Welcome to Middle East Centre Book Talk. The Oxford podcast on new books about the Middle East.
These are some of the books written by members of our community or the books our community are talking about.
My name is a Summer Azami and I teach contemporary Islamic studies. My guest today is David Warren.
David completed his APHC at the University of Manchester before spending stints as a researcher at Harvard, Brandeis and the University of Edinburgh.
He's currently a post-doctoral research fellow, a research associate at Washington University in St. Louis,
a scholar of contemporary Alan David's research analyses the politics and discourse of the Muslim scholarly elite Allama,
with a particular focus on the Arab Spring and its aftermath.
Besides many journal articles, David is the author of the recently released monograph Rivals in the Gulf,
USFL, Columbia and A Pool of India and the Qatar UAE could contest over the Arab Spring and the Gulf crisis.
Very long title MASC published by Routledge this January.
This fascinating book will be the subject of today's discussion. And with that, I'd like to welcome you to book talk, David.
Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here with you.
It's wonderful to catch up again across sort of coming from beaming from across the pond, as it were.
Absolutely. So let's stop by something more, general, about your book.
Tell us about how you went about writing your book. When did you start?
What sort of sources you used and where the travels may have taken you with this book?
Thank you so much. So just in general, I think the actual writing of the book started not so long ago in September 2019,
although the idea had been germinating for a long time,
I think since the Arab Spring, there's been this revitalisation of interest in studying the art of maths,
particularly examining the role in countries such as Egypt and Syria.
And so what I want to do in this book was bring that new emphasis into conversation with these new studies of the Gulf region,
particularly particularly focussing all on Qatar and the UAE. So in terms of the sources and things like that, new sources,
I think one of the things about studying very recent events like the Arab Spring, its aftermath,
is that the sources that you're reading were often countering new kinds of sources, using YouTube videos, online lectures and things like that.
So I focussed primarily on public statements these early that have made interviews, Al Jazeera, things like that.
Just thinking about more broadly about other interesting sources I encountered they were planning to or inspecting was,
for example, in the first chapter of the book,
I talk a little bit about the history of the aftermath in Qatar to just gauge how called always influence Paris 1961 when he arrived,
and that involved reading some very old Erlenmeyer biographies of scholars in the Arabian Peninsula early 20th century,
these sort of life stories of scholars circulating around time, which I wasn't read, anticipating up looking at when I first started the project.
So on the other side was talking about Bombay and Mauritania for a second.
Similarly, when looking at his relationship with the UAE and the Mafia family, I also found myself reading sources I wasn't expecting to,
looking at old French studies of Emirati aid policies towards mortality in 1970s in a way that I can stop writing this book,
I wasn't expecting to be taken. And just lastly, the fieldwork made contact with Dubie.
I just thinking about how the question the book is how to think about these two cities.
What ways we think about these places alongside centres, just Cairo, Madina on Damascus.
And is there a way of thinking about the site that you talk about, the sort of the I think you used the ten long geography's drawing on to integrate?
Well, and thinking about these as make making nodes in the international sort of network of Islamic learning, Islamic knowledge, Islamic culture.
And I think that that's actually probably what these centres are aspiring to become.
That I guess it's going to be a question for us to assess how successful they are,
as you, in a sense, take a stab at it within this country sort of discourse.
Thank you very much. I mean, and of course, you also travelled extensively in that region as well as feel safe.
You're very well travelled over the past decade or so.
You know, I think a lot of that was because your case, of course, focuses a lot on useful following.
So a lot of that was in that also in Abu Dhabi. He spent a lot of time.
So fascinating to get some of that background. I had I mean, there are always so many angles to take when looking at a book like this.
And this is going to affect my own sort of biases. And inevitably but I'm very interested in this sort of dialogue, in a sense,
a dialogue or a comparison that you undertake between sort of the two scholars who are on the cover of this book I use for following.
And I've been there. And I'm just curious,
you speak of the way in which the two scholars you are concerned with have shaped you kind of used the
term shaped the understanding of Islam with the ruling families of Doha and that they respectively.
And why do you say this? And if you can perhaps elaborate. Yes, thank you.
I use the words shaped when I use that word. I'm thinking about the state of the field and the study of the irlam.
That understates. We often think about these two polls, either the Erlend that are being co-opted by the state apparatus or they're resisting.
