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 ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF
CITIZENSHIP IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND
NORTH AFRICA

This comprehensive Handbook gives an overview of the political, social, economic and legal
dimensions of citizenship in the Middle East and North Africa from the nineteenth century to
the present.
The terms citizen and citizenship are mostly used by researchers in an off-hand, self-evident
manner. A citizen is assumed to have standard rights and duties that everyone enjoys. However,
citizenship is a complex legal, social, economic, cultural, ethical and religious concept and
practice. Since the rise of the modern bureaucratic state, in each country of the Middle East and
North Africa, citizenship has developed differently. In addition, rights are highly differentiated
within one country, ranging from privileged, underprivileged and discriminated citizens to
non-citizens. Through its dual nature as instrument of state control, as well as a source of citizen
rights and entitlements, citizenship provides crucial insights into state-citizen relations and the
services the state provides, as well as the way citizens respond to these actions.
This volume focuses on five themes that cover the crucial dimensions of citizenship in the
region:

• Historical trajectory of citizenship since the nineteenth century until independence

• Creation of citizenship from above by the state
• Different discourses of rights and forms of contestation developed by social movements and
society
• Mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion
• Politics of citizenship, nationality and migration

Covering the main dimensions of citizenship, this multidisciplinary book is a key resource
for students and scholars interested in citizenship, politics, economics, history, migration and
refugees in the Middle East and North Africa.

Roel Meijer is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy, Theology and Religious
Studies at Radboud University, Nijmegen. He is a historian and has edited numerous volumes,
including Global Salafism: Islam’s New Religious Movement (2009), The Muslim Brotherhood in
Europe (2012), and (with Nils A. Butenschøn) The Crisis of Citizenship in the Arab World (2017)
and The Middle East in Transition: The Centrality of Citizenship (2018).
James N. Sater is Associate Professor at the Department of International Relations at the
University of Malta. He is the author of Morocco: Challenges to Tradition and Modernity (Routledge
2010/16) and Civil Society and Political Change in Morocco (Routledge 2007). He has worked on
sectarianism, citizenship, electoral politics, gender, marginalisation and migration with a focus
on North Africa and Arab Gulf monarchies.

Zahra R. Babar is Associate Director at CIRS at Georgetown University in Qatar. She has
published several articles on citizenship, including “Enduring ‘Contested’ Citizenship in the
Gulf Cooperation Council” in The Middle East in Transition: The Centrality of Citizenship (2018);
“The ‘Enemy Within’: Citizenship-Stripping in the Post-Arab Spring GCC” in Middle East
Journal (2017); and “The Cost of Belonging: Citizenship Construction in the State of Qatar”
in Middle East Journal (2014). She served as editor for a special issue of the Middle East Journal
titled “Citizenship” (2019).
ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK
OF CITIZENSHIP IN THE
MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH
AFRICA

Edited by Roel Meijer, James N. Sater and

Zahra R. Babar
 First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 selection and editorial matter, Roel Meijer, James N. Sater and
Zahra R. Babar; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Roel Meijer, James N. Sater and Zahra R. Babar to be identified
as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their
individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Meijer, Roel, editor. | Sater, James N., editor. | Babar, Zahra,
editor. | Routledge (Firm)
Title: Routledge handbook on citizenship in the Middle East and North
Africa / edited by Roel Meijer, James Sater and Zahra Babar.
Description: First Edition. | New York : Routledge, 2020. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020024799 (print) | LCCN 2020024800 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367178932 (Hardback) | ISBN 9780429058288 (eBook) |
ISBN 9780429608803 (Adobe PDF) | ISBN 9780429603280 (ePub) |
ISBN 9780429597763 (mobi)
Subjects: LCSH: Citizenship—Middle East—History. | Citizenship—
Africa, North—History. | Political participation—Middle East. | Political
participation—Africa, North. | Democracy—Middle East. | Democracy—
Africa, North. | Middle East—Politics and government—19th century. |
Middle East—Politics and government—20th century. | Middle East—
Politics and government—21st century. | Africa, North—Politics and
government—19th century. | Africa, North—Politics and government—
20th century. | Africa, Nort—Politics and government—21st century.
Classification: LCC JQ1758.A92 R68 2020 (print) | LCC JQ1758.A92
(ebook) | DDC 323.60956—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020024799
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020024800
ISBN: 978-0-367-17893-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-05828-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
 CONTENTS

List of contributors ix
Foreword by Nils A. Butenschøn xv
Acknowledgmentsxx

Introduction 1
Roel Meijer, James N. Sater and Zahra R. Babar

PART 1
Emergence of modern citizenship 17

1 Peace to those of faith: political affiliation and belonging in classical

Islamic thought 19
Omar Farahat

2 The Ottoman citizen between millet and nation 33

Bruce Masters

3 Citizenship and nationality in the French colonial Maghreb 45

Jessica M. Marglin

4 Revolutionary citizenship at the end of Empire 61

Michelle U. Campos

5 Colonial citizenship? Producing sectarianism in the interwar Middle East 73

Laura Robson

v
 Contents

6 Citizenship and the transition from colonial to authoritarian pacts 85

Roel Meijer

PART 2
Formation of citizenship from above 101

7 Between claims, residence and recognition: the conceptual unity

of jinsīyya and muwātana103
Paul M. Esber

8 Muwatana, exclusion and the politics of belonging in modernizing

monarchies: the cases of Kuwait and Morocco/Western Sahara 116
James N. Sater

9 Constitutions and citizenship: rights in law and practice in Jordan and

the Arab World 130
Lillian Frost and Nathan J. Brown

10 The Egyptian middle class and the Nasserist social contract 144
Relli Shechter

11 The Islamic Republic and citizenship in post-1979 Iran 157

Shirin Saeidi

12 The Islamic State’s construction of citizenship 171

Mathilde Becker Aarseth

PART 3
Social movements and formation of citizenship from below 185

13 The communist movement and citizenship in Arab countries 187

Manfred Sing

14 New Islamic movements and concepts of citizenship 201

Emin Poljarevic

15 Striking for rights? Workers’ political agency and revolutionary crisis

in the Middle East 215
Anne Alexander

16 The politics of the poor in the Middle East and North Africa:
between contestation and accommodation 230
Cilja Harders

vi
 Contents

17 Human rights movements and the promotion of citizenship in MENA 247

Fateh Azzam

18 The ambiguity of citizenship and the quest for rights in Morocco 259
Driss Maghraoui

PART 4
Mechanism of inclusion and exclusion 273

19 Domestication or transformation? Modern Amazigh identity in

the shadow of the authoritarian state 275
Bruce Maddy-Weitzman

20 The struggle for Kurdish citizenship 291

Michael M. Gunter

21 Supremacy unleashed: the ongoing erosion of Palestinian

citizenship in Israel 306
Shira Robinson

22 Patriarchal nationality laws and female citizenship in the Middle East 321
Rania Maktabi

23 Why his photograph was not taken: reconsidering membership

in Lebanon 336
Nadia Sonneveld and Joseph Alagha

24 Trafficking in (non)-citizenship in Kuwait and the UAE 349

Zahra Albarazi and Yoana Kuzmova

25 The Christians of the Middle East: from Arab Christians to

marginalized minorities 364
Heleen Murre-van den Berg

26 Citizenship and political participation in post-Qaddafi Libya: the long

and winding road to a new social contract 378
Suliman Ibrahim

PART 5
Migration and regulation of citizenship and nationality 393

27 Political participation and the Middle East migration state 395

Gerasimos Tsourapas

vii
 Contents

28 Economic migrants and citizenship in the GCC 410

Zahra R. Babar

29 The Middle East and North Africa and the global trend towards
multiple citizenship 422
Claire Beaugrand

30 Migration and citizenship in modern Turkey 440

Rusen Yasar

31 Subjecthood and citizenship in the diaspora: Libyan and Syrian voice

before and during the Arab Spring 456
Dana M. Moss

32 Tunisian migration to the EU: a tale of asymmetry 469

Françoise De Bel-Air

Index485

viii
 CONTRIBUTORS

Joseph Alagha is Professor of Political Science, sociology and intercultural studies at Haigazian
University in Beirut, Lebanon. He is the author of four peer-reviewed university press books,
two monographs and three books in Arabic. His research focuses on family law, gender and vio-
lence against women; minorities in the Middle East; Islam and popular culture; the performing
arts; philosophy of art and aesthetics; political mobilisation; Islamic movements; and the democ-
ratisation and liberalisation processes in the MENA. His latest publications include “Marital
Captivity & Violence: A Human Rights Perspective” (2019) and “Case Studies of Temporary
Marriages in Lebanon” in The Maghreb Review (2019).
Zahra Albarazi is a human rights lawyer working in the field of statelessness. She has focused
her research and advocacy on the issue on the Middle East and North Africa. Specifically,
she specialises in issues of discrimination and statelessness, and also the nexus with the lack of
nationality and forced displacement.
Anne Alexander is a research fellow at the University of Cambridge, a member of the edito-
rial board of International Socialism Journal and co-editor of Middle East Solidarity magazine. She
is co-author, with Mostafa Bassiouny, of Bread, Freedom, Social Justice: Workers and the Egyptian
Revolution (2014).
Fateh Azzam is a researcher and consultant and executive committee member of the Boston
Consortium for Arab Region Studies and a member of the advisory council for the Institute
on Statelessness and Inclusion. His research and writing have focused on human rights law,
humanitarian law and refugee law with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa, NGO/
civil society role and human rights advocacy. His most recent works include “Palestinian (non)
Citizenship” (Middle East Journal, 2019) and “Reflections on Three Decades of Human Rights
Work in the Arab Region” in Routledge Handbook on Human Rights in the Middle East and North
Africa (A. Chase, ed., Routledge, 2016).
Zahra R. Babar is Associate Director at CIRS at Georgetown University in Qatar. She has
published several articles on citizenship, including “Enduring ‘Contested’ Citizenship in the
Gulf Cooperation Council” in The Middle East in Transition: The Centrality of Citizenship (2018),
“The ‘Enemy Within’: Citizenship-Stripping in the Post-Arab Spring GCC” in Middle East
Journal (2017) and “The Cost of Belonging: Citizenship Construction in the State of Qatar” in

