Now in its seventh year, the Iraq-Iran War has recently become the focus of intense world-wide attention, especially in the United States, where the attack on the USS Stark, the reflagging of the Kuwaiti tankers, and the heavy presence of American warships in the Gulf have sparked a heated debate in Congress and among the American people. How did this conflict begin? And how can it be resolved? In this informative volume, Majid Khadduri, a world-renowned authority on Islamic law and the author of numerous books on Middle Eastern problems, provides a thoughtful account of the Gulf War, covering the complete history of relations between these two nations, the present conflict, and the possibility of peace in the future. As Khadduri points out, the roots of the war run deep, growing out of ethnic differences (the Iranians are Persians, the Iraqi Arabs), boundary disputes, and over ten centuries of religious antagonism. Khadduri explains how the rise of Persia as a Shi'ite state helped divide Islam into two factions (Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims) and how the Sunni-Shi'i controversy inflamed tensions between the two countries. He describes the stormy relations between Iraq and Iran after World War I, the rise of the Pan-Arab Ba'th Party in Iraq in the late 1960s, and the Treaty of 1975, signed by the Shah and then deputy President Saddam Hussein (Husayn), which brought a half-decade of peace before it fell apart. He also discusses how the nature of government in these two nations--one a clerical state headed by Khomeini (Khumayni), the other a secular state ruled by the Ba'th Party and President Hussein (Husayn)--complicates peace negotiations (the Iraqi see the war as a political dispute over national boundaries, the Iranians as a religious war, with no political boundaries at all). The United Nations might be able to pressure Iraq and Iran to end the war, Khadduri concludes, but until their embedded antagonisms are resolved, there will never be lasting peace between these two nations. For anyone concerned about the turmoil in the Middle East, this perceptive volume offers a goldmine of information, much of it enlightening, much of it disturbing.

The Gulf War: The Origins and Implications of the Iraq-Iran Conflict

Engineering & Transportation

Khadduri, Majid

Engineering

Oxford University Press

For most Americans, the war against Iraq lingers in memory as a vast morality play, a drama offering ready made heroes and villains: a glowering dictator in military uniform, hapless Kuwaiti refugees with tales of persecution, plucky pilots with high-tech wizardry, and a defiant American president, ringing Churchillian as he drew a line in the sand. But this characterization of the war is greatly oversimplified, a one-dimensional portrait, lacking in context and nuance. In War in the Gulf, 1990 91, eminent scholars Majid Khadduri and Edmund Ghareeb paint a very different picture, one that brings historical depth to the portrait, and displays the actions of many of the participants in a new and revealing light. Khadduri and Ghareeb offer a far more accurate and complex portrait of the Iraq-Kuwait conflict, providing a wealth of background information not readily available before. They made a distinction between the differences between Iraq and Kuwait over frontiers, territory, and sovereignty and the method pursued by Iraqi leaders to resolve those differences. They explore, for instance, the history of relations between Iraq and Kuwait, revealing that Kuwait had once been a part of Basra (in southern Iraq) during the Ottoman rule, and only became a separate country while under British control (it was the British in fact who drew the much-disputed boundary line between Iraq and Kuwait). Khadduri and Ghareeb describe the many decades of struggle to resolve the boundary issue, examining the repeated attempts by other Arab states to mediate according to Islamic traditions of consultation and peaceful resolution within the faith. The authors also show how Saddam Husayn's war with Iran exacerbated the boundary tensions. Because of the decade-long war, Iraq badly needed oil revenue to repay wartime loans and to rebuild, but Kuwait persisted in pumping far beyond its OPEC quota, driving down prices, and costing Iraq billions of dollars of revenue. The book reveals how Kuwait spurned Arab attempts to mediate this clash over oil prices as well as the longstanding boundary dispute, frustrating efforts to resolve this crisis by peaceful means. In one particularly interesting section, the book examines the diplomatic talks during the early summer of 1990, both among various Arab nations (most notably, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Kuwait), and with Saddam Husayn and the United States (they show how messages from Washington and a visit by a congressional delegation lead by Senator Dole convinced the Iraqi leaders that they would be allowed to settle their problems with Kuwait without outside interference). Khadduri and Ghareeb carry us through to the present, exploring the war and its aftermath, from the uprisings against Baghdad, to the continuing U.N. sanctions, to the recent defections from Saddam's inner circle. War in the Gulf is a balanced, eye-opening account of one of the central events of recent years. It corrects the Western views of most reporting, explaining the frame of mind of the participants as no one has done before and causing us to examine anew such questions as who was responsible for the conflict, and what might have happened if the United States had not intervened so rapidly.

War in the Gulf, 1990-91: The Iraq-Kuwait Conflict and Its Implications

History

Ghareeb, Edmund

Asia

Political Trends in the Arab World: The Role of Ideas and Ideals in Politics

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

Praeger

War and Peace in the Law of Islam

Foreign & International Law

Ams Pr Inc

Law in the Middle East: Origin and Development of Islamic Law

Covers Iraq's historical claims to Kuwait, disputes over status, the invasion of Kuwait, the coalition forces against Iraq, and the role of the United Nations.

War in the Gulf, 1990-1991: The Iraq-Kuwait Conflict and Its Implications

Middle East

Replica Books

The Islamic Conception of Justice

In The Islamic Conception of Justice, Majid Khadduri, one of the world's preeminent authorities on Islamic justice and jurisprudence, presents his extensive study and reflection on Islamic political, legal, ethical, and social philosophy. This book is both a magisterial historical synthesis and an illumination of the beliefs and practices of modern Islam. Throughout, Khadduri discusses not only the meaning of justice in general but also how justice has undergone significant changes in the modern age. The final chapter deals with the impact of Western notions of justice, with especial emphasis on the recurrence of fundamentalist movements such as the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Pakistan, and other Islamic lands.

Legal History

Johns Hopkins University Press

From its origins Islam has been an expansionist religion, understanding itself as a matter of faith to be in a permanent state of war with the non-Muslim world. After the initial consolidation of the Islamic caliphate, however, it soon became apparent that constant military hostilities could not be sustained and that other forms of relationship with non-Muslim nations would be necessary. To reconcile the imperatives of faith with the limits of military power, Islamic scholars developed elaborate legal doctrines. In the second century of the Muslim era (eighth century C.E.), hundreds of years before the codification of international law in Europe by Grotius and others, Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani, an eminent jurist of the Hanafite school in present-day Iraq, wrote the first major Islamic treatise on the law of nations, Kitab al-Siyar al-Kabir. Translated with an extensive commentary by Majid Khadduri, Shaybani's Siyar describes in detail conditions for war (jihad) and for peace, principles for the conduct of military action and of diplomacy, and rules for the treatment of non-Muslims in Muslim lands. A foundational text of the leading school of law in Sunni Islam, it provides essential insights into relations between Islamic nations and the larger world from their earliest days up to the present.

The Islamic Law of Nations: Shaybani's Siyar

Politics. Blue cloth covers lightly rubbed, corners and spine ends bumped, wear on the tips. Dust jacket rubbed and sunned, several tears tape repaired, moderate edge wear, price clipped. Interior clean and tight, rear endpaper tanned, author signed inscription on the first endpaper.

Socialist Iraq: A study in Iraqi politics since 1968

Middle East Institute

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Khadduri, Majid. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Khadduri, Majid