THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST: A HISTORICAL AND LEGAL APPROACH
Academic Year 2022/2023 - Teacher: AGATA DANIELA MELFAExpected Learning Outcomes
The course aims to provide students with a historical background useful to apprehend developments in the modern Middle East.
Course Structure
The course is based on lectures, but students’ participation in class debate is highly appreciated. In order to facilitate interaction, students will be regularly solicited to provide their insights on selected academic papers. Primary sources, newspapers, maps, film excerpts, photos and videos will be used during the lessons.
Required Prerequisites
Basic geographical and historical knowledge, as well as introductory notions on Islam are required.
Attendance of Lessons
Attendance is compulsory.
Detailed Course Content
The course will deal with the modern history of the Middle East from the French expedition to Egypt (1798) to the end of the twentieth century. Several facets of the late-nineteenth-century modernisation will be taken into account, as well as European imperialism, the emergence of nationalisms and the Middle East state system created after WWI. Special attention will be devoted to the Arab-Israeli conflict and the leading ideologies (Pan-Arabism, Socialism, political Islam). These developments will be approached through the lens of constitution-making processes and constitutional charters.
Textbook Information
The textbook (A History of the Modern Middle East) will be complemented with a reading list on constitutionalism and constitution in the Middle East.
| Author | Title | Publisher | Year | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| William L. Cleveland, Martin Bunton | A History of the Modern Middle East | Westview Press | 2009 | 978-0-8133-4374-7 |
Course Planning
| Subjects | Text References | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Tanzimat Era. The 1939 and 1956 Decrees. The Young Ottomans and the 1876 Ottoman Constitution. | SELIM III (1789–1806): BETWEEN OLD AND NEW // SULTAN MAHMUD II (1808–1839): CENTRALIZATION AND TRANSFORMATION // THE TANZIMAT: CONTINUED OTTOMAN REFORM UNDER THE BUREAUCRATS |
| 2 | The Egypt of Muhammad Ali (1805-1849) and his successors. The Urabi Revolt (1879-1882). | A REVIVED CENTER OF POWER: THE EGYPT OF MUHAMMAD ALI, 1805–1848 |
| 3 | Abdulhamid’s reign and the era of the Young Turks. The Iranian constitutional revolution. | RELIGIOUS ASSERTIVENESS AND AUTHORITARIAN REFORM: THE ERA OF ABDUL HAMID II // THE REVOLT OF 1908 AND THE YOUNG TURKS IN POWER // THE PERIOD OF THE IRANIAN CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION |
| 4 | The Ottoman Empire in WWI. Diplomatic agreements and the principle of compensation. The correspondence Husayn-McMahon. | THE MIDDLE EAST IN THE WAR: AN OVERVIEW OF MILITARY OPERATIONS // THE PEACE SETTLEMENT |
| 5 | The Sykes-Picot agreement. The Balfour Declaration and Zionism. The (abortive) Arab State of Syria, the Franco-Syrian war and the mandate system. The Treaty of Sèvres. | Elizabeth F. Thompson, “Rashid Rida and the 1920 Syrian-Arab Constitution”, in The Routledge Handbook of the History of the Middle East Mandate, Routledge, 2015, pp. 244-257. |
| 6 | The Greek invasion, and the Turkish war of independence. The Reforms of the Atatürk Era. | THE ATATÜRK ERA IN TURKEY // Ergun Özbudun, “Secularism in Islamic Countries: Turkey as a Model”, in Rainer Grote, Tilmann J. Röder (eds), Constitutionalism in Islamic countries: between upheaval and continuity, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 135-145. |
| 7 | The 1919 Revolution and Egyptian conditional independence. Egypt’s liberal experiment (1924-1936): The 1923 constitution. | ENGLAND ON THE NILE: THE BRITISH OCCUPATION OF EGYPT, 1882–1914 // THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER IN EGYPT |
| 8 | The Muslim Brothers. The Koran is our constitution. | Ahmad S. Moussalli, “Hasan Al-Bannā’s Islamist Discourse on Constitutional Rule and Islamic State”, Journal of Islamic Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2 (July 1993), pp. 161-174. |
| 9 | The French mandate in Lebanon and Syria. The birth of Saudi Arabia and Gulf monarchies: ruling without a constitution. | THE FRENCH MANDATE IN SYRIA AND LEBANON // NEW KINGDOM IN ARABIA: THE RISE OF THE SAUDI STATE |
| 10 | The British mandate in Iraq and Transjordan. The Palestinian mandate. The proclamation of the Israeli State and the first Arab-Israeli war (1948-49). | IRAQ BETWEEN THE WARS // TRANSJORDAN: THE DESERT MANDATE // The Palestine Mandate and the Birth of the State of Israel (Chap. 13) |
| 11 | The 1952 Egyptian Revolution and Gamal Abdel Nasser’s regime. The 1956 Arab-Israeli war. The Charter for National Action. | The Middle East in the Age of Nasser: The Egyptian Base (Chap. 15) |
| 12 | The revolutionary momentum in the Middle East and the Egyptian boost: Syria and the Ba‘th; Iraq and Yemen. | IRAQ: THE END OF THE MONARCHY // |
| 13 | Israel and the Palestinians from 1948 to the 1970s. | ISRAEL, THE ARAB STATES, AND THE JUNE WAR // Israel and the Palestinians from 1948 to the 1970s (Chap. 17) // Hanna Lerner, Constitutional Impasse, Democracy, and Religion in Israel, in Aslı Ü. Bâli and Hanna Lerner (eds), Constitution Writing, Religion and Democracy, Cambridge University Press 2017, pp. 267-288. |
| 14 | Sadat, the 1973 War and the peace agreement. Syria in the Al-Asad era. | EGYPT UNDER SADAT: DOMESTIC AND DIPLOMATIC REALIGNMENTS |
| 15 | The Lebanese civil war. Hezbollah. | THE LEBANESE CIVIL WAR, 1975–1990 // Cordelia Koch, “The Separation of Powers in a Fragmented State: The Case of Lebanon”, in Rainer Grote, Tilmann J. Röder (eds), Constitutionalism in Islamic countries: between upheaval and continuity, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 387-402. |
| 16 | Iran under Reza Shah. The Iranian Revolution and the Resurgence of Islam. | IRAN UNDER REZA SHAH // THE STAGES OF REVOLUTION IN IRAN |
| 17 | Iraq in the era of Saddam Husayn. The Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) and the 1991 Gulf War. | IRAQ IN THE ERA OF SADDAM HUSAYN AND THE BA‘TH // THE IRAN-IRAQ WAR, 1980–198 |
| 18 | The Arabian Peninsula in the Petroleum Era | THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA // Abdulaziz H. Al-Fahad, “Ornamental Constitutionalism: The Saudi Basic Law of Governance”, Yale Journal of International Law, Volume 30, Issue 2, 2005, pp. 375-396. |
Learning Assessment
Learning Assessment Procedures
Assessment will be chiefly based on a final oral exam on the course topics. Student’s response to class activities will be also taken into account.
Examples of frequently asked questions and / or exercises
The early phase of constitutionalism: the 1876 Ottoman Constitution.
The Syrian war of independence after WWI.
The 1979 Iranian Revolution and the Iranian theocratic system.
Birth and features of the Israeli State.