ethnicity

History · State, politics and society

Understanding Mass Violence in the Middle East

Laura Robson explains how mass violence came to be a constitutive element of the state and of political authority in the Middle East.

History · Religious practices, ideas and experiences · Interreligious relations

Dietary Laws and the Birth of Islam

Foodways are an integral part of identity, and the proto-Muslim community was no exception. Based on Quranic proclamations on dietary laws, Mehdy Shaddel shows that among the early opponents of Islam there probably were “gentile” adherents of “Jewish” food laws.

All of one place: A Muslim saint, a converted Hindu princess, and a Hindu deity

Ethnic and religious antagonisms are not givens, but the outcome of historical and political processes. Borders, as human-made conveyors of state-oriented conceptual frameworks, play a central role in shaping these.