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Using a comprehensive evaluation of recent archaeological findings, Avni addresses the transformation of local societies in Palestine and Jordan between the sixth and eleventh centuries AD. Arguing that these archaeological findings provide a reliable, though complex, picture, Avni illustrates how the Byzantine-Islamic transition was a much slower and gradual process than previously thought, and that it involved regional variability, different types of populations, and diverse settlement patterns. Based on the results of hundreds of excavations, including Avni's own surveys and excavations in the Negev, Beth Guvrin, Jerusalem, and Ramla, the volume reconstructs patterns of continuity and change in settlements during this turbulent period, evaluating the process of change in a dynamic multicultural society and showing that the coming of Islam had no direct effect on settlement patterns and material culture of the local population. The change in settlement, stemming from internal processes rather than from external political powers, culminated gradually during the Early Islamic period. However, the process of Islamization was slow, and by the eve of the Crusader period Christianity still had an overwhelming majority in Palestine and Jordan.

In this volume, Brownson sheds new light on Palestinian Muslim women’s agency in shari‘a courts from the British Mandate period to the present. Her extensive archival research on wife-initiated maintenance claims, divorce, and child custody cases deepens our understanding of women’s position in the courts, demonstrating that Muslim women were and are active participants in their legal affairs. Using court registers and interviews, Brownson uncovers a variety of ways women have manipulated the system to their benefit despite its patriarchal bias. She also finds that few reforms were implemented during the Mandate period. The British were uninterested in improving colonized women’s legal status and sought to avoid further antagonizing Palestinians. At the same time, Palestinians wished to uphold the one indigenous institution they still controlled while both British rule and Zionism threatened their nationalist aspirations. Although Palestinian women have had few alternatives to using this male privileged system to redress grievances with their husbands and in-laws, they continue to resist its injustices every day. Brownson finds that women’s understanding of family law fundamentals has enabled some to deftly navigate the system; however, a unified, reformed law reflecting society's current needs is required so women can have full access to their rights.

The ideology of Islamic fundamentalists is of central importance in the modern world, but it is often distorted or misunderstood by the international media. This insightful study provides a detailed analysis of the Palestinian Hamas movement's world-view, and shows how the theoretical framework developed by thinkers such as Hassan al-Banna, Sayyis Qutb and al-Mawdudi is applied to a specific political, social and economic context. Nusse explains the fundamentalist position on recent events, such as the Gulf War, the Madrid peace negotiations and the Hebron massacre, and helps to dissipate myths surrounding modern fundamentalist movements and their overwhelming success as opposition movements in the modern world.

Islamism and secular nationalism -- Situating secular nationalism and Islamism in the Palestinian setting -- Palestinian Islamist mobilization in regional perspective -- Generation dynamics within social movements -- Generational transformation and Palestinian national identity -- The secular-nationalist milieu -- The ethos of Fathawi nationalism -- Social backgrounds -- Factors of mobilization -- Conceptions of the collective : retrievals and alterations -- Conclusion -- The Islamist milieu -- The structures and ethos of the Islamist milieu -- Social backgrounds -- Mobilization : events and structures -- Islamist conceptions of the collective -- Al-jihād fī sabīl al-nafs : the struggle for the soul -- Al-jihād fī sabīl al-siyāsa : the struggle for politics -- Al-jihād fī sabīl al-thawra : the struggle for the revolution -- Conclusion -- Thawra camp : a case study of shifting identities -- Setting, institutions, and ethos of Thawra camp -- Social backgrounds of the interlocutors -- Mobilization : events and structures -- Identity formation in the secular-nationalist milieu -- Identity formation in the Islamist milieu -- Hierarchies of solidarity -- Sheer secularism : al-lībrāliyyīn -- Islamic secularism -- Liberal Islamism -- Sheer Islamism -- Conclusion -- Karama Camp : Islamist-secularist dynamics in the Gaza Strip -- Karama Camp and post-Oslo Gaza -- The camp -- The Gaza Strip -- The Asdudis : social backgrounds and paths of political mobilization -- Conceptions of the collective order -- ʻAbd al-muʼmin's Islamism -- Abu Jamil and "traditionalist nationalism" -- Islam without the Islamists : Latif, Imm Muhammad, and Abu Qays -- Conclusion -- Epilogue -- References -- Index.

In Jewish-Muslim Relations and Migration from Yemen to Palestine in the Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Ari Ariel analyzes the impact of local, regional and international events on ethnic and religious relations in Yemen and Yemeni Jewish migration patterns. Previous research has dealt with single episodes of Yemenite migration during limited spans of time. Ariel, instead, provides a broad sweep of the migratory flows over the 70 year time span during which most of Yemen’s Jews moved to Palestine and then Israel. He successfully avoids the polemic nature of much of the literature on Middle Eastern Jewry by focusing on the social, economic and political transformations that provoked and then sustained this migration.

Ottoman Brothers explores Ottoman collective identity, tracing how Muslims, Christians, and Jews became imperial citizens together in Palestine following the 1908 revolution.