ix
 Contributors

Middle East Journal (2014). She served as editor for a special issue of the Middle East Journal titled
“Citizenship” (2019).
Claire Beaugrand is a researcher in political science with the CNRS (IRISSO, Institut de
Recherche Interdisciplinaire en Sciences Sociales, Université Paris Dauphine-PSL). She is the
author of Statelessness in the Gulf: Migration, Nationality and Society in Kuwait (2018) that presents
a socio-genesis of the issue of stateless (bidun) people in Kuwait, based on a combination of Ara-
bic press archive sources and ethnographic material. She also lectures in sociology of the Gulf
and the Arabian Peninsula at the Centre for Gulf Studies, at the University of Exeter.
Mathilde Becker Aarseth has a PhD in Middle East studies from the University of Oslo, and
MSc in Middle East politics from SOAS. She has previously worked as a journalist for several
national media in Norway covering foreign affairs. Her upcoming book is a qualitative study of
the state-building efforts of the Islamic State (IS) in Mosul, based on her PhD.
Nathan J. Brown is a specialist on legal systems and regime type in the Arab world. He is the
author most recently of Arguing Islam after the Revival of Arab Politics (2016).
Nils A. Butenschøn is Professor Emeritus of International Relations and former Director at
the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo. His research has
focused on state formation, conflict, and democracy in the Middle East. Publications include
Citizenship and the State in the Middle East. Approaches and Applications (with Davis & Hassassian,
eds, 2000), The Middle East in Transition. The Centrality of Citizenship (with Meijer eds. 2018),
The Crises of Citizenship in the Arab World (with Meijer eds. 2017) and Power-Sharing in Conflict-
Ridden Societies. Challenges for Building Peace and Democratic Stability (with Stiansen and Vollan,
Routledge, 2015).
Michelle U. Campos is Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and History at Pennsylvania
State University (USA). Campos is the author of the award-winning Ottoman Brothers: Muslims,
Christians, and Jews in Early-Twentieth Century Palestine (2011); a Turkish-language translation
was published in 2015. Her research also has been published in the International Journal of Middle
East Studies, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, Ab Imperio, Journal of
Modern Jewish Studies, Jerusalem Quarterly File, and numerous edited books.
Françoise De Bel-Air is a researcher and consultant based in Paris and currently Senior Fel-
low and Scientific Coordinator for Demography within the Gulf Labour Markets, Migration
and Population Programme (GLMM) of the European University Institute in Florence and
the Gulf Research Center in Geneva. A socio-demographer by training, she specialises in the
demography of Arab countries. Her recent publications include “ ‘Blocked Youth’: The Politics
of Migration from the SEM Countries before and after the Arab Uprisings” in The International
Spectator (2018) and Mapping ENI SPCs Migrants in the Euro-Mediterranean Region (2020).
Paul M. Esber is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Orient Institute Beirut, where his
research examines participation in environmental activism in Lebanon. His research, focused on
the Eastern half of the Arab World (al-Mashreq), examines the interplay among citizenship, state
institutions and social movements in the social construction of identities and political systems.
He is a country expert for the biannual Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI), and has a
PhD from the University of Sydney Australia.
Omar Farahat is an assistant professor at McGill University’s Faculty of Law. His research
focuses on Islamic legal and moral theories. Farahat’s first book, The Foundation of Norms in
Islamic Jurisprudence and Theology Cambridge University Press, 2019, explores the role of divine

x
 Contributors

commands as a source of normativity in classical Islamic thought. His current research focuses
on the notion of personhood in law and ethics. Before joining McGill, he completed his PhD
at Columbia University, following which he spent a year as a research fellow at Yale Law School.
Lillian Frost is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Virginia Polytech-
nic Institute and State University and a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute.
She specialises in forced migration, citizenship and gender issues, particularly in the Arab World.
Her first book project examines variations in the sets of rights in law and practice that host states
grant to protracted refugee groups over time, focusing particularly on different cases in Jordan.
This research draws from over 14 months of fieldwork in Jordan, with funding support from the
United States Institute of Peace and the Minerva Research Initiative, Harvard Belfer Center for
Science and International Affairs, Fulbright Program, Council of American Overseas Research
Centers, Project on Middle East Political Science, Boston Consortium for Arab Region Studies
and the George Washington University Institute for Middle East Studies.
Michael M. Gunter is a professor of political science at Tennessee Technological University
in Cookeville, Tennessee. He also is the secretary-general of the EU Turkey Civic Commission
(EUTCC) headquartered in Brussels. He is the author of nine critically praised scholarly books
on the Kurdish question, and editor or co-editor of nine more books on the Kurds, among
others. He has also published numerous scholarly articles on the Kurds and many other issues in
such leading scholarly periodicals as the Middle East Journal, Middle East Policy, Middle East Quar-
terly, Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, Orient, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Maghreb
Revie, among numerous others.
Cilja Harders is a political scientist and heads the Center for Middle Eastern and North Afri-
can Politics at the Otto-Suhr Institute for Political Sciences at Freie Universität Berlin. She has
extensive research experience in the Middle East and has published on participation and trans-
formation; “politics from below”; affect, emotion and politics; Arab-European Relations as well
as gender relations. Her current research project looks at authoritarianism, political participation,
emotion and effect in Egypt and Turkey. Her latest publication is “Midān Moments” in Affective
Societies – Key Concepts (Slaby, Jan; von Scheve, Christian, eds., Routledge, 2019). She also pub-
lished “Unpacking the Effects of Repression” in Social Movement Studies (with Grimm, 2017).
Suliman Ibrahim is an associate professor of law at Benghazi University and the director of the
Benghazi University Centre for Law and Society Studies. He is also a senior researcher at the
Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society, Leiden University.
Yoana Kuzmova is an attorney practicing in the areas of immigration and refugee law. Her
research focuses on protracted statelessness and the future of citizenship laws, particularly in the
Middle East and North Africa. Yoana has represented stateless former refugees in their search
for durable solutions, and engaged in civil society coalition-building and advocacy before the
United Nations human rights mechanisms. Currently, Yoana practices US immigration law
representing asylum seekers and unaccompanied minors before US federal agencies and courts.
Yoana is also an instructor at the Boston University School of Law’s International Human
Rights Clinic.
Bruce Maddy-Weitzman is Professor, Department of Middle Eastern and African History,
Tel Aviv University. He is the author of A Century of Arab Politics (2016), The Berber Identity
Movement and the Challenge to North African States (2011), The Crystallization of the Arab State
System (1993) and co-editor of The Maghrib in the New Century (2003) and Contemporary Morocco:
State, Politics and Society under Mohammed VI (2012).

xi
 Contributors

Driss Maghraoui is an associate professor of history and international relations at the School of
Humanities and Social Sciences at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. He is a founding
member of the Arab Council for the Social Sciences and currently serves on its board of trustees.
He is also a founding member of the Rabat Social Studies Institute in Morocco. He is the co-editor
of Reforms in the Arab World: the Experience of Morocco, Mediterranean Politics (2009) and the editor of
Revisiting the Colonial Past in Morocco (Routledge 2013) and co-editor with Noureddine Harrami and
Khalid Mouna of L’immigration au Maroc: Les Défis de l’intégration (2017).
Rania Maktabi is Associate Professor at Østfold University College in Norway where she
lectures in international relations and comparative politics. Her field of research is related to
citizenship statelessness and the intersection between gender, religion, law and politics. She is
part of the Gender and Judging in the Middle East and Africa network at the Onati International
Institute for the Sociology of Law where she researches on women lawyers and judges in the
Middle East. Maktabi has done fieldwork in Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait
and Qatar, and is part of the working group The Transformation of the State System in the
Greater Middle East.
Jessica M. Marglin is Associate Professor of Religion and Law, and the Ruth Ziegler Early
Career Chair in Jewish Studies at the University of Southern California. Her research focuses
on the history of Jews and Muslims in North Africa and the Mediterranean, with a particular
emphasis on law. She is the author of Across Legal Lines: Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco
(2016) and the co-editor, with Matthias Lehmann, of Jews and the Mediterranean (2020).
Bruce Masters received his PhD from the University of Chicago. He is the John Andrus
Professor of History at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, USA. His academic
research has focused on the history of the Ottoman Empire and especially Syria in the Ottoman
period. He is the author of a number of books and articles on the period, including Christians
and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World: The Birth of Sectarianism and The Arabs of the Ottoman Empire:
A Social and Cultural History, 1516–1918.
Roel Meijer is Associate Professor in Middle East History in the Department of Religious
Studies at the Radboud University, Nijmegen. He has published widely on social movements,
the Islamist movement and the political situation in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Bahrain. He
has edited seven volumes, including Global Salafism: Islam’s New Religious Movement (2009) and
The Muslim Brotherhood in Europe (2012). During the past decade he has focused on the history
of citizenship in the Middle East and North Africa. He edited, with Nils A. Butenschøn, The
Crisis of Citizenship in the Arab World (2017) and The Middle East in Transition: The Centrality of
Citizenship (2018).
Dana M. Moss is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame. Her
research investigates the emergence and consequences of collective action against authoritarian-
ism, locally and transnationally. To date, her work grows out of fieldwork conducted across the
Middle Eastern region and among diasporas in the US and Great Britain. Dana’s work has been
published in venues such as the American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Social Problems, Mobiliza-
tion: An International Journal, and Comparative Migration Studies. In 2020, she was awarded the Tina
and David Bellet Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award at the University of Pittsburgh.
Heleen Murre-van den Berg is Professor of Global Christianity, Director of the Institute of
Eastern Christian Studies, and Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Reli-
gious Studies at Radboud University, Nijmegen. Her recent publications include Scribes and
Scriptures: The Church of the East in the Eastern Ottoman Provinces (1500–1850) (Louvain: Peeters,

