Holy Lands: Reviving Pluralism in the Middle East

Columbia Global Reports

by Nicolas Pelham

How did the world’s most tolerant region become the least harmonious place on the planet?

The news from the Middle East these days is bad. Whatever hopes people may have for the region are being dashed over and over, in country after country. Nicolas Pelham, a veteran correspondent for The Economist , has seen much of the tragedy first hand, but in Holy Lands he presents a strikingly original and startlingly optimistic argument.

The Middle East was notably more tolerant than Western Europe during the nineteenth century, because the Ottoman Empire permitted a high degree of religious pluralism and self-determination within its vast borders. European powers broke up the empire and tried to turn it into a collection of secular nation-states; it was a spectacular failure. Rulers turned religion into a force for nationalism and the result has been ever increasing sectarian violence. The solution, Pelham argues, is to accept the Middle East for the deeply religious region it is, and try to revive its tradition of pluralism.

Holy Lands is a work of vivid reportage—from Turkey and Iraq, Israel and Palestine, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, Bahrain and Jordan—that is animated by a big idea. It makes a region that is all too familiar from news reports feel fresh.

Genres: Middle East, History, Nonfiction, Religion, Islam

186 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 15, 2016

Reviews

[Aziz Alghamdi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not here to challenge the thought process of the author, nor am I here to shed my views on his. but here are my thoughts:
1- The idea of having a Pluralist society anywhere is novel and is the pure fulfillment of modern societies. This is granted in our DNA. Yes the middle east made things much easier for minorities in the world at "that time", Jews flourished even in arabia. That been said, the authors idea of "restoring" this to the middle east is through the millets -different religious sects governing themselves internally- created by the ottomans in the 16 hundreds, he sees the ottoman society as one that was coherent and acceptable towards its subjected citizens from different faiths and background. I will not mingle to much for you to realize the problem with this assumption.
2-Yes the middle east was accepting towards minorities at different parts of history, yes the jews and christians lived at different points of time with the muslims in peace, but that was the golden standard back then, times change so does the level of "acceptance".
3- The methodology the author uses to establish a platonic society in the middle east is based on "his observation in addition to a few meetings he has with some level 3 commands in different sects in Iraq, kurds (no cross-referencing was made, no breathtaking analysis was conducted and no deep literature review was studied) this disappoints me because I find many mistakes in the flow.
3- The author in my opinion did not dig deep in the problem and tried to paint an optimistic lovable story. The problems are deep imbedded in different elements of the region from culture and survival to perhaps religious pretexts, yet the author does not take the liberty on any front
4-He sees "Iraq" for example as a 3 sect toleration society. He sees it as a majority Shia, minority Sunni and the 3rd a kurd sect. This is wrong.
5- He makes a good argument that fear, demagog and wide spread nationalism is dangerous and links it beautifully to the misery in the region. I do agree with him in this point.
6- Yes the protection of minorities is a virtue, that developed societies can maintain and I do agree that the middle east lost much of its prosperity, culture, resources and much more when it decided to expel the jewish minorities in Iraq, and the Armenians in Turkey.

At the end, the book is not long. It sheds light on a golden time in the middle east.

[seth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Concise, informative, provocative.

Pretty amazing little book, providing quite an overview of a particularly complicated and thorny topic. Remaining current with a good deal of historical background. Not preachy and while the author clearly hopes for better times ahead (and lays out some potential ways forward), doesn't exactly demand one way like so many of the current political books out there these days.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written by a correspondent for "The Economist," this short book looks at the various religious communities of the Middle East. He looks at how they lived together in pluralistic communities under the Ottoman Empire, and how secular nationalism in the 19th and 20th centuries destroyed these communities. The book discusses each religious sect, and its prospects in the 20th and 21st centuries. The author ends on an optimistic note, sharing stories of how religious leaders from various religions have come together to promote understanding and peace in places where political leaders are fighting (often over religion). The book is easily the most optimistic that I've read about the region, and I think the author may be a little naive in some places, but he has an interesting perspective that is definitely worth reading. At the end, he discusses his vision for a revival of pluralism in the region. I thought this section could have been developed more, but it is still a good introduction to a somewhat unusual perspective.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one didn't give a good enough background on the topics to make it comprehensible for me. Maybe if I knew more about the politics of the region and more about Islam, I would have enjoyed it more.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've had this book kicking around for a while and decided to pick it up this month for April in Arabia and Read the World 21. Pelham has one of those casually authoritative voices and I am unfamiliar enough with this topic (and this is a very condensed primer), so as a result I spent the book veering between "Oh yes, of course!" and "Does anyone else actually think this way, or is it just YOUR personal opinion?" In the end I did find it a fairly persuasive argument.

The basis of the thesis is this: the Middle East has a long history of peaceful coexistence of a number of religions, which is most stable when governments in the region took a pluralistic approach -- one religion or another may have been more in favor than others in certain times or places, but those religions or sects weren't doing the ruling. When government fuses with religion, theocracies slide into extremism and radical fundamentalism of one narrow interpretation and set of rules.

It really recommitted me to the feeling that a separation of church and state may be the best idea the founders of this country ever (mostly) agreed on.

There is a zooming through some history of the region, a tour of a lot of the present-day conflicts, and some little hopeful glimpses of pluralistic communities being built in Israel right now. So it ended with more hire that I expected. I'm glad I got around to reading this.

[Gadi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has gotten quite dated. It ends with a promotion of a "milletocracy", in which religious sects rule over their adherents without regard to geography — without explaining how to get there. It brings up the taif power-sharing agreement in Lebanon as a model for coexistence — an idea that a few years later has been refuted by the disintegration of the country, probably as a result of the deep-seated corruption and patronage networks that the sectarianism there had encouraged. Otherwise, the history is interesting and pithily recounted, though perhaps magnifying some anecdotes a bit too much.

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good little book that provides an amazing overview and history of a complicated and thorny issue; how to find peace in the Middle East. It suggests that taking a page out of the past and using religious pluralism, like the Ottoman Empire did, might be the way out of the mess that things are in.