Right. And this particular place, just trying to think a bit more nuance about what is the actual vote.
All the irlam that particularly in Qatar on the UAE in this case.
And so it is not as up as if Qatar, we open bay, are actually advising and debating policy, then what is their influence?
Right. And so, as I say in the book. Think about Qatar.
We for a second whose influence and time in Qatar is much longer, stretching back to 61.
The main point I'm making is that one key element of his larger project.
As I see it, is the idea of making its stomach law a popular discourse, making it relevant and meaningful in the lives of everyday believers.
The lawful under pay, which is in a stop being a major example of that.
And the point as it pertains to cattle is the idea that if Islamic law is relevant
and meaningful in every aspect to the believers life and clean politics, then the idea of political Islam, the Brotherhood,
things like that is less threatening intrinsically in the mind and in the general sense of the Cosby family policy.
Right. The contrast, of course, with India. I talk about shaking because I feel that or it might not.
Is this the key point I drew out in this book?
It's a trip of chaos, right? Chaos similar justifies and it's been based vision or his view or his assessments of the region.
But the chaos that is discourse is a key cause or a prime cause of conflict and turmoil.
I think perhaps shapes that trope of chaos, then becomes taken up and repeated by Emirati members of the royal family,
Emirati diplomats, as a justification for that, for those policies.
Even if Bombay himself is not inferencing Emirati policy towards, say, Yemen, for example.
Right. Right. I mean, one of the things that I found interesting and perhaps, you know, I would want to push back against slightly is that.
In many respects, in the modern period that we're residing in, the states really have overwhelmingly the upper hand in this.
And you make this very clear in, for example, the case of Bali, where you point out in a sense there's a kind of threat of or you say in general,
there's this threat of deportation that hangs over all non-resident sort of scholars, some invaders from potentia.
He resides and get there. And he has he's an official for the Upper Darby State or the UAE state in which I put out the forms.
Then this powerful emirate is what probably is domiciled in Qatar.
But he's Egyptian originally. And in a sense, you know, the states can discipline their scholars, but not vice versa.
Right. And so that's why, in a sense, I think, you know, that aspect is kind of a signal throughout your work.
But I kind of felt that describing them as shaping the understanding of Islam might be putting a stronger emphasis summit than they actually can.
Although in the case of Bali, I do agree that given the length of time he spent there,
certainly with the current and the his father and grandfather, that seems to have been sort of a fairly robust relationship.
And now he's, in a sense, far too old to really do very much, probably.
And I think you've also signalled how the code and there is seems a lot less invested in the sort of projects that his father was invested in,
for example, which were in many respects quite radical. So I think this is a really important points.
And I definitely agree the earldom that are innately vulnerable in the modern day.
And I guess it's what brings back the question of why are is that.
Why does why would the court read and write?
We'll finally have an interest in them. If they don't matter. Right.
Right. So, again, thinking about creatively awardee through officer.
If been they alcalde I began to more. Right.
Right. If they are no longer useful then what is going on here?
So that's kind of why I want to introduce the concept of state branding.
Right. And bringing it in forms of international relations of the Gulf to think about.
Well, they have a use the importance not so much, again, influencing policy or changing policy, but how these states are branded on the global stage,
because, again, we almost forget that got on the UAE and also Kuwait, Bahrain are innately vulnerable states.
All of those states have either been occupied, territory claimed or being threatened by their much larger neighbours in the recent few decades.
And so the reason I used state branding and talk about Colombo and Bombay is road
and that's right is to highlight that they have a role for engendering for Qatar,
the UAE in Gendry outside powers interest in preserving their security.
So for Greenbay branding the UAE his role in branding the UAE as a scent of desirable, it's like before the eyes of the U.S., right.
That, in turn, ensures continued American interest in Emirati security, which is where his influence is useful, right.
Where he does add value, as it were, to the UAE brand. And I think, you know,
that's a very important point that in the sense that these people are extremely valuable assets in soft power projection of seven kinds.
Although I think and we can come back to this perhaps later on in the discussion that the way in which the countries have historically deployed,
you could argue the kind of only as a figure in the media landscape.
And of course,
the media landscape encompasses the world in a sense through Al-Jazeera versus the way in which Abu Dhabi has done the same with the NBA.
