History and Geopolitics of the Middle East

Key historical junctures in Middle Eastern history will be addressed with attention to their regional geopolitical context. More specifically, the following issues will be dealt with in the 1st unit: emergence of Islam, sunnism and shiism, classical political theory, relationship between political power and religious authority in medieval Islam, sufism, the gunpowder empires and their crisis, colonialism, Sionism. In the 2nd unit we will explore Arab nationalism, Islamic revivalism, fundamentalism, the partition of the Middle East between the two world wars, the islamization process in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the 1979 revolution in Iran, the two Gulf wars, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. In the third unit we will go over the emergence and development of al-Qaeda, the post-bipolar Israel- Palestine conflict, the Arab springs, Iran-Saudi antagonism, the Islamic emirates in Afghanistan, the most recent protests in Iran (2022-23).