xii
 Contributors

2015) and the edited volume (with Tijmen Baarda and Karène Sanchez), Arabic and Its Alter-
natives: Religious Minorities and Their Languages in the Emerging Nation States of the Middle East
(1920–1950) (Brill: Leiden, 2020). Currently, she directs an ERC-funded project, Rewriting
Global Orthodoxy: Oriental Christians in Europe (1970–2020).
Emin Poljarevic is Associate Professor of Sociology of Religion and Senior Lecturer in Islamic
Theology and Philosophy in the Theology Department at Uppsala University in Sweden.
His research on Muslim Brotherhood and Salafism explores the variety of motivational fac-
tors behind political and social mobilisation of activists for, among other things, citizenship
rights in the Middle East and North Africa. His research on Malcolm X’s impact on civil rights
activism in the USA and Europe is also partly exploring the elements of citizenship rights
discourses among contemporary Muslim youths in minority contexts.
Shira Robinson is Associate Professor of History and International Affairs at the George
Washington University. She is the author of Citizen Strangers: Palestinians and the Birth of Israel’s
Liberal Settler State (2013).
Laura Robson is Oliver-McCourtney Professor of History at Pennsylvania State University.
She is the author or editor of five books, most recently The Politics of Mass Violence in the Middle
East (2020), which explores the history of mass violence across the twentieth-century Eastern
Mediterranean, and the edited volume Partitions: A Transnational History of 20th Century Territo-
rial Separatism (co-edited with Arie Dubnov, 2019), which examines the emergence and conse-
quences of the political “solution” of partition in the twentieth-century world.
Shirin Saeidi is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Arkansas. She is
also affiliated with the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies. She has published in Citi-
zenship Studies, Gender and History, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Millennium: Journal of
International Studies and International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES).
James N. Sater is Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at the Uni-
versity of Malta. He is the author of Morocco: Challenges to Tradition and Modernity (Routledge
2010/16) and Civil Society and Political Change in Morocco (Routledge, 2007). His research inter-
ests include sectarianism, citizenship, electoral politics, gender, marginalisation and migration
with a focus on North Africa and Arab Gulf monarchies
Relli Shechter is an associate professor in the Department of Middle East Studies at Ben-
Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. He trained as an economic historian and received his
PhD from Harvard University. His most recent book is The Rise of the Egyptian Middle Class:
Socio-Economic Mobility and Public Discontent from Nasser to Sadat (2018). His current research
project investigates the long-term history of the Egyptian social contract – a de facto implicit
agreement between the state and its citizens – from 1922 (partial independence) and until 2011
(the Arab Spring).
Manfred Sing is a senior researcher at the Leibniz Institute of European History in Mainz,
Germany. His research interests focus on the multi-religious history of Islam, secular-
ism and Arab Marxism in a transnational and transcultural perspective. In a research pro-
ject funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 2008 to 2012, he worked on
post-­communist transformations in Arab countries. He has extensively published on Arab
Marxism, most recently “The Tempestuous Affair between Marxism and Islam: Attraction,
Hostility, and Accommodation since 1917” in Béatrice Hendrich (ed.) Muslims and Capitalism –
An Uneasy Relationship? (2018).

xiii
 Contributors

Nadia Sonneveld is a senior researcher has an academic background in anthropology, Arabic

and law. She is affiliated with the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance, and Society
at Leiden University, the Netherlands. The common factor in all her research activities is the
focus on gender and law in Muslim-majority countries, particularly in Egypt and Morocco. She
authored Khul‘ Divorce in Egypt: Public Debates, Judicial Practices, and Everyday Life (2012), and
has co-authored Women Judges in the Muslim World: A Comparative Study of Discourse and Practice,
with Monika Lindbekk (2017), and Women and Social Change in North Africa: What Counts as
Revolutionary?, with Doris Gray (2018).
Gerasimos Tsourapas is a senior lecturer in Middle East politics at the School of Government,
University of Birmingham. He is the author of The Politics of Migration in Modern Egypt – Strate-
gies for Regime Survival in Autocracies (Cambridge University Press 2019), which was awarded the
2020 ENMISA Distinguished Book Prize by the International Studies Association. Tsourapas is
currently working on two monographs on migration diplomacy in the Middle East and on the
politics of the Syrian refugee crisis in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. His work has been published
in various journals, including International Studies Quarterly and International Migration Review.
Rusen Yasar is a senior researcher at the Department of Politics and Public Administration,
University of Konstanz. He received his PhD in politics and international studies from the
University of Cambridge, and his MA in nationalism studies from Central European Univer-
sity, where he examined the evolution of the Turkish citizenship regime in view of the large
emigrant population in Europe. His research on citizenship combines empirical and normative
approaches, with a broad focus on questions of migration, transnational ties, minority rights and
democratic inclusion. Alongside citizenship, his areas of research include multilevel governance,
politics of wellbeing and traditional institutions in modern political systems.

xiv
 FOREWORD

Background
The present book is the outcome of continuous efforts by several cross-disciplinary teams of
academics to interpret, update, reinterpret and explain upheavals and political dynamics that
have encapsulated the entire region of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) for a long
time. A common framework in these studies is the centrality of citizenship, in its concep-
tual, empirical and historical dimensions. The citizenship approach directs the analysis towards
the relationship between any given state and its citizenry in relevant historical, cultural and
political contexts. This enables us to ask critical questions about the nature of states and state
authority as well as patterns of rights and obligations in contemporary, crisis-ridden state-citizen
relationships.
The first project, hosted by the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo
in the late 1990s, was completed in 2000 with the publication of two books: Citizenship and
the State in the Middle East: Approaches and Applications (eds. Nils A. Butenschøn, Uri Davis
and Manuel Hassassian) and the companion volume Gender and Citizenship in the Middle East
(ed. Suad Joseph). The aim was to analyse the nature of state authority and state-citizen social
contracts in an era of great challenges created by internal instability, regional rivalries, and great
power geopolitics. Over a period of just 15 years, states in the region had been affected by
such dramatic events as the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, the
breakdown of the Soviet Union that had opened up for US unilateralism in the region and the
1990–1991 Gulf War. The 1993–1995 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Libera-
tion Organization, on the other hand, created hopes (at least for a while) for a de-escalation of
the most intractable conflict of all. Other parts of the so-called Third World had experienced
“waves of democratization” in this same period, but not so the Middle East. How could we
apply theoretical and empirical insights from legal, social and cultural studies to build a compre-
hensive understanding of regional developments? The overarching hypothesis of the project was
that approaching the particular challenges to the region through the lens of citizenship would
bring us closer to the best answers.
It was not until the dramatic events unleashed by the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011 when
the citizenship approach again emerged as a most useful analytical tool for understanding cur-
rent events. For the first time, citizens across the region rose up against their own rulers and

xv
 Foreword

governments, demanding accountability, justice and jobs. People were fed up with arrogant,
ruthless, corrupt and authoritarian leaders and marched under slogans such as karama (dig-
nity) and madaniyya (civility). For once, “conflicts in the Middle East” had to be understood
primarily on the level of the citizens and their relations to the ruling elites. Starting in 2012,
Roel Meijer at the Department of Islamic Studies at the Radboud University and Nils A.
Butenschøn, Director at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights (NCHR), Faculty of
Law, at the University of Oslo developed and co-directed a new citizenship project hosted by
the NCHR. The project soon involved an international cross-disciplinary network recruited
through workshops, seminars and a three-day conference hosted by the Université Muham-
mad V in Rabat, in 2014. What brought the network together was the understanding that
the recent uprisings reflected a new and fundamental crisis in the relationship between state
and citizen, or groups of citizens, and that this crisis was best understood in terms of citizen-
ship. A number of publications has been produced by the project, including two books: The
Crisis of Citizenship in the Arab World (eds. Roel Meijer and Nils A. Butenschøn, 2017) and
The Middle East in Transition. The Centrality of Citizenship (eds. Nils A. Butenschøn and Roel
Meijer, 2018).

The present book

The present book builds in part on insights and discourses in the follow-up of the previous pro-
jects but also, importantly, on the large amount of new books and empirical data made available
over the last few years. The situation on the ground is also rapidly changing. As we enter the
2020s, the MENA region is marked by continuous civil wars, authoritarian repression, humani-
tarian crises, unprecedented refugee problems, intervention by global powers and uprisings in
new countries (Algeria, Sudan, Iraq, Lebanon). The crisis of the state in the Middle East is now
deeper than ever: its authority, its legitimacy, its economy, its stability, its relations to citizens
and non-citizens alike, as well as its relation to other regional states and external powers. How-
ever, the level, nature and seriousness of the crisis varies greatly from one state to another. This
is an important observation that in particular motivates the citizenship approach: Citizenship
is a defining characteristic of the state as a societal phenomenon. It offers a general conceptual
framework for the study of specific historic and contemporary cases.
A classical challenge in Middle Eastern studies is to sort out and isolate determining factors
in sequences of historical events. Analyses are often complicated by the ways in which exter-
nal powers intervene or participate in local developments. This is not only a factor in studies
on a macro level (i.e., regional balance of power, economic determinants, etc.), but also if we
want to understand tensions between pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial models of state
authority, concepts of citizenship and political ideologies, all of which have formed the region
of today in different ways. The geopolitics of the region tend to overshadow endogenic social
and political dynamics rooted in local traditions. These multi-level tensions have been among
the characteristic features of Middle Eastern politics, more recently exacerbated by events set
ablaze by the Arab Spring in 2011. Observers are presented with the extreme complexity of
intervening factors and the unpredictability of events and leaders, combined with the unabated
fragility of regimes and a general nervousness among well-armed states and non-state actors on
all levels of interaction.
Taking account of this state of affairs, we need an overarching approach that is both open,
cross-disciplinary and flexible enough to integrate the breath of available empirical data, and
specific enough in terms of level of analysis to guide our research questions in fruitful and
focused directions. Such considerations have informed the choice of the citizenship approach