You qualitatively very significantly different, in my view,
in a way that I think is not sort of highlighted quite as much, but we can potentially discuss later on.
That's right. And I had a couple of other questions.
We know these podcasts are very short, so key to as much as we can in the 25 minutes or so that we have.
I wanted to ask one question. And then after that one been.
So you discussed certain problems, although he has failed to work through in his conception of democracy that
leave it wanting as a central principle or a principle of sexual organisation.
Could you outline these in brief and then hopefully we can discuss them briefly as well?
Thank you. I think the first thing is, you know, there's always critiques or tensions that any social fair or any political theory.
So I'd always very, very far from unique in that regard.
And I think I use the phrase in the book as imprecise, but sincerely Democratic come in his vision of democracy.
I'm absolutely a Democrat and believes in democracy as a political theory.
I approached, I felt the need to include critiques of Kado, its vision of democracy,
because I thought there were two instances in particular that made that helpful to think with.
One of which call it always a failure. That's what led to not support the uprising in Bahrain and talk about it as a sectarian
uprising in Iran and plotting and also to think about the initial his initial response,
the opposition to President Morsi in early 2013, of course.
So dismissing this as a manufactured article, we do now know that he was least partly right in that statements.
But also I think it's important to think about his initial response and to the critics.
I included were drawing on it. Abreau Fuddle, which was the idea that when called, I think about democracy.
He did not fully account for the nature of the modern state.
And the qualitative difference between a modern status of a premodern doesn't work and didn't
fully account for the need to protect the individual from the power of the modern state.
The other critique of FUDDLE included, I thought was useful.
It's his idea that. There are times and call,
though he describes the Moxey as ineffective in giving effect to the will of the majority and Kardos vision that the citizen,
the Muslim citizen, is innately desired as the faithful is innately desirous of some kind of Islamic state.
And if you have your favourite system as that's their true desire, then that's a problematic when the other desires are being voiced.
Right? Right. So, I mean, this is really something which I, I didn't spend as much time as I should in you know,
I'm, of course, working on a similar project to what you've just published.
And hopefully, if people forgive the South planks, speak out, hopefully have a book coming out in the summer on this thing as well.
I'm very excited to read it. Yes. Thank you. And with respect to the sort of notion of democracy, you're quite right.
I think in describing him as in a sense, a committed Democrat of sorts.
And I'm very interested to sort of engage high level fellows critique in future in a sense.
My main concern with that critique is that it seems to.
Foreground a certain conception of democracy, which is, you know, the liberal democracy,
so liberal liberalism and democracy, of course, they start off as distinct ideas.
They come from slightly different sort of backgrounds and they have merged.
By the end of the 20th century, but beginning of the 21st, as you know, inescapable concomitant of each other.
And I think what liberal democracy does is place liberal values as a limit to democracy.
And for Carr, though, he is developing Islamic democracy, which is placing Islamic values as a limit to democracy.
And I think that that needs to be. And I hope to engage this at some point in the future.
But I think that that aspect of it is not sort of engaged sufficiently in befuddles critique, as I've read it so far.
But this is something which, you know, hour into the oxygen we breathe is liberal, so to speak.
And in the Western discussion context. And so, yeah, we're going to have to be very self reflexive to be able to get to that point.
It's not necessarily saying that, you know, people have missed something very obvious.
It's it's precisely because it's so concealed that we want to miss it, as it were.
Yeah, absolutely. There's definitely a lot of food for thought in that point you're making, I think.
And I was thinking about that, too, while reading to other polls critique.
And I felt that the thing I want to draw out. Again, so much one good thing, too, I have just the power of the states.
And that's where I felt there was something going on here. But of course, it's very much type liberalism, as you said.
But I think I think also one thing that it also brings to mind is when we're thinking about the early map,
Middle East politics is the limit to which ideas matter. I think they're useful.
I think I think at the end of day, I also felt it was interesting,
too important to include discussions, Manfield work, spending time with Kord, always staff.
I'm thinking about Bahrain, for example. I felt it was important to include the fact that whatever he thought about democracy,
the fear was there was this great fear being spread by the time that it was put to me.
Right. That Bahrain would be successful, be like Iraq all over again in terms of their vision.
It's not as was put to me as a foreign researcher, you'll be like Rwanda.
