The Struggle for Power in Arabia

The Struggle for Power in Arabia PDF Author: Haifa Alangari
Publisher: Garnet & Ithaca Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
In June 1916 outside the Grand Mosque at Mecca, the Arab Revolt was proclaimed by the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein ibn Ali, with Britain's full backing of his authority and leadership. Ten years later, on the very same spot, Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud was inaugurated as the Sultan of Najd and King of the Hijaz. In this book the authority of these two leaders, Hussein of the Hijaz and Ibn Saud of Najd, is examined and related to Britain's role in the region during the Great War. The author argues that foreign intervention may affect the political structure of a country, but cannot for long sustain its leader in power if the leader does not have a supportive political base with its operating machinery. In the setting of Arabia in the early twentieth century one key requisite in gaining power was the leader's ability to mobilize the various social groups to work for the interest of the state. Ibn Saud successfully induced his social groups to identify their interests with those of his religio-political state, whereas Hussein alienated his social groups by neglecting his religious role as Sharif and adopting pan-Arabism as his state's ideology. In the contest for power between these two leaders, Ibn Saud's political strategy triumphed and established him as the master of the whole of Arabia. Drawing on a wealth of documentary sources, Dr Haifa Alangari provides a highly original comparative study of the struggle for power in Arabia against major political forces that reshaped Arabia and the map of the Middle East.

Buraimi

Buraimi PDF Author: Michael Quentin Morton
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857734113
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
Buraimi is an oasis in an otherwise bleak desert on the border between Oman and the UAE. In the early twentieth century, it shot to notoriety as oil brought the world's attention to this corner of the Arabian Peninsula, and the ensuing battle over energy resources between regional and global superpowers began. In this lively account, Michael Quentin Morton tells the story of how the power of oil and the conflicting interests of the declining British Empire and the United States all came to a head with the conflict between Great Britain and Saudi Arabia, shaping the very future of the Gulf states. The seeds of conflict over Buraimi were sown during the oil negotiations of 1933 in Jedda, where the international oil companies vied for control of the future industry in the Arabian Peninsula. As a result of lengthy discussions, including the efforts of men such as St John Philby and Ibn Saud himself, the Saudis granted an oil concession for Eastern Arabia without precisely defining the geographical limits of the area to be conceded. Matters came to a head in 1949 when Saudi Arabia made claim to the territory, and Great Britain, acting on behalf of Oman and Abu Dhabi, challenged the actions of the Saudis. Attempts at arbitration failed, and only one year before Britain's defeat over the Suez Canal, Britain expelled Saudi Arabia from the oasis. In the wake of Britain's withdrawal 'East of Suez' in the early 1970s, the dispute was apparently solved between Saudi Arabia and the UAE. But whilst the controversy dominated Anglo-Saudi relations for more than 30 years, it still casts its shadow across the Gulf today, threatening to expose the fragility of the West's ever-present dependency on the region for its supply of oil. Morton brings a range of historical figures to life, from the American oilmen arriving in steamy Jedda in the 1930s, to the rival sheikhs of Buraimi itself competing for power, wealth and allegiances as well as the great players in world politics: Churchill, Truman and Ibn Saud. This entertaining and thoroughly researched book is both a story of a decisive conflict in the history of Middle East politics and also of the great changes that the discovery of oil brought to this previously desolate land.

The Struggle for Power in Arabia

The Struggle for Power in Arabia PDF Author: Haifa Alangari
Publisher: Garnet & Ithaca Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book Here

Book Description
In June 1916 outside the Grand Mosque at Mecca, the Arab Revolt was proclaimed by the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein ibn Ali, with Britain's full backing of his authority and leadership. Ten years later, on the very same spot, Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud was inaugurated as the Sultan of Najd and King of the Hijaz. In this book the authority of these two leaders, Hussein of the Hijaz and Ibn Saud of Najd, is examined and related to Britain's role in the region during the Great War. The author argues that foreign intervention may affect the political structure of a country, but cannot for long sustain its leader in power if the leader does not have a supportive political base with its operating machinery. In the setting of Arabia in the early twentieth century one key requisite in gaining power was the leader's ability to mobilize the various social groups to work for the interest of the state. Ibn Saud successfully induced his social groups to identify their interests with those of his religio-political state, whereas Hussein alienated his social groups by neglecting his religious role as Sharif and adopting pan-Arabism as his state's ideology. In the contest for power between these two leaders, Ibn Saud's political strategy triumphed and established him as the master of the whole of Arabia. Drawing on a wealth of documentary sources, Dr Haifa Alangari provides a highly original comparative study of the struggle for power in Arabia against major political forces that reshaped Arabia and the map of the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia in Transition

Saudi Arabia in Transition PDF Author: Bernard Haykel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316194191
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
Making sense of Saudi Arabia is crucially important today. The kingdom's western province contains the heart of Islam, and it is the United States' closest Arab ally and the largest producer of oil in the world. However, the country is undergoing rapid change: its aged leadership is ceding power to a new generation, and its society, dominated by young people, is restive. Saudi Arabia has long remained closed to foreign scholars, with a select few academics allowed into the kingdom over the past decade. This book presents the fruits of their research as well as those of the most prominent Saudi academics in the field. This volume focuses on different sectors of Saudi society and examines how the changes of the past few decades have affected each. It reflects new insights and provides the most up-to-date research on the country's social, cultural, economic and political dynamics.