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 Foreword

in this book. It invites a broad spectre of case analyses with the centrality of citizenship as the
leading perspective. The case studies roughly fall into one of five thematic categories.
1 Citizenship and legal classes in society. Citizenship is a membership in the state polity. Rights
and obligations are defined and regulated in the constitution and other legal provisions. Map-
ping the legal structure of citizenship requires questions such as: Who constitutes the demos
under the jurisdiction of the state? How is demos constructed in terms of legal classes such as
sex, religious or ethnic affiliation, national origin, family affiliation, or any other distinction?
In short, who is included in and who is excluded from access to state institutions and public
resources? How are minorities, women, refugees and persons without citizenship protected, if at
all? What reasons are given for discriminatory regulations and how are they enforced? Another
legal aspect is how citizenship empowers or limits citizens’ rights to universally accepted human
rights.
2 The politics of citizenship. How are rights and obligations negotiated between the state and
relevant actors in society? Citizenship is not only a question of legal rights and obligations, it
also greatly impacts the distribution of material resources and institutional capacity in the soci-
ety. It is a tool in the hands of the ruling elites, including mechanisms for divide and rule, and
patronage and corruption. At the same time, it creates political dynamics between classes of
citizens, both in terms of opportunities for collective action and as roots of conflict and com-
petition. This dimension is of particular relevance in many Middle Eastern states where courts
and the legislature are dominated by the executive power, and where the executive power itself
is controlled by people representing closed elites in the most powerful sectors of society.
3 Citizenship and state formation. We also need to see the legal and political dimensions in the
wider historical context of state formation. The Middle East is currently living through one
of the most dramatic stages in what we can call “the hundred year’s war of state formation” in
the region. With the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire following the First World War, the
struggle for the reorganisation and reorientation of state societies took hold under the auspices
and patronage of Western caretaking empires. The new states that emerged at the time (with
revisions in the aftermath of the Second World War) still exists today. Their legitimacy is deeply
contested by large parts of the citizenry, but not without ambiguity: Western democratic prin-
ciples and modes of governance were largely welcomed by new political entrepreneurs, many
of whom had their education in the colonial metropoles. These developments had a profound
impact on the transition from Ottoman to post-Ottoman citizenship. The Western nation-state
promised new freedoms from autocratic rule and opening avenues to what was considered the
modern civilised world. But all this came as luggage with colonialist and great power interven-
tion and manipulation, preventing genuine self-determination. The new states had achieved
formal independence, but people did not feel liberated, a legacy still felt today. The imposition
of the State of Israel in the midst of the Arab world, largely seen as a neo-colonial instrument of
domination, and the dislocation of Palestinian Arabs from their homeland became a symbol of
the struggle for restoring Arab dignity and sovereignty. This is one reason why many Western-
educated intellectuals and officers in the Arab world became prominent leaders of anti-Western
political movements in the 1950s and 1960s. It soon emerged, however, that the new nationalist
regimes failed to meet popular expectations, and glided into patterns of authoritarianism and
corruption. The radical nationalist appeal lost much of its momentum already with the spec-
tacular Arab defeat in the June 1967 War. This was a critical event that prepared the region for
the later resurgence of alternative political ideas and models of governance with deep roots in
the region. The idea of founding state authority on Islam and Islamic law (shari‘a) had never
been completely given up, not even in the most secular republics; it was after all a living tradi-
tion from the Ottoman and other Islamic empires resonating with collective identities. Islamic

xvii
 Foreword

thinkers and movements had kept the heritage alive through the colonial and post-colonial
periods. The founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the late 1920s is a significant
example; the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 and the establishment of Iran as the first modern
Islamic theocracy is another. This revolution introduced an Islamic version of the radical anti-
Western impulse from the 1950s. Together with its militant anti-Zionist rhetoric, it represented
an alternative to the discredited Arab left-wing nationalism. This had a great effect on the
political discourse throughout the region, but the influence in the Arab world was limited by
the Persian origins and Shia ideology of the revolution. The new state anyway provoked new
questions: How should an Islamic state function in the modern world as an alternative to the
Western nation-state model? And, in particular: How should citizenship be understood in an
Islamic state of today? These questions again became acutely relevant during the Arab Spring
when reforms opened for a broader participation of Islamic parties and movements in the politi-
cal process.
4 Citizenship and transformative social movements. The 2011 Arab Spring and the more current
mass protests across the region illustrate the need for addressing citizenship from a bottom-up
perspective. As Roel Meijer points out in this volume, one widespread effect of the authori-
tarian bargaining over the last decades is that it led to a passive mode of citizenship: A surviv-
ing strategy for many rulers in the region was to offer certain goods to citizens (jobs, social
services, security and the like) in return for loyalty and limitations on the exercise of civil and
political rights. This is true for both monarchies and republics in variable degrees, and in spite
of differences in the nature of the social contract between state and citizen. One reason why
oil-rich monarchies were in a better position to fend off the Arab Spring protesters than were
the republics, was that the monarchies were able to reconfirm the existing social contract by
spending more on public goods and patronage. The republics, on the other hand, were relatively
harder hit by the financial crisis leading up to the Arab Spring, resulting in huge deficits, draco-
nian austerity measures, rapidly rising unemployment, and unwillingness to consider necessary
reforms, leaving people to conclude that the ruling elites had broken their part of the social
contract. The mass mobilisation first and foremost reflected this deep frustration, expressing
demands for the right to active citizenship; that government should be responsive and account-
able to the people as the source of state authority; that the state should be organised to facilitate
the active participation of citizens in public affairs on the basis of their basic human rights to
freedom of expression and assembly.
Whereas some of these demands have been met in some countries (in casu Tunisia with a new
constitution in 2014) in the post–Arab Spring era, authoritarianism has been strengthened in
others (in casu Egypt after a short period of democratic experiments in 2011–2012). The worst
part of the story is the violent breakdown and civil wars in Syria, Yemen and Libya leaving
hundreds of thousands dead and millions as refugees or internally displaced. And while these
conflicts are still raging as we enter the 2020s with few hopes for peace, reconciliation and the
rebuilding of more solid states, new mass protests have erupted and regimes challenged in Alge-
ria, Sudan, Iraq and Lebanon. On the top of this, external regional and global powers intervene
in ongoing conflicts to protect their own interests, making the outcomes highly unpredictable.
Currently, there is much speculation that the USA will withdraw its bases from the Middle East
because its regional objectives have undergone fundamental changes. If that happens, predic-
tions are that the region, in particular its conflict zones, will be left open to destabilising effects
by other global and regional powers rushing in to fill the power vacuum. This leads to the con-
clusion that any regional stability in the Middle East depends on a recognised balance of power
among global, regional and local actors. Whichever way developments go, current prospects

xviii
 Foreword

for a political order in the Middle East built on a social contract whereby governments respect,
protect and fulfil basic citizenship rights are dim, to say the least.
5 Citizenship and migration. More than any other region, the Middle East is characterised by
large groups of people on the move, seeking refuge from violent conflict or repression, on a
desperate search for a better life, or more targeted moves for job opportunities. Whereas many
move within their own country, millions cross borders or are heading towards international
borders with the intention to cross.
The consequences are both immediate, imposing political and humanitarian crises, but could
also create demographic changes with long-term implications for political and economic sta-
bility. Labour migration to the oil-rich Gulf monarchies is a well-known case. The tensions
that have been built up in the border area between Syria and Turkey, and between Turkey
and Greece, an EU member state, is a more recent phenomenon, and illustrates the centrality
of citizenship in such situations. Citizenship is a contractual relationship between the citizens
and the state wherein they reside. When large population groups are on the move from their
country of origin, this relationship is shaken to the core. New relationships and legal status must
be defined and implemented creating new social and political dynamics. As Rusen Yasar states
in Chapter 30, “more than six million Turkish citizens live outside the country, the number of
resident aliens is approaching one million, and 3.6 million asylum seekers reside in the country
with a status of temporary protection.” The general lesson that can be drawn from this and
comparable situations is that peace and security can only be established on the basis of arrange-
ments guaranteeing basic citizenship rights for the people most affected. Today, unfortunately,
this remains a distant dream for millions across the Middle East.
Nils A. Butenschøn

xix
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank the editorial board for their support and advice: Nils A. Butenschøn,
Professor Emeritus International Relations (University of Oslo), Francesco Cavatorta,
Professor Political Science (Laval University), Mehran Kamrava, Professor of Government
(Georgetown University Qatar) and Rania Maktabi, Associate Professor (Østfold University
College, Norway).