This evocative image of Sunni's being held at checkpoints or so on and so isolating.
And so I think that idea about a history of ideas is very important.
But they take a second. Many also, again, whether call it Alwi and the Brotherhood in general,
what they think about democracy pales in comparison to that very determined, counter-revolutionary effort in 2013.
Right. Right. Ideas only go so far. Right. Right, right. Thinking about these things.
Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, yes, that's fascinating. And, you know, this is a helpful reminder.
Remember, I don't think it's mentioned this book in your other writings is one of these sort of speak about your direct engagements with the officer.
This is the front line, and I believe you were that during this period. Is that is that fair to say?
If I remember, it was long time ago. So, yes, it's a few periods.
I'm not during the coup itself,
during the barring sort of special in the aftermath of something that I think when I first was able to spend time that tweet early 2012,
I think it was probably right. It was something I was interested in asking about, thinking about.
And there are some which should make it into this book.
That's very interesting dynamics about what it's like being an interview amongst the Erlinda and the way that.
Yeah, that was a very important time. Integration's Chicago is time for that for sure.
So I, I mean, again, there sort of really interesting points that you bring up, and I'm being conscious of the time to anticipate.
Move on to the Denay.
A question to kind of set this up, as is Funabashi first and second, as a question kind of following the sequence of your book and you discuss,
then they add up to a more limited extent than they, as most noted, student in the West.
And in a sense that the reason debate is known in the west is east.
And you discussed them both as we're looking again at the concept of democracy.
They kind of adhere to this belief that democracy, at least in the Middle East, could be a source of chaos and civil war.
And I mean, I'm sort of using your term of chaos, which you also talk about.
The context really gets discourse as well.
And so I want you to just perhaps elaborate and perhaps evaluate that assessment of democracy as this potentially problematic force in the region.
Well, yes. The what chaos is the following? Well, do it fold off using which can could be translated differently, perhaps using conveyers language.
Yeah. So the starting point for thinking about that is that both called Alwi and and they
recognise the importance of consultation or shura as part of Čunek conceptual universe.
Where they differ is that while Cobley seems democracy in particular,
I think a particular more good Ben Bay'ah so sees democracy as one form of consultation amongst many, which has no particular or additional value.
And so for bimbette, the ideas, of course, rulers should consult that people and rulers should consult representatives of their people.
But those representatives need not be elected. And it does not add legitimacy to them.
What makes them legitimate is that they know the desires and needs of that people innately right.
And offer a composite of that. That's his understanding. But the idea that he talks about is in his vision or the region explanation of
what's happening with you right now is he used this phrase lack of common ground,
oftentimes for why, in his view, democracy will not work.
That's partly based on his assessment of recent historical events.
He cites the Algerian civil war. He cites the off of the invasion of Iraq.
For one thing, it's still saying that because it is lack of common ground,
those who lose in elections are those who are in the minority are so fearful of what happens if they lose an election that they,
in turn will endeavour to. Right through that democracy, by fighting so viciously against it, out of fear of what that might try.
And then the idea, of course, in his assessment of the Syrian civil war is that because voting regimes are so
fearful of democracy will happen to them because of this lack of common ground.
They will fight so viciously against it. Right. So his views of the desired democracy in turn brings about conflict inevitably in his justification.
The other point that he makes is this idea. Of course, he uses discourse of peace, which by which he means the absence of violence.
Right. And for him, the term peace takes centre stage in his discourse because it's the basic condition from which any other rights can flow.
Right. Of course, the critique of that is that he has this view of peace without justice and peace, without accountability.
As being preferred. And this idea that he's in his discourses, that justice and accountability are postponed indefinitely.
Right. Yes. I mean, yeah, that's I think your concluding description of him as sort of seeking peace without justice is quite apt because,
you know, he's relatively explicit about it, hasn't he? And and it's it's fascinating.
It's kind of like a discourse I've not really heard anywhere before, perhaps have not been paying attention.
I mean, I'd I'd be interested to see if there's reflection in political theory at all in those sorts, because it doesn't seem terribly sustainable,
except in the context of these all powerful modern states that are able to engage
in surveillance and mass repression on the scale that no one witnesses through,
you know, in the precise revolutionary context. Yeah, yeah.
