Use this guide to choose topics for your Reading Responses and possibly also for your Term Essay. Use the History of the Middle East Database for basic facts and outlines of events and movements. Some of the more specific topics below are linked to items on the database. Many links to related topics can be found at Models of Islamic Revivalism. The World Factbook (CIA) can be extremely useful. See also Benchmarks in Islamic History , The Political and Religious Landscape of the Middle East at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century, History by Region or State, History According to Chronology, Overview of Islam, and Glossary of Islamic Terms and Concepts.
A great many of the individuals and groups mentioned in Wright are referenced in the index for Models of Revivalism at the History of the Middle East Database.
See also the "Islam and Politics" and "Terrorism" categories at the Islamic Middle East Blog.
The Middle East After September 11
Readings for Discussion of the World After Nine-Eleven
Additional Reading
Arabs Respond to Terror (May, 2003)
Steve Coll, "Letter From Pakistan: Time Bomb," The New Yorker, Jan. 28, 2008, 45ff. (other articles on Pakistan)
Raymond Ibrahim, "The Two Faces of Al Qaeda," The Chronicle Review, Sept. 21, 2007
Interview with a Palestinian Suicide Bomber (August, 2001)
Michael Moss and Souad Mekhennet, "The Guidebook for Taking a Life" (on the rules of jihad), New York Times, June 10, 2007
Robert A. Pape, "Blowing Up an Assumption," New York Times, May 18, 2005
"Suicide-Bombers: Just What Are They Dreaming of?, "The Economist," Feb. 9, 2008
Suraya al-Shehry, "The Debate Over the Pretexts of al-Qaeda," Al-Sharq al-Owsat, June 2, 2004
Resources
Combating Terrorism Center at West Point