xx
 INTRODUCTION
Roel Meijer, James N. Sater and Zahra R. Babar

The study of citizenship has been a recent phenomenon in Middle East and North Africa stud-
ies. After the pioneering works edited by Nils A. Butenschøn et al. (2000) on citizenship and
the Middle East in general and Suad Joseph (2000) on citizenship and gender, it took almost
two decades for new volumes to appear (Meijer & Butenschøn 2017; Butenschøn & Meijer
2018), followed by two other major publications in 2019 (Cambanis & Hanna 2019; Babar
2019). Earlier, Uri Davis had published his comparative work on nationalities in the Middle East
(1997), and in 2009 Gianluca Parolin published his work on citizenship and law in the Middle
East. Other publications have dealt indirectly with citizenship in relation to Islamic movements
(Scott 2010), post-Islamism and rights (Bayat 2007), migration (Brand 2006; Seeberg & Eyadat
2013), minorities (Kymlicka & Pföstl 2014, 2016), civil society (Sater 2007), and differentiation
of citizenship (Young 2015). The relation between demands of the demonstrators of the Arab
Spring for “bread, freedom and social justice,” dignity (karama), political accountability and
employment and their links with civil, political, social and economic citizenship rights has been
noticed by numerous authors doing research on workers (Alexander & Bayoumi 2014; Beinin
2016), the poor and subalterns (Bayat 2010; Harders 2013), youth and the internet (Herrera &
Sakr 2014). More recently, the debate on sectarianism and sectarianization and the historical
and political reasons for the failure of a common belonging have also been associated with
the history of citizenship in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq (Wehrey 2017; Hashemi & Postel 2017;
Makdisi 2019).
The purpose of this handbook is to bring these and other trends together and produce new
insights into the study of citizenship in the Middle East and North Africa. Citizenship as a focus
brings highly specialized disciplines together. For example, it unites migration and state policies
with regard to broader aspects of demographics, identity, representation and authoritarianism.
It demonstrates that nationalism is not just an intellectual current or a political movement that
determines national identity but determines what rights the members of the nation can acquire.
Citizenship as a focus asks questions of why, how and to what extent becoming a citizen is
meaningful. Because these questions have been important for such a long time, analyzing citi-
zenship allows for long-term political, social and cultural analyses of the region. In addition, the
concept allows for regional and global comparisons and pays attention to the agency of actors
in combination with structures. In contrast to human rights, citizenship is not a yardstick to
measure deficiencies to a universal standard but looks into highly diverse, socially, culturally

1
 Roel Meijer et al.

and ideologically informed concepts and practices that exist at the local level of belonging
and include historical notions of justice, deep felt entitlements and civic responsibility to the
community.
Citizenship studies, however is not united in its approach to the subject. There are two main
trends. The first is more structuralist and focuses on state-citizen relations. This current has its
starting point in Marshall’s ideas (1950/1989), and has been further developed by Mann (1987)
and Turner (1990) and Castles (2005). Citizenship according to this trend is based on the way
rights and obligations are developed in relation with the state. The second trend looks more
at how citizens constitute citizenship through “acts of citizenship”. Whether one is a subject
or citizen does not depend on the expansion of rights and state services, but depends on the
capacity to constitute oneself as a citizen through “deeds”. One becomes a citizen in the pro-
cess of contestation and self-realization, not simply of passively having rights, which downgrade
a citizen to a mere subject (Isin & Nielsen 2008; Isin 2017). One of the critiques of the first
approach is that it is Eurocentric; the West is the norm against which citizenship in other coun-
tries is measured. Critical citizenship theory looks at what people think of as citizenship in the
region and looks at its practices. This volume shows that both approaches are useful and demon-
strates that even structuralist approaches can incorporate non-Western concepts and practices of
belonging, solidarity and dignity. Neither are notions of equal citizenship specifically Western.
Most chapters in this book deal with the first approach to citizenship. This is because the
state is such a central factor in the conception of the citizen as a member of the political body
(Butenschøn et al. 2000). Membership is commonly defined exclusively by belonging to the
nation, and the democratic state conceived of its nationals as citizen-nationals (Castles 2005).
Relations between the state and citizens is determined by the demands of the state towards
its citizens and services it provides in return. The state is mostly interested in order, control,
production, income and welfare of its population insofar as it supports its political and military
power, and provides loyalty and legitimacy. When its relations with the population become
more complex and intense and the state intervenes directly in the lives of the population, the
state acquires more responsibilities. Its bureaucracy expands and it must take care of the educa-
tion and health of its population; the state conscripts men of a certain age and regulates to a
much greater degree its economy and social life through laws, regulation and policing. In pre-
modern societies, populations mostly seek autonomy, the provision of justice, the rule of law,
respect for their lives, possessions, families and dignity. In later phases, when the state increases
its powers, citizens start focusing more on the state, either resisting its demands of taxation, con-
scription and education, or demanding increased welfare in the form of civic, social, economic
and cultural entitlements. Citizenship in this phase becomes a dynamic double-edged sword.
On the one hand, citizens become instruments of the state that acquires greater interest in their
control (law and order, education, state ideology, health) and as sources of resource extraction
(taxes, production, demography). On the other hand, their new status as citizens allows indi-
viduals and groups to demand broader inclusion, political rights, social services and economic
opportunities. Their power is based on contesting the policies of the state through creating a
repertoire of contention or withholding legitimacy.
Two other concepts are important for understanding the concept of citizenship in this vol-
ume, as they result from the dynamic double-edged sword just described. The first is citizen-
ship regime. With this term, we mean the totality of laws, norms, ideological constructs and
discourses of power that define and determine individuals’ positions and status, and the services
and opportunities that come from being subjected to the authority in their respective state. It
also includes all forms of accommodation, acquiescence and participation, terminologies of
subservience, resistance, but also contestation of and demonstrating against and even evasion

2
 Introduction

of specific forms of authority. Within citizenship regimes, societies can develop alternative
citizenship communities such as Salafi groups that follow their own ethical norms and rituals
(Mahmood 2005; Pall 2017), family and neighborhood networks (Singerman 1995) and inter-
net communities (Herrera & Sakr 2014). A citizenship regime covers mechanisms of privileg-
ing, downgrading, marginalization and rendering some nationals non-citizens within a political
system, or revoke nationality altogether (Babar 2017, 2018; Azzam, Chapter 17). There is no
linear progression in citizenship regimes or in the history of citizenship. Citizenship rights can
expand or shrink and are subject to continuous changes.
The second concept is social contract. States seek legitimacy by means of an ideational con-
cept through which citizens accept the regime passively or actively (Heydemann 1999, 2007).
Social contracts, broader than the Gramscian notion of hegemony, can be more formally laid
down in constitutions or be adopted in national charters and national dialogues. They lay down
major changes in government policies or overcome a national crisis and mark new relations
between states and citizens. Social contracts have a long history in the Middle East and North
Africa (Meijer 2019). They include the classic Islamic pacts (Farahat, Chapter 1), the pre-mod�-
ern Pact of Umar (Sharkey 2017: 40–42), the millet pact of the Ottoman Empire (Sharkey
2017: 39-7 Masters, Chapter 2), the colonial pact with the local elite (Meijer, Chapter 6), the
republican pact (Shechter, Chapter 10) also called the authoritarian bargain (Hinnebusch 2001),
or its monarchical form (Sater 2017), to name a few. But there are others. Cilja Harders analyzes
the “social contract of informality” of the poor with the state (Chapter 16). In this volume
the collapse of the authoritarian bargain during the Arab Spring of 2010/2011 marked a new
rise of rights discourses and of new forms of solidarity, networking and organization among
citizens. In turn, the state tried to establish new, partial “protection pacts” with specific groups
(Rutherford 2018).
Another set of terms that regularly occur in this volume is the dyad of “nationality” (jinsiyya)
and “citizenship” (muwatana). These two components of citizenship were first introduced by
Uri Davis (1997), who argued the first covered formal citizenship (“passport citizenship” but
also status), while the second covers the substantive or sociopolitical dimension of citizenship.
The first consists mostly of the states’ regulation and laws and has been analyzed for instance
in studies on nineteenth-century nationality law in Alexandria (Hanley 2017; Marglin, Chap�-
ter 3), the status of Palestinians in Jordan (Frost and Brown, Chapter 9) and in Israel (Robinson,
Chapter 21), the bidun in Kuwait (Beaugrand 2017; Albarazi and Kusmova, Chapter 24), the
West Sahara movement (Sater, Chapter 8), women in the Middle East (Maktabi, Chapter 22),
women in Lebanon (Azzam, Chapter 17; Sonneveld and Alagha, Chapter 23) and migration
(Babar, Chapter 28). These studies demonstrate the unequal and diverse status of nationalities,
women and people who never acquired formal citizenship or whose status remained undefined.
As these chapters show, states have developed specific citizenship policies to manipulate status
of residence. Muwatana applies to substantive citizenship and has been developed in the public
sphere since the nineteenth century (Fahmy 2011), through nationalist movements (Meijer,
Chapter 6; Sater, Chapter 8), the Arab left and communist movements, the poor in Cairo
(Singerman 1995; Harders, Chapter 16) and the Islamist Wasatiyya movement (Scott 2010;
Poljarevic, Chapter 14).
The book has been divided into five parts. Each part covers a specific analytical perspective
that adds to the concept and practice of citizenship.
Part 1, Emergence of Modern Citizenship, deals with the role citizenship plays in the
history of the region, answering questions about when it emerged; what had existed before;
and how it was affected by the rise of the central state, colonialism and the transition to
post-colonialism.

