Asad S Legacy

Hafez al-Asad (d. 2000) ruled Syria for 30 of its 55-year history as a modern state. Zisser (Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African studies, Tel Aviv U.) offers a balanced view of Asad's role in elevating Syria to a stable, major Middle East player but with a legacy of authoritarianism and struggles over succession. Includes maps of Syria's frontier with Israel and Lebanon. c. Book News Inc.

When Basher al-Asad became President of Syria in June 2000, he had a tough act to follow. A quiet, unassuming opthalmologist, trained in Britain, young Asad was successor to his dynamic, wily father Hafiz, who had consolidated power in his ethnically diverse and politically restive state through personal charisma, brute force and political balancing acts. Now, some years after Basher's succession and with mounting international pressure for political and economical reform, his handling of the issues facing Syria raises serious questions for the future stability of the Middle East. This is the first major work on Basher al-Asad. It assesses the durability of Hafiz's legacy, including the influence of the old power-brokers, the effectiveness of Basher's attempts to move away from his father's shadow, and prospects for reform. Above all, it evaluates Basher's continuing hold on power following Syria's humiliating retreat from Lebanon in Spring 2005.

This book is a comprehensive study of Sībawayhi's methodological concepts and methods. It analyzes a wide range of the Kitāb’s passages, demonstrates the coherency of its author’s system of grammatical analysis, and highlights its huge influence on the grammatical tradition.

An examination of the Middle East's leading armed forces and their role in both military and political affairs. The book considers their missions, doctrine, training, equipment and effectiveness as fighting forces.

This book is a theoretically and historically informed exploration of 'secularism' in Muslim contexts. It does this through a critical assessment of an influential tradition of thinking about Islam and secularism, derived from the work of anthropologist Talal Asad and his followers. The study employs the tools of comparative historical sociology and sociology of knowledge to engage with the assumptions of Asadian theory. Ultimately, Enayat argues against nativist assertions drawn from the experience of Western modernity and provides a qualified defense of secularism.

Abeysekara contends that democracy--along with its cherished secular norms--is founded on the idea of a promise deferred to the future. The belief that ethnic-political identities--such as Buddhist, Hindu, Sinhalese, and Tamil--can be critiqued, neutralized, improved, and changed, even if they remain inseparable from their genocidal pasts, is rooted in democracy's messianic promise. Abeysekara compels us to consider our ethical-political legacies not as "problems" but as "aporias" in the Derridean sense--contradictions or impasses that cannot be resolved. Abeysekara locates distinct aporias in our modernity and situates them in the places and cultures of America, France, England, Sri Lanka, India, and Tibet. He presents concrete examples of religion in public life and calls into question the projects of refashioning the aporetic premises of liberalism and secularism.

From the John Holmes Library collection.