So that takes us back to the again, the value of Apple o photos critique in general of the power of the state and the way
these contemporary thinkers I'm not necessarily accounting for that could of course,
been there as well, is of course, incredibly well versed in the classical tradition.
You used this concept,
this binary between the and NCSA should as a way of of distinction between the purview of the art that the purview of the ruler.
Right. But of course, one need not be an expert in classical Islamic thought to see the difference between
the Ottomans will Tanit or the Abbass caliphate's brands of hyper authoritarian state.
That is the modern UAE with all the power and technology that it had in that vision is not necessarily accounted for.
So this is where I mean, like in a sense, my interpretation differs slightly from yours, perhaps.
I mean, more than slightly in the sense that I actually disagree with that.
Befuddle this one,
because I actually think there is a cognisance on the part of the body of the just the all encompassing nature of the authoritarian state.
And that that is a problem as well, although in a sense.
So I'm thinking of his book, Adeno CSF. So it's published 2006 originally by the European Council for Research.
And you know that he has a passage or a page, page and a half where he talks about how in the mediaeval era,
the sort of the state was this provincial IFAB, which didn't really have an impact on the vast majority of Muslim lands.
You know, aside from the provincial capital cities, I mean, the the the ostensible Metropol,
which didn't really have enough power to be able to assert its authority in the way that modern
technology just allows the bureaucratic state amongst your party set to take over everything.
And in a sense, his argument is that is why the state is so important and needs to be brought within the control of the populace,
because historically the Alamo would have, you know,
managed through their own institutions and that if the administration of the law, the administration of education,
the administration of managing all sorts of legal disagreements through combat and so on.
Even if Akabi is very you know, the major parties are very often appointees of the state.
But, you know, in a sense and other scholars about this as well.
Noah Feldman talks about the sort of independence of the and from.
From the state system. So whereas what's been Bayeh, on the other hand, know gives you no sense of that.
He's, in my estimation, know a brilliant jurist who is using his intellectual brilliance to basically justify what he wants.
And that's that's my reading. I'm not saying that they're telling. This is what you have to do.
But this just this Concorde in the way that they see the world and the rulers then and he himself,
that it's going to sort of give rise to that, in my estimation. I suppose time is running short, but.
Yes. So it's a very important points. I think I'm fischeri.
Your point about Green Bay.
It's interesting as kind of a concordance one can see with perhaps we'll hear Mercado's of benevolent, authoritarian and saltshakers aid.
Right. And the way I said, I think in this book was talking about going back to the 70s when Sheik Azad,
the founder of the UAE, makes a number of high-Profile visits to the Mauritania a major more time, the UAE,
sorry, is the largest donor to Mauritania as we're building infrastructure in a way and one can so appreciate without wishing to get too technical,
thinking about how he might, of course, be a kind of figure. Right. So desirous of humanitarian rule, of humanitarian day.
So, Paul, the Emirati brand of Sheikh out as well.
I think also just the last point, I think about your point about the authoritarian states and card, always recognition of that.
I think it's really interesting.
I think it makes you think about the kind of theoretical literature that I'm drawing on in this book based on people like the second a grandma,
somebody shelke seven Mahmoody. Well, hello.
More recently, this idea about how it's not on the screen, an authoritarian state,
an authoritarian state is just the modern nation state as a whole and how it shapes the kind of possibilities.
Again, that is a that's not just theoretical debates about where you stand and how what kind of theoretical do you find useful and convincing?
So for me, I find that kind of literature presented by us.
We show a slight loss. Yes. So Timothy Mitchell, not so much.
I think that kind of [INAUDIBLE] about this, the state in general. So it just depends a bit the kind of rhetoric you find useful in which war.
I must admit, I've not read summation his book. I mean, I've read some of these articles, but his book had just sort of skimmed very quickly.
And I'm going to sort of dig three footnotes and try and inform myself of that sort of theoretical universe a bit more deeply and.
But this has been a wonderful conversation. It's really been informative.
Eye-Opening And I've had the opportunity to sort of go into and get my teeth into some very interesting questions.
I've been having and I'm sure we'll continue this conversation as I get.
Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.
So I've been speaking to the author, David Warren, about his book, Rebels in the Gulf right here.
And this has been nearly sent a book talk. Thank you for listening and goodbye from Oxford.