3
 Roel Meijer et al.

The first four chapters of this part cover classical Islam and notions of belonging and soli-
darity, the Ottoman Empire until the end of the long nineteenth century that ends with the
end of World War I. In Chapter 1, on citizenship and classical Islam, Omar Farahat shows
how a universal concept of citizenship and methods of belonging were fluid, pragmatic and
multilayered (see also Vikør 2017), comparable to kinship. Rather than universal criteria and
rights, rights and privileges depended on loyalty, trustworthiness and, above all, faith. The
second form of belonging is the belonging to a morally superior, virtuous community, the
umma (the Islamic nation). “Muslimhood” means the adherence to a “normative regime”.
Non-Muslims, essentially Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Buddists and Sikhs, were
considered protected people, ahl-dhimma, and ranked lower. These communities had access to
a number of rights – life, property, religious practice and progeny – yet not to others in areas
such as equal taxation and political leadership. Bruce Masters shows in Chapter 2 how the
classical relationship changed in the nineteenth century under the influence of nationalism,
separatism and increased state intervention. By that time, the Ottoman Empire had developed
an autonomous multi-ethnic and multi-religious millet system, in which each religious com-
munity was allowed to administer its own schools and religious laws and courts in exchange
for their recognition of the sovereignty of the sultan and the superiority of Islam. In the nine-
teenth century, this loose arrangement came under pressure of two opposing trends. On one
hand, the millet arrangement was extended and strengthened, on the other hand, the sultan
tried to create more loyal subjects during the Tanzimat period (1839–1876) by introducing
equal legal citizenship rights between Muslims, Christians and Jews. These reforms, however,
failed to create common and equal citizenship. Many Christians and Jews preferred to rely
on extraterritorial rights and privileges provided by foreign consuls, rather than pay taxes
and being subjected to Ottoman conscription. Muslims regarded the Tanzimat measures as
imposed by the West as an onslaught on what Farahat calls the “Islamic normative regime” and
their “Muslimhood”. In Chapter 3, Jessica M. Marglin continues with the issue of national-
ity taken up by Bruce Masters in his chapter on Ottoman reforms (Chapter 2), but focuses
on the issue of legal belonging and nationality in Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco under French
colonial rule. She argues that the issue of colonial rights should not be seen as a binary oppo-
site of universal French republican rights versus absolute unfreedom but rather as a sliding
scale, a “spectrum of full inclusion and rights on the one hand and of total foreignness and
exclusion on the other”. She points out that even in nineteenth-century France citizenship
was “hierarchical and fractured”, and women and children were not regarded as full citizens.
Because the state wanted to acquire control over its colonial subjects, it granted them French
nationality (nationalité) and protection if they travelled outside Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia,
but not full French citizenship, which was reserved for settlers. Naturalization depended on
the level of assimilation to French culture. Marglin further analyzes the status of non-French
Europeans and Jews in Algeria as well as Muslims and non-Europeans in Morocco and Tunisia.
In Chapter 4, Michelle U. Campos continues this historical line until the end of the long
nineteenth century, and demonstrates that at the end of the Ottoman Empire separatism had
not undermined the loyalty of Ottoman subjects to the Empire. In fact a new sense of soli-
darity, patriotism and political participation emerged that was evinced in the participation in
municipal and provincial councils. She indicates how different communities created a shared
multi-linguistic and multi-religious public sphere, while new initiatives from below by peas-
ants, non-elite villagers and women contributed to a common sense of belonging, identity
and shared Ottoman citizenship. These developments explain why so much hope was vested
in the 1908 Revolution and the reinstatement of the 1876 constitution with its promise of
ending corruption, tyranny and clerical oppression. At the same time, she points out that a

4
 Introduction

transition to a secularized citizenship had not been established, as even Muslim reformers such
as Rashid Rida were hesitant to grant equal political rights to non-Muslims.
The second half of this part covers the transition to independence and the rise of the
authoritarian republics and the fundamental changes in concepts and practices of citizenship. In
Chapter 5, Laura Robson analyzes colonial policies in the mandates of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq
and Palestine during the interwar period. Her main argument is that the communal organization
as described by Masters in Chapter 2, and challenged by the 1908 Revolution, as analyzed by
Campos in Chapter 4, was reinforced during the British and the French mandate period. Colo� -
nial reification and institutionalization of former fluid communal boundaries had adverse effects
on the future of the nation-building process of these countries and the formation of common
citizenship. In Robson’s words: “the interwar years saw the construction of colonial political
and legal edifices that made communal identifications central to highly stratified and hierarchical
forms of colonial citizenship.” Sectarianism (ta’ifiyya) and the process of ­sectarianization –
­territorializing and politicizing of communal divisions – was meant to ­produce local partners
and intermediaries, and recruit loyal military units among Assyrians, Zionists and Maronite
Christians. At the same time, this policy created ethnic and religious divisions which had not
existed to that extent before and continue to influence events in the region. In Chapter 6,
Roel Meijer analyzes the transition from colonial pact with intermediaries to the middle class
social pact of national unity, state-led economic development and social equality and expansion
of education in both the Mashreq and the Maghreb. Crucial was the rise of the effendiyya as
the new middle class in the 1930s who produced a new civil culture and ethics that dominated
the new public sphere. He shows how the different Islamist right-wing and secular left-wing
political movements contributed to the formulation of a new social contract and why this has
led to what has been called the authoritarian bargain despite the many democratic notions of
citizenship in the 1940s and 1950s.
Part 2, Formation of Citizenship from Above, covers contemporary manifestation of
citizenship in the post-colonial state, and attempts by the state to define its citizenry. As this
part illustrates, the categorization of citizens and non-citizens, the increased importance of
hierarchies based on gender, ethnicity, wealth and sect were a result of direct or indirect state
policies and regulations. The categorization was often legitimated with reference to cultural-
religious norms, such as patriarchy, and attachment to the land and its “original” inhabitants, or
framed within clearly political ideologies such as the struggle against Zionism. This part further
highlights contradictions between rights that citizens have been promised in law versus rights
that they were denied in practice, hollowing out the promise of citizenship that many states
attempted to deliver in their constitutional laws and public acts. In fact such contradictions
and the promises associated with citizenship are key to understanding the dyad of jinsiyya and
muwatana – the analytical terms used in contemporary political debates to illustrate the demands
for citizenship as opposed to the definition of citizenship from above. As part of the “politics
of citizenship” Part 2 equally makes clear that the dynamic nature of alliances inside the state
has a profound impact on both jinsiyya and muwatana. Groups that held privileged positions at
one time oftentimes obtained disadvantaged positions under changed political circumstances,
changing not only their status but also their activities, which ultimately posed new challenges
to state.
The first three chapters in Part 2 give different analytical perspectives on the jinsiyya-­muwatana
dyad. In Chapter 7, Paul M. Esber theorizes the relationship between jinsiyya and muwatana
and reflects on the Arabic etymology of both terms, illustrating how the first influences the
­second. Essentially, as jinsiyya is used to select and categorize people (from its roots j-n-s),
muwatana with its root based on watan, land, attributes a socio-political feeling of belonging to a

5
 Roel Meijer et al.

territory, and an act of becoming a muwatin. Both involve claim-making – claims by states that
categorize their citizens through jinsiyya, and claims made by people who identify as belong-
ing to a territory – on each other and onto the authority. He furthermore argues that in the
Arab socio-political and linguistic context, the jinsiyya-muwatana dyad involves claim-making
on the part of citizens, non-citizens and the state. He illustrates this in the debate in Jordan
about nationality regulations, where citizens and activists counter the policies of the state. In
Chapter 8, James N. Sater, using as case studies the Western Sahara and the stateless so-called
bidun of Kuwait, furthermore examines the relationship between such categorization of jinsiyya,
belonging, and muwatana, based on alliance-building at the helm of the state. The Moroccan
monarchy’s alliance with nationalists, and the changing definition of citizenship from that of
ra‘iya to that of jinsiyya, meant an expanded notion of the Moroccan nation from which Sah-
rawi groups that struggled for self-determination were violently excluded. Similarly, changing
alliances within the al-Sabah ruling family, together with a series of political crises since the
mid-1980s, had the effect of putting an end to the naturalizations of the bidun, permanently
excluding them from the prospects of obtaining nationality (jinsiyya). Both regimes, however,
faced active resistance against such exclusion, and new forms of active citizenship appeared in
both cases and developed alternative concepts of belonging to the territory. In Chapter 9,
Nathan J. Brown and Lillian Frost analyze the categorization of people through jinsiyya in
constitutions illustrating how they served to assert sovereign rule over people. This chapter
specifically shows how citizenship became an issue at the time constitutions were written, and
how the objective of asserting sovereign rule specifically addressed muwatana-related questions,
such as the rights of non-Muslims. Continuing this analysis, this chapter uses the case of Jordan’s
nationality revocation laws and the unequal nationality laws with respect to Jordanian woman’s
ability to pass down nationality to their offspring, to show how the (deliberate) creation of
ambiguity has become an instrument of state power.
The following three chapters describe different versions of social contracts and models of
citizenship that states attempted to impose, with varying success. Relli Shechter shows in
Chapter 10, how the key pillar of one regime, the effendi class under the liberal monarchy in
Egypt, continued to play a key role after the 1952 revolution. More than that, the middle class
that it represented were part of a broader social contract in which their status was protected
in exchange for their support for the Nasserist regime. In this way, and in contrast to the self-
style ideology of continuing the revolution after 1952, he argues against seeing the new mid-
dle classes under Nasser as state-created, and rather as a continuation of the older effendi class.
Faced with ongoing challenges from the Muslim Brotherhood, from the Wafd Party and from
elements of the ancien regime, the state created an effendi-Nasserist social contract that informed
the beginning of citizenship practices in modern Egypt. In Chapter 11, Shirin Saeidi shows
how the different post-1979 governments in Iran emphasized different models of the ideal
citizen, from the obedient citizen under Ayatollah Khomenei, over the technocratic in the post-
revolutionary phase, to the reformist citizen under Khatami, in which aspects of the preceding
model were incorporated into the next. Focusing on the Hezbollahi movement that aimed at
the Islamization of society, Saeidi shows how under the Ahmadinejad presidency, models of
state-sponsored citizenship also included reformist tools, engaging for example in cultural activ-
ities that emphasized being a critical citizen. In Chapter 12, Mathilde Becker Aarseth provides
what may be the crudest model of citizenship that the Middle East has so far known: that of the
Islamic State. Analyzing “city documents” that were published in Mosul, as well as textbooks
issued by the Ministry of Education, she shows a particular ambiguity between on one hand,
a declared attitude of not interfering in the personal lives of individuals, and on the other, a
totalitarian tendency to control all of the population’s ideas, reshaping the people according to

