939), during which the movement turned from a conciliatory and quietist strategy of gentlemanly diplomacy preferred by elite politicians to confrontation, mass mobilization and armed struggle, culminating in "the Great Revolt" (1936-1939), a prolonged anti-colonial rebellion against both British rule and the Zionist project it sponsored. By examining the political practices, organizing, self-understanding, and leadership capacities of "youth" and peasants, the dissertation explicates the eclipse of elite preeminence within the national movement and the rise of the new, horizontally-organized social forces that reshaped and radicalized Palestinian politics in the 1930s. </p><p> The dissertation first explores the proliferation of youth associations in the early 1930s and illuminates how the rise of youth as an assertive, ambitious, and politically frustrated element had profound ramifications for the tactics, strategy, and trajectory of the national movement. The narrative then turns to track the decomposition of the Arab rural order from the late Ottoman era to 1936, paying particular attention to the crisis of the countryside under the British, who fecklessly intensified pre-existing tendencies towards peasant destitution, bankruptcy, and dispossession, thereby helping to create a disaffected class of uprooted ex-peasants. The final section analyzes the Great Revolt, focusing on the critical roles of youth, peasants, and workers in initiating and propelling it and on the popular and revolutionary institutions that organized and sustained it against great odds for over three years. This section also interrogates British counterinsurgency, highlighting the role of specific forms of colonial violence, especially collective punishments, in ending the rebellion, and with it the ascent of popular forces within the national movement.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Lehigh University, 2009. / Adviser: Elizabeth Fifer.

<p>My research concerns intertwined issues of religio-political legitimacy and panegyric poetry during the Safavid dynasty (r. 1501 ? 1722). I explore ways that ideology and dominance were enacted and reproduced through the Safavid panegyrics in qa??deh and masnav? form. This research specifically examines how court poets responded to Safavid ideology for legitimizing kingship. Panegyric poetry has been one of the chief forms of political propaganda in praise of rulers and other holders of political authority from pre-Islamic times until modern days. Panegyric poems, especially qa??deh and masnav?, were the production of a court system and they were dominantly produced when a king was in power. By considering the nature of panegyric, as written for receiving a reward, the poets? portrayal of kings is traditionally ?assumed? to be the closest to the kings? self-image. The Safavid Persian panegyric, especially the qa??deh form, has heretofore received little scholarly attention. Scholars have usually investigated the literary value of this poetic genre and dismissed the role it could play in the promotion of Muslim rulers. This dissertation explores the ways in which religio-political legitimacy was produced and transmitted through the qa??deh and masnav? forms during the Safavid period and emphasizes the significance of investigating the panegyric genre of poetry not only from a literary perspective, but through a historical lens. While other cultural materials of the time emphasized the role of Safavid kings in the propagation of Twelver Shi`ism and portrayed the kings in a subservient position to the Shi`i Imams, I demonstrate that the Safavid court poetry highlighted the idea of ?sacred? in Sufi discourses and in notions that invoke pre-Islamic forms of Persian kingship to legitimize the Safavid rulership. From the time of Shah `Abb?s I (r. 1588 ? d. 1629), these two forms of representation were established more profoundly in Safavid panegyrics and stood in contrast to traditional notions of Shi`ism that were predominant in other cultural materials that issued in the name of the Safavid rulers. This dissertation, on the one hand, serves historians of the Safavid period, who investigate the Safavid courts and ideology in kingship. It demonstrates how the poets worked differently from the other sources through which the legitimization of the Safavid kingship was established. On the other hand, my study serves scholars of religion, who study Safavid religious treatises in order to shed light on the development of Shi?ism, Sufism, and other religious traditions of the time. By demonstrating the differences between the representation of a Shi`i Safavid king in cultural materials of the time and panegyrics, my research invites these scholars to examine non-religious sources more extensively to investigate Safavid ideology because these sources give a sense of how the religio-political ideology of the kings was perceived among the public and how it developed through time.

