Middle East

The Theism of Lord Balfour

Lord Balfour, then Foreign Secretary, announced that he viewed with favour a national home for the Jews in Palestine. I.T. Naamani examines the philosophical writings of a remarkable British statesman.

Mohammed Ali: Pasha of Egypt

For forty years, ruler of an alien country, Mohammed Ali attempted a revolution from which Egypt might have emerged into the twentieth century “as a small-scale Japan.”  

The Real Bethlehem

The ‘little town’ celebrated by western Christians as the location of the Nativity is much more than a stylised depiction evoked in Christmas cards each December, says Jacob Norris. 

The Origin of the Whirling Dervishes

From their origins in the 13th century until the suppression of the Sufis by Atatürk, the whirling dervishes symbolized their beliefs through their ecstatic dances.

The Mamluk Sultans: 1250-1517

During the Mamluk Sultanate, writes P.M. Holt, men imported as slaves and trained as warriors became rulers of a great Islamic state.

Who was John the Baptist?

In the New Testament layers of tradition overlay accounts of John the Baptist. J.K. Elliott describes how these accounts were imposed by writers who altered historical details to suit their own doctrinal ends.