6
 Introduction

the ruling elites’ ideology. More cruelly, of course, have been the distinctions based on sect, in
which only one, the Sunni creed, was granted basic protection and abstract justice if obedient
to the authorities, with others, especially the Shi’a sect, condemned to violent extermination.
Part 3, Social Movements and Formation of Citizenship from Below, deals with
social movements and the role they have played and still play in the formation of citizenship
in the form of a rights discourse. The first cluster of chapters looks at political and ideologi-
cal movements and how they have influenced the concepts of citizenship. The second cluster
looks at the perception and the contribution that specific social classes and groups – workers,
the poor and human rights activists – have contributed to notions and practices of citizenship,
while in the last part, the confrontation between citizen movements and the state in Morocco
is analyzed.
The first two chapters in this part focus on ideological movements. They refer to Chap�-
ters 2, 4, 6, 7 and 8. In Chapter 13, Manfred Sing investigates the role of “internationalism” in
the region’s communist movement. He argues that the communist contribution to citizenship
and equal rights in the Arab world has been ambivalent. Far-left radicals spoke out for univer-
sal rights, especially for the equal rights of workers, women and religious as well as ethnical
minorities, introducing new repertoires of contention such as the strike. In their efforts to
educate the masses, they expanded the public sphere, founding study circles, publishing journals
and disseminating their ideas through various cultural activities. Yet, the communist record on
citizenship rights is double-edged on at least four levels. First, they fought political repression
and state violence but accepted the repressive “Arab socialist” regimes of the 1960s. Second,
they supported corporatist state models and the “authoritarian bargain” and its incorporation of
labor unions. Third, they criticized the oppression of freedom of thought but cherished internal
undemocratic party and discussion structures. Finally, they opposed colonialism and imperialist
interventions but complied with Soviet guidelines as well as their European comrades’ paternal-
ism. Sing points out, however, that the slogan of the Arab Spring, “bread, freedom and social
justice,” has its origin in the left. Its focus on socio-economic rights is an important reason for
the current revival of the left in the Arab world. In Chapter 14, Emin Poljarevic analyzes the
Wasatiyya trend, which has been at the forefront of developing an Islamic concept and prac-
tice of citizenship. According to him, it is “the most ideologically rights-oriented” Islamist
movement. Among the newly developed wasati concepts that promote individual responsibility
toward the community are the “civil state” and “civic virtue.” It is especially the theological
concept of the “higher objective of the law” (maqasid al-shari‘a) that has opened up space to
think about rights and citizenship. This has allowed the movement to move away from a “faith
belonging” orientation (what Farahat calls “Muslimhood”), based on the submission to God
and political passivity, to the recognition that Muslim communities should have a large degree
of sovereignty and political agency in theory as well as in practice. Poljarevic concludes that
the wasati movements “are moving toward fully endorsing a notion of citizenship rights that
is centered on equal economic, social, political, and religious rights between male and female
Muslims, as well as between Muslims and religious minorities”.
In the next three chapters of this part the focus is on the labor movement and the strike as
means of contestation and acquiring rights, and on the poor and their indirect ways of gaining
dignity and obtaining their entitlements. In Chapter 15, Anne Alexander analyzes the role of
organized workers’ movements against the background of the broader social movements that
sprang up during the past decade claiming citizenship rights. Looking at Tunisia, Egypt, Alge-
ria and the Sudan she argues that “strike action was the means by which workers seized and put
into practice fundamental political rights, including rights to assembly, to freedom of speech
and to organize themselves independently of the state”. She argues that “workers’ actions

7
 Roel Meijer et al.

as workers, and not simply as citizens, [. . .] offers the best hope of overcoming the military-
bureaucratic core of the authoritarian regimes.” The collapse of the authoritarian bargain, as
analyzed in Chapters 6 and 8, was the trigger that brought about the reemergence of the work� -
ers’ movement and led to the revival of the independent trade union movement. She points out
that the strike was the crucial instrument that constituted the backbone of the broad popular
movement. After analyzing the steps taken by workers’ movements to become independent,
she illustrates how the strike action spilled over and supported broader issues of public health,
education, working conditions, services among doctors, workers, teachers and civil servants.
In Chapter 16, Cilja Harders argues that it was not only workers and formal occupations and
professions but also the urban poor that have contributed to the mass uprisings after 2010,
due to deeply felt injustice. In the first part of her chapter, she analyzes the ways in which the
poor reconceptualize themselves as informal citizens by developing a discourse to counter their
political and social exclusion and marginalization. They thereby emphasize their civil virtues
(but different from the middle class virtues of the wasatiyya current), acquire dignity and lay
claims to respect and state services: in short to constitute themselves as citizens. The three terms
they use are ‘ala addina (a sense of dignity to live according their means), zay innas (making
claims to be treated like respectable people) and ghalban (to be blessed by God and live honor-
ably despite their poverty). Together these concepts form the moral framework that entitles
them to full inclusion in the social and political order. In the second part of her chapter she
analyzes how the poor enter into a “social contract of informality” with the state on the basis
of these claims. Unlike formal citizens who act upon their citizenship through petitions, public
debates, voting or union membership, the poor participate informally, hidden, and sometimes
illegally, to make their claims heard. The chapter of this cluster connects abstract human rights,
concrete citizenship rights and clashes between social movements and the state. In Chap�� -
ter 17, Fateh Azzam analyzes the formal realm of human rights movements, and argues that
human rights and citizenship rights overlap and reinforce each other. Since the mid-1990s,
human rights organizations have promoted democratic, social, economic and cultural rights;
equality between men and women; the right to freedom of organization and peaceful assembly;
and equal rights for minorities and political cultural pluralism. He argues that in contrast to
the localized, cultural and specific ideas of citizenship, or Marxist or Islamist ideologies, human
rights organizations base their activities on abstract principles and international law. Azzam
gives abundant examples of Arab human rights organizations promoting citizenship rights in
schools, organizing campaigns against racism and discrimination of Palestinians in Israel, and
the revocation of nationality and statelessness in the Gulf states. He points out that human
rights organizations have contributed to the third wave of citizenship rights that has swelled
since the 1980s.
In Chapter 18, Driss Maghraoui analyzes Moroccan social movements of citizenship against
the backdrop of a deeply ambiguous Moroccan political culture. He contrasts a culture of obe-
dience and submission (ta‘a), ritualistically represented by the yearly pledge of allegiance (bay‘a)
to the king, with a modern discourse of citizen rights based on participation, freedom and
equality. In Maghraoui’s analysis, the result is a struggle for meaning and power of the concept
and practice of citizenship, with the monarchy on one side trying to appropriate these terms,
co-opt movements and inoculate the rights discourse, or otherwise repress them; and on the
other side civil society and social movements that have developed a range of terms and strategies
to defend their autonomy and shift the power balance in their favor on issues related to equal
rights. Prominent among these equal rights movements are the youth movements organized
in the tansiqiyyat (committees) and the hirak protest movement in the Rif demanding adequate
state services since 2017.

8
 Introduction

Part 4, Mechanisms of Inclusion and Exclusion, focuses on the techniques and instru-
ments of state control as an essential part of citizenship regimes. These techniques of inclusion
and exclusion can be divided into four broad categories. First, ethnic and nationalist notions of
belonging that are based on culture and language. Its techniques consist of promoting the cul-
ture and language of the majority population – Turks, Arabs or Jews –through assimilation, dis-
crimination and repression of other cultural and linguistic expressions of identity. Second, legal
and bureaucratic techniques of exclusion depriving certain categories of citizens from gaining
equal status and access to state benefits. These can be based on cultural characteristics within
society that have gained state support to uphold inequality and discrimination. Especially in the
Mashreq states have supported patriarchal, tribal and sectarian social and power structures based
on patriarchal family laws and nationality laws supporting a citizenship regime of differentia-
tion, discrimination and exclusion. Another source of a differentiated citizenship regime in the
region has been the historical legacy of past bureaucratic mistakes that have become politically
more contentious to resolve. Third, this section deals with the position of Christian denomi-
nations in the differentiated citizenship regimes of the Middle East. Although a large number
of Christians have succeeded into assimilating into the dominant Arab culture, communalism
prevailed and church leaders sought separate political pacts with the authoritarian regimes. The
last chapter deals with positive aspects of equal citizenship as a means of conflict resolution and
creating a new social pact in Libya.
The first three chapters of this part deal with Amazigh, Kurds and Palestinians and their
contestation of the dominant citizenship regimes and ethnic exclusionary social contracts of
the post-independence era. They build on Chapters 5 and 6 on colonial rule. In Chapter 19,
Bruce Maddy-Weitzman compares the Amazigh (Berber) movements in Morocco, Algeria and
Libya and how they have experienced a revival since the 1980s, claiming “particularist” cultural
rights of cultural recognition: linguistic equality with the Arabic, the right to express their
language and traditions through state and private media, demanding a share of state resources
for educational purposes. Maddy-Weitzman shows how each country has developed its own
dynamic, depending on the citizenship regime. Whereas Morocco has been pragmatic and flex-
ible co-opting the Amazigh movement, Algeria has been less forthcoming emphasizing unity
and regarding the Berber movement as divisive. In Libya the movement has been able to take
advantage of the chaos to pursue its aspirations. Especially important is the degree to which the
Amazigh movement ties in with the broader “civic national” movement of broader citizenship
rights of democratic reform. Because the Amazigh are also economically and politically dis-
criminated against, their movements support the much broader calls for accountability, democ-
ratization and greater state investments and provision of services in neglected regions. It is here
that the recent Hirak movements pose a much greater threat to the regimes and that red lines
are being crossed, as is the case with the Moroccan Rif movement. In Chapter 20, Michael M.
Gunter refers to “majority-based citizenship” of the nation states that tried to culturally exclude
them in Turkey, Iraq and Syria. Much of this depended on the type of majority rule and the
strength of the regime. In Turkey, Turkish nationalism repressed Kurdish culture, denying its
existence. Since the 1970s, Kurdish movements for cultural and political rights have sprang up
in Turkey, leading up to a violent confrontation with PKK when the reforms remained a dead
letter. Although in Iraq the Kurds faced similar levels of suppression under the Arab-dominated
monarchy and republic and even genocide under Saddam Hussein, it was also established as an
autonomous region in 1992, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). Its attempt to establish
a separate state in 2017 failed. With regard to the broader demands of citizenship, the movement
against corruption, nepotism, suppression of free speech and the established order in 2017 was
an important indicator that the Kurdish movement, like the Amazigh movement, could broaden

