Holy Lands: Reviving Pluralism in the Middle East

by Nicolas Pelham

Overview

How did the world’s most tolerant region become the least harmonious place on the planet?

The news from the Middle East these days is bad. Whatever hopes people may have for the region are being dashed over and over, in country after country. Nicolas Pelham, a veteran correspondent for The Economist, has seen much of the tragedy first hand, but in Holy Lands he presents a strikingly original and startlingly optimistic argument.

The Middle East was notably more tolerant than Western Europe during the nineteenth century, because the Ottoman Empire permitted a high degree of religious pluralism and self-determination within its vast borders. European powers broke up the empire and tried to turn it into a collection of secular nation-states; it was a spectacular failure. Rulers turned religion into a force for nationalism and the result has been ever increasing sectarian violence. The solution, Pelham argues, is to accept the Middle East for the deeply religious region it is, and try to revive its tradition of pluralism.

Holy Lands is a work of vivid reportage—from Turkey and Iraq, Israel and Palestine, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, Bahrain and Jordan—that is animated by a big idea. It makes a region that is all too familiar from news reports feel fresh.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780990976349
Publisher:	Columbia Global Reports
Publication date:	04/12/2016
Pages:	184
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Nicolas Pelham has written about the Middle East since 1992. He began as the editor of Middle East Times from Cairo before joining the BBC Arabic Service. He covered the Algerian civil war and the caprice of Colonel Qaddafi as the BBC's correspondent in Rabat. In 2002 he joined the Financial Times reporting on the downfall of first Saddam Hussein and then the American protectorate in Baghdad. Since 2010, he has reported on the region's collapse for The Economist and The New York Review of Books. He is the author of two previous books, A New Muslim Order (2008) on Arab Shiite rule, and A History of the Middle East (2010) with Peter Mansfield. He lives in London with his wife and three children.

Editorial Reviews

03/21/2016
Pelham (A New Muslim Order) poses a troubling question: Can a region once known for its vibrant pluralism and religious cooperation return from the brink of sectarianism and a cycle of hyper-nationalistic violence? He recounts distressing vignettes from the Middle East before offering a nostalgic and analytic recommendation for remedy that emerges from the region's own history. To make his case, Pelham surveys snapshots of tension from Israel to Iran and Iraq to Turkey, juxtaposed with anecdotes of a fragile hope that are rising out of the rubble of lost history and recent regional turmoil. Proposing that hyper-nationalism and a legacy of Western incursion are particularly problematic, Pelham suggests that a return to a form of Ottoman militocracy might prove the pacifier. The reportage is well-grounded in textured life histories, interviews, and relevant historical narratives and statistics. Pelham offers impressively nuanced interpretations of entangled political rivalries and the hazy religious boundaries that crisscross the Middle East. Readers will find his investigation of the region's intolerance and aspirations for peace refreshing, particularly in the context of increasingly pessimistic headlines and political rhetoric. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"It is rare to come across a book on the region that charts a positive path for the future; rarer still to find one that advocates religious leadership and pragmatic communalism as the means for reaching peace.... [Pelham] makes a powerful case that a regional alliance of overlapping millets, not connected with territorial boundaries, offers a better vision for restoring stability to the Middle East than the current agendas for conflict management." —Jonathan Steele, The Guardian

"A fine collection of essays—a rare combination of on-the-ground reportage and profound historical knowledge." —Ian Black, The Guardian

"Can religion serve once again in the modern Middle East as the foundation for a meaningful pluralism as it did in the premodern Middle East? That is the question raised by this important book." —Jonathan P. Berkey, The American Interest

"The reportage is well-grounded in textured life histories, interviews, and relevant historical narratives and statistics. Pelham offers impressively nuanced interpretations of entangled political rivalries and the hazy religious boundaries that crisscross the Middle East. Readers will find his investigation of the region's intolerance and aspirations for peace refreshing, particularly in the context of increasingly pessimistic headlines and political rhetoric." —Publishers Weekly

"A sound, accessible argument for why returning to the mixed-faith communities living among each other in the Ottoman model might just save the Middle East.... Pelham does not see only doom but rather a resurgence of pluralism as a natural, human response given the chance for peaceable community. A lively, succinct, nonpolemical study that will offer much thought for discussion." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"This is a thoughtful response to the claim that the problems are insolvable or that the blame lies firmly on the doorstep of religious and ethnic strife." —Library Journal

From the Publisher

05/01/2016
One may believe that the conflicts in the Middle East are owing to centuries-old religious and ethnic clashes that are well-nigh irreconcilable. Having spent over 20 years in the region, journalist Pelham (A History of the Middle East) sets out to upend this conceit. He starts with the multicultural and interreligious harmony that once existed within the Ottoman Empire (1299–1923). This cooperation was accomplished by a system of overlapping nongeographical jurisdictions called millets, which were based on religious and cultural affiliations. Between Western ideals of uniform justice and Europe's efforts to dismantle the empire, the system of millets collapsed into ethnic enclaves. Secular practices of justice degenerated into sectarian struggles for dominance and survival. Much of Pelham's study concentrates on this aftermath and concludes with tidbits of hope that the region can again produce diverse societies. VERDICT While the reasons for optimism may be anecdotal, this is a thoughtful response to the claim that the problems are insolvable or that the blame lies firmly on the doorstep of religious and ethnic strife.—JW

Library Journal

★ 2016-02-03
A sound, accessible argument for why returning to the mixed-faith communities living among each other in the Ottoman model might just save the Middle East. British Middle East journalist Pelham (A New Muslim Order, 2008, etc.) traces the current crisis of violent, xenophobic sectarianism in the region to the series of forced population transfers and displacements carried out through the 20th century, most critically from the fall of the ethnically diverse Ottoman Empire to the creation of Israel and Pakistan. In the Ottoman Empire, writes the author, the sultans had learned how their strength derived from the heady mix of faith communities, living among each other, their houses of faith side by side. This borderless fluidity of groups—encompassing Arabs, Turks, Armenians, Greeks, Kurds, Jews, Christians, and others—provided a paradigm of diversity and tolerance, subsequently destroyed with the rise of the secular Young Turks and the accompanying attributes of a Turkish nation-state—i.e., nationalism, defense of the land, and service in the military. A kind of "cultural homogenization" inevitably followed, involving forced displacement of people and even genocide, a pattern that was repeated in the creation of Israel and Pakistan and is now occurring again in the establishment of the Islamic State group—a brand-new caliphate. Through his firsthand examples, Pelham explores the richness that has been lost in these lands once teeming with ethnic and religious pluralism—e.g., the formerly Arab towns of Safed and Acre, before the Jewish battle cry of "redeeming the land" produced the sanctioned, barren segregation. Moreover, the rise of militant radicalism has violently cleaved the two sects of Islam, Shia and Sunni, with both battling for assumption of power claimed over centuries. However, Pelham does not see only doom but rather a resurgence of pluralism as a natural, human response given the chance for peaceable community. A lively, succinct, nonpolemical study that will offer much thought for discussion.

Kirkus Reviews