<p> This research project examines the tactics used by Ibn Sa&rsquo;ud and the officials of the early Saudi State during the years 1922 to 1932&mdash;when it existed as the Kingdom of Najd and eventually the Hijaz&mdash;to project sovereignty through institutions like the passport, operation of consuls abroad, and claiming various populations as subjects. Ultimately, this project finds that these actions were significant contributors to the formation of Saudi Arabia and establishment of Saudi sovereignty. It adds another explanatory dimension, one not often explored, for understanding the history of the Saudi Kingdom. Moreover, the project shows that the assertiveness of Najdi officials to operate in the name of a sovereign nation forced the British to more clearly articulate their own claims, dispensing with their preferred state of ambiguity, and sometimes causing local officials to establish official British policy on the spot. This combination of British and Najdi action (and reaction) contributed significantly to the overall form and shape of national borders, mobility of individuals, and designation of nationality across the Persian Gulf and in the world writ large. Ibn Sa&rsquo;ud and his officials were not attempting to enter a game where the rules were already fully established. Rather, they were part of the fabric of individuals and forces that came to make sense of a newly forming international regime of nation-states, nationality, and greater controls on human mobility.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation examines twentieth-century Jewish-Muslim relations in Morocco&rsquo;s Atlas Mountains through oral traditions (anecdotes, jokes, songs, poetry duels) as remembered by Muslims and Jews in the twenty-first century. Jews had lived in these predominantly Berber-speaking regions for over one thousand years; yet these rural Jewish communities had almost completely disappeared by the early 1960s, due to mass emigration, largely to Israel. Despite the totality of the rupture, Jews and Muslims retain vivid memories of their former neighbors. Drawing on my fieldwork with Muslims still living in Moroccan villages and with Jews in Israel who had emigrated from those same villages over half a century earlier, I use the anecdotes and songs that animate these reminiscences as my primary sources. My analysis is further informed by extensive research on Moroccan history and culture. My study reveals that Berber oral traditions functioned in the past&mdash;and continue to function in present-day reminiscences&mdash;as forms of creative acknowledgment of both difference and affinity between Jews and Muslims. Analyzing examples from this corpus illuminates aspects and nuances of the intricacies of daily life rarely addressed in other sources, facilitating a deeper understanding of the paradoxes and possibilities of Jewish/Muslim co-existence in Morocco&rsquo;s Atlas Mountains, and perhaps beyond.</p><p> Central to my theoretical concerns, therefore, are interreligious cultural production and boundaries. Berber cultural traditions in particular offer a unique framework (for both participants and researchers) for addressing issues of boundaries and difference, while simultaneously elucidating the shared cultural worlds of Jews and Muslims in which oral traditions played a crucial role, and out of which came creativity, humor, and community. It was the engagement with difference, rather than its erasure, that fostered community and a rich intercultural life.</p><p> I begin with an investigation of the phenomenon of Arabic-speaking Jews among Berber-speaking Muslims, which also illuminates Jewish participation in Berber oral&mdash;and other cultural&mdash;traditions. Rather than a unidirectional acculturation of the minority into the majority culture, Berber cultural forms engaged by Muslims and Jews reflect a dynamic interchange. I posit the idea of Muslim-Jewish &ldquo;co-productions&rdquo; for many of the shared Berber oral traditions, particularly for the poetic duels. In my analysis of the recounted anecdotes and poems, I explore how Muslims and Jews not only speak <i> of</i> each other but also <i>through</i> each other&rsquo;s voices. Through adaptation of Bakhtin&rsquo;s theoretical concepts of dialogism and polyphony, I show how speaking in one another&rsquo;s voices allows Muslim and Jewish narrators to express multiple and often contradictory meanings simultaneously. Throughout my analysis, I investigate how boundaries did not always fall neatly or predictably into religious categories, nor did the complex socio-political stratification fit into a simplified majority-minority binary.</p><p> The nuanced views of Jewish-Muslim relationships that my project presents serve as a model for exploring such intercommunal relations beyond the temporal and geographic focus of my dissertation. My study serves as a corrective to simplified and polarized views of Jewish-Muslim relations prevalent in public spheres, media, and still, though to a lesser degree, in academia, and leads to an appreciation of the complexity and diversity of such relationships. </p><p>

<p> The Failure of Mehdi Bazargan How the Revolutionary Council, the Clerical Oligarchy, and United States Foreign Policy Undermined the Liberal Democracy of Iran in 1979 The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate that the downfall of Mehdi Bazargan and the Provisional Government is due less to the deliberate manipulations of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, as depicted in popular narratives, than to both the conflicts between rival power centers in the government, foreign influence, and Bazargan&rsquo;s administrative mismanagement, poor leadership skills, and failure to successfully project his own vision. </p><p> The conclusions of this thesis were reached based on leading secondary sources from both Western and Iranian writers, as well as the extensive use of contemporary news sources, revealed internal Iranian government communiques, and archived interviews with principle actors. </p><p> The thesis identifies the rival power centers at conflict in Iran during the Provisional Government Era from February &mdash; November 1979 as Bazargan&rsquo;s Provisional Government, the Revolutionary Council, Ayatollah Khomeini&rsquo;s evolving concentration of power, and U.S. foreign policy. Chapter one describes the oppositional background of Bazargan, illuminates his own vision for Islamic government, and introduces his deliberate methodology for instituting revolution. </p><p> Chapter two explains the rival power centers at play during the Provisional Government Era. The Provisional Government is depicted as Bazargan&rsquo;s main source of support, the legal administrators of the transitional government, and as such, it represents his vision. The Revolutionary Council, dominated by clerics loyal to Khomeini, referred to as the clerical oligarchy, represent diverging agendas within the clerical leadership who operated in Khomeini&rsquo;s name but often without his explicit consent. The clerics within the Revolutionary Council exerted their greatest usurpation of Bazargan&rsquo;s legal authority through their control over the extralegal revolutionary committees and the judiciary, circumventing his ability to provide state-controlled security and enact state-sanctioned justice. Khomeini lacked consolidated control in the early months of the Provisional Government Era, instead relying on the infighting between the government and the Revolutionary Council, and allowing for the popular momentum of the revolution to guide his political moves, but ultimately exercised decisive action to consolidate all political authority. Finally, the thesis argues that U.S. foreign policy had been to support the Provisional Government through intelligence-sharing, hoping that by supporting the liberal democratic stream of power they could offset the radical religious stream and undermine Khomeini&rsquo;s personal influence. </p><p> Chapter three reveals how Bazargan chose to react to the challenges each rival power center presented. Despite the momentum of the popular revolution, Bazargan insisted in moderating the tone and progress of change, ignoring how ineffective his methods were in effecting positive change.</p>

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