Sami Zubaida is Emeritus Professor of Politics and Sociology at Birkbeck, University of London and a Fellow of Birkbeck College. He is also Research Associate of the London Middle East Institute and Professorial Research Associate of the Food Studies Centre, both at SOAS. He has held visiting positions in Cairo, Istanbul, Beirut, Aix-en-Provence, Paris, Berkeley CA and NYU, and has written and lectured widely on religion, culture, law and politics in the Middle East, with particular attention to Egypt, Iran, Iraq and Turkey.. He is the author of Beyond Islam: A New Understanding of the Middle East (IB Tauris, 2011)
His earlier books include Islam, the People and the State: Political Ideas and Movements in the Middle East (IB Tauris, 1993); A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East (IB Tauris, 2001); and Law and Power in the Islamic World (IB Tauris, 2005)
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Published in: North Africa, West AsiaIslamic Reformation?We keep hearing calls for an ‘Islamic Reformation’, but the Protestant Reformation was not a liberal enterprise: it...
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Published in: HomeVarieties of ‘Islamophobia’ and its targetsThe presence of growing Muslim populations in Europe at the same time as the rise of political Islam and the...
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Published in: HomeThe question of sectarianism in Middle East politicsEverywhere the Arab uprisings have been confronted by the entrenched vested interests of old regimes, the so-called...
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Published in: HomeTurkey, alcohol and IslamNow, after a decade of electoral success and economic growth, governing without a coalition, the army neutralised,...
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Published in: HomeIslam in the Arab transformationsThe Shari’a is largely irrelevant to most important issues of policy and administration in the economy and in...
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Published in: HomeWomen, democracy and dictatorshipIn the early and middle decades of the twentieth century it was always Middle Eastern dictators who embarked on...