The Struggle for Power in Syria

The Struggle for Power in Syria PDF Author: Nikolaos van Dam
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Syria
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Inside the Kingdom

Inside the Kingdom PDF Author: Robert Lacey
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101140739
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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Book Description
"It's all here-Islam, the family tree, a sea of oil and money to match, palace intrigue...This is high drama and an epic tale." -Tom Brokaw Though Saudi Arabia sits on one of the richest oil deposits in the world, it also produced fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers. In this immensely important book, journalist Robert Lacey draws on years of access to every circle of Saudi society giving readers the fullest portrait yet of a land straddling the worlds of medievalism and modernity. Moving from the bloody seizure of Mecca's Grand Mosque in 1979, through the Persian Gulf War, to the delicate U.S.-Saudi relations in a post 9/11 world, Inside the Kingdom brings recent history to vivid life and offers a powerful story of a country learning how not to be at war with itself.

Reaching for Power

Reaching for Power PDF Author: Yitzhak Nakash
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400841461
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
As the world focuses on the conflict in Iraq, the most important political players in that country today are not the Sunni insurgents. Instead, they are Iraq's Shi'I majority--part of the Middle East's ninety million Shi'I Muslims who hold the key to the future of the region and the relations between Muslim and Western societies. So contends Yitzhak Nakash, one of the world's foremost experts on Shi'ism. With his characteristic verve and style, Nakash traces the role of the Shi'is in the struggle that is raging today among Muslims for the soul of Islam. He shows that in contrast to the growing militancy among Sunni groups since the 1990s, Shi'is have shifted their focus from confrontation to accommodation with the West. Constituting sixty percent of the population of Iraq, they stand squarely at the center of the U.S government's attempt to remake the Middle East and bring democracy to the region. This groundbreaking book addresses the crucial importance of Shi'is to the U.S. endeavor. Yet it also alerts readers to the strong nationalist sentiments of Shi'is, underscoring the difficult challenge that the United States faces in attempting to impose a new order in the Middle East. The book provides a comprehensive historical perspective on Shi'ism, beginning with the emergence of the movement during the seventh century, continuing through its rise as a political force since the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1978-79, and leading up to the Iraqi elections of January 2005. Drawing extensively on Arabic sources, this comparative study highlights the reciprocal influences shaping the political development of Shi'is in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Lebanon, as well as the impact of the revival of Shi'ism on the larger Arab world. The narrative concludes with an assessment of the risks and possibilities arising from the assertion of Shi'I power in Iraq and from America's attempt to play an increasingly forceful role in the Middle East. A landmark book and a work of remarkable scholarship, Reaching for Power illuminates the Shi'a resurgence amid the shifting geopolitics of the Middle East.

Muted Modernists

Muted Modernists PDF Author: Madawi Al-Rasheed
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190496029
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
A challenging reassessment of the received wisdom concerning the interaction of politics and religion in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The Struggle of Major Powers Over Syria

The Struggle of Major Powers Over Syria PDF Author: Jamāl Wākīm
Publisher: Garnet Publishing - Ithaca Press
ISBN: 9780863725111
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This highly topical book argues that the success or failure of Syria's policies is directly linked to the degree to which these policies accord with those of Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and that the country has been subject throughout its history to competition between the forces occupying the geostrategic spheres that surround it. The book further argues that the influence of these spheres is not restricted to foreign policy, but also extends to interaction with cultural, economic, and social groups, thus transforming the geo-political to geo-cultural, geo-economic, and geo-social. Ordered chronologically, the book deals chapter-by-chapter with the different conflicts and struggles that have surrounded Syria throughout history, detailing the constant struggles to control it by Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Egypt. It examines the political changes that have taken place during the term of President Bashar Assad, including the role of the 'superpowers' in seeking to achieve control of the region, and it concludes that whoever controls Syria can tighten their grip on Iraq, Turkey, and Egypt, and thus the whole of the Middle East.

The Clerics of Islam

The Clerics of Islam PDF Author: Nabil Mouline
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300206615
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Followers of Muhammad b. ’Abd al-Wahhab, often considered to be Islam’s Martin Luther, shaped the political and religious identity of the Saudi state while also enabling the significant worldwide expansion of Salafist Islam. Studies of the movement he inspired, however, have often been limited by scholars’ insufficient access to key sources within Saudi Arabia. Nabil Mouline was granted rare interviews and admittance to important Saudi archives in preparation for this groundbreaking book, the first in-depth study of the Wahhabi religious movement from its founding to the modern day. Gleaning information from both written and oral sources and employing a multidisciplinary approach that combines history, sociology, and Islamic studies, Mouline presents a new reading of this movement that transcends the usual resort to polemics.

Shadow Wars

Shadow Wars PDF Author: Christopher Davidson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1786070022
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 933

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Book Description
For more than a century successive US and UK governments have sought to thwart nationalist, socialist and pro-democracy movements in the Middle East. Through the Cold War, the ‘War on Terror’ and the present era defined by the Islamic State, the Western powers have repeatedly manipulated the region’s most powerful actors to ensure the security of their own interests and, in doing so, have given rise to religious politics, sectarian war, bloody counter-revolutions and now one of the most brutal incarnations of Islamic extremism ever seen. This is the utterly compelling, systematic dissection of Western interference in the Middle East. Christopher Davidson exposes the dark side of our foreign policy – dragging many disturbing facts out into the light for the first time. Most shocking for us today is his assertion that US intelligence agencies continue to regard the Islamic State, like al-Qaeda before it, as a strategic but volatile asset to be wielded against their enemies. Provocative, alarming and unrelenting, Shadow Wars demands to be read – now.