9
 Roel Meijer et al.

its citizen demands. In Syria, Kurds were denied any citizenship rights and many remained
stateless noncitizens until the Arab Spring and the collapse of the Ba‘ath regime allowed them
to gain some autonomy for some time. In Chapter 21, Shira Robinson analyzes the position
of Palestinians in Israel since 1948 in the light of Israeli “ethno-racial hierarchy of citizenship”.
The Palestinian-Israeli case underlines the centrality of citizenship in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. Robinson analyzes the deteriorating position of Palestinians whose limited rights have
been systematically chipped away. The right to own land, civil rights, residency rights, voting
rights, education, employment, livelihood and freedom of movement and freedom of speech,
have all been increasingly restricted in a series of laws that have expanded the rights of Jewish
citizens of Israel. In 2018, Palestinians even lost the right to question the Jewish character of
the state, to support Palestinian rights, or call for Arab-Jewish equality. The contestation of the
deterioration of their position has led to the reassertion of their citizenship rights through dif-
ferent organizations, the latest being Balad and Adalah.
The second section of this part concentrates on the legal intricacies and techniques of differ-
entiation, discrimination, marginalization and exclusion of women, children, refugees, migrants,
turning them into second class citizens, marginal citizens or non-citizens. These chapters build
on Chapters 5 and 9 dealing with the creation of a differentiated citizenship regime in the
region and Chapters 7 and 8 on nationality and citizenship. In Chapter 22, Rania Maktabi
analyzes patriarchal family laws and the inability of women to transfer nationality laws to their
foreign husbands and their children. As a result, their children and husbands do not have access
to state education, healthcare and welfare services and have to renew their residency permits
regularly. She argues that “state power is involved in ways that disperse membership in the state
along gendered lines.” Patriarchal nationality laws and administrative policies and prerequisites
maintain the principle of male authority over women within the kinship system. Maktabi shows
that the Maghreb has been faster in revising its unequal family, divorce and nationality laws than
the Mashreq on account of pressure from Europe and EU, migrant constituencies and stronger
women’s organizations. The main reason, however, is that in the Maghreb these laws are far less
politicized than in the Levantine and Gulf states, where “nationality laws are entangled with
politicized demographic calculations along religious, tribal and ethnic lines.” For the same rea-
son statelessness is a much larger issue in the Mashreq (Kurds in Syria, bidun in Kuwait, maktumin
in Lebanon, Palestinians everywhere) than in the Maghreb (with the exception of the Sahrawi’s,
see Chapter 8). Protests in the form of demonstrations, sit-ins and public debates against patri�-
archal nationality laws has become an issue in the revolts in Lebanon and Kuwait since 2010.
In Chapter 23, Nadia Sonneveld and Joseph Alagha use the film Capharnaum to illustrate the
intricacies of two elements discussed in the previous chapter – nationality laws and personal
status laws in Lebanon – focusing on the difficulty of women giving nationality to their chil-
dren, in this case the protagonist of the film Zain. They analyze the highly complex situation in
Lebanon, where sectarian legislation, patriarchal attitudes, bureaucratic regulations and obscure
nationality laws conspire to produce non-citizens out of Lebanese children who are born out
of wedlock or unregistered marriages or parents whose birth is unregistered. As a result Zain
is a mere “human of flesh and blood” (homo sacer) a person without legal existence and rights,
whereas the migrant child in the film, Yonas, and the Syrian refugee girl, Maysoun, do have
access to state and relief provisions. They argue that the film ends somewhat misleadingly
because it is unlikely the Lebanese law will allow Zain to travel to Sweden. The authors further-
more point out the strong role of women in the Lebanese uprisings and their demands for equal
legal, social and economic rights as equal citizens, which can only be brought about with the
end of the confessionalism and patriarchy. They also indicate that aside from legal conditions,
social conditions (skin color and ethnicity) also play a role of gaining access to citizenship in for

10
 Introduction

example the UAE. In Chapter 24, Zahra Albarazi and Yoana Kuzmova deepen the analysis the
politics of citizenship in the region with regard to groups in Kuwait and the UAE that have lost
or never acquired nationality, the bidun, or whose status has been degraded over time, such as
the former citizens of Zanzibar. These techniques show how Kuwait and UAE have developed
over time a “differential rights regime,” which is ad hoc and selective. As a result, a bewilder-
ing number of categories, ranging from “full citizens”, “local non-citizens,” “decree holders,”
“foreign residents” to “illegal residents”, are used to indicate the status of the inhabitants of the
two countries. In the case of the bidun it goes back to the formation of the state and the first
registration of its citizens, making them dependent on obscure committees, vague promises
and bureaucratic and untransparent procedures. Scapegoating, criminalizing, securitizing and
marginalizing them has been another form of exclusion. Meanwhile the threat of revocation of
citizenship and depriving even full citizens from access to the plethora of services of the state is
used to dampen any form of opposition.
Christian minorities have experienced quite another relationship with Arab-Muslim major-
ity regimes. Having been at the forefront of the Arab Nahda in the nineteenth century and
prominent during the era of the colonial pact (see Chapters 5 and 6), they became completely
dependent on authoritarian states after independence. In Chapter 25, Heleen Murre-van den
Berg turns to the issue of their failure to acquire equal citizenship. Six factors have influenced
their relations with society at large: (1) their cohesion and millet status during the Ottoman
period; (2) whether their daily language was Arabic; (3) their regional solidarity with other
denominations; (4) their relations with foreign powers; (5) their support of Arab nationalist
movements; and (6) their relations with the authoritarian states. The rule is that if the com-
munities spoke Arabic (“Arab Christians”) and they identified with the specific region they
lived in, the chances were high they joined nationalist movements and integrated into society.
This was the case with Palestinian Christians, the Greek Orthodox in Syria, Copts in Egypt and
Iraqi Chaldeans. At the other spectrum were the Assyrians, Armenians and Syriac Orthodox
in Syria and Iraq, who spoke their own languages and regarded themselves as separate ethnic
communities. They, like the Maronites (who did speak Arabic), often sought protection from
foreign powers and sought political separation as nations. Despite these differences, however,
after independence all churches have pursued a communitarian citizenship policy. On one hand
the church tried to secure the protection from the state against the Muslim majority rule, on the
other, communitarianism was a means for church leaders to retain their power over their flock.
With the collapse of the authoritarian bargain, this policy has been challenged, and, insofar as
communities have not fled to Europe, the United States and Australia, demands for equal citi-
zenship have been voiced. Overall, however, the different churches have relied on their previous
policies, seeking a “protection pact” with the security state, as in the case of Egypt.
Finally, in Chapter 26, Suliman Ibrahim addresses the positive side of citizenship as a means
of inclusion, equality and conflict resolution in Libya. Citizenship here forms the foundation
of a new social contract that could bring all the contesting Libyan actors together. The chal-
lenge in Libya is to overcome the exclusionary politics of the Qaddafi era by drawing up an
inclusionary constitution on which everyone can agree. This has, however, proven extremely
difficult, as inclusive citizenship has been undermined by the Political Isolation law of 2012 that
bans Qaddafi’s followers and functionaries from participating in politics. In turn, Islamist groups
use Islamic Law to exclude secular nationalists from political participation. Ibrahim shows how
these issues have remained unresolved since the overthrow of Qaddafi in 2011, leading in 2014
to a split in two governments and two parliaments: National General Council (GNC) for the
west of Libya, seated in Tripoli, and the House of Representatives (HoR) for the east, seated
in Tobruk. Agreement on a shared, inclusionary, pluralist, participatory, areligious concept of

11
 Roel Meijer et al.

citizenship as drawn up by the Constitutional Draft Committee in 2017 would provide a solu-
tion for the Libyan people “in all its components, political orientations, societal and cultural
diversity”. This chapter refers to Chapters 5, 6 and 12 on social pacts.
Part 5, Migration and Regulation of Citizenship and Nationality, addresses the cen-
tral question of how the evolution of citizenship within any state is affected by patterns of
migration. Clearly, migration policy making and governance are closely linked to laws around
citizenship access. Citizenship and nationality laws might be designed to determine who is to
be included, but serve to also determine who is excluded. Even in democratic and liberal con-
texts where migrants have approximate access to the same legal rights of citizens, without actual
citizenship status they are likely to face social, cultural, economic and political marginalization.
The Middle East has frequently been overlooked by scholars of migration as a space from within
which to examine citizenship and migration in confluence, primarily because this region has
not been considered a space where migration for settlement takes place, thereby negating the
need to study it in juxtaposition with citizenship. By and large the Middle East has been viewed
as either a transit route for migrants seeking to emigrate to the West, or as a post-colonial zone
of displaced and stateless populations, or as a hub for temporary labor migrants. There is, how-
ever, a growing body of scholarship that is emphasizing the importance of addressing questions
of migration and citizenship in combination in this neglected part of the world, and the follow-
ing chapters attempt to fill some of the existing gaps in the literature.
States have frequently held a complicated relationship with their diasporic populations, as
several chapters in Part 5 of this volume attest to. In Chapter 27, Gerasimos Tsourapas exam-
ines how Middle Eastern citizens who migrate internationally participate politically in their
countries of origin. Providing a discussion primarily focused on five Middle Eastern states –
Libya, Syria, Egypt, Turkey and Jordan – this chapter examines three different forms of policy
making that correspond to three stages of the migration journey – before, during and after.
Tsourapas examines how these states regulate their citizens’ mobility at the departure or exit
stage, how these states manage their citizens while they are outside the country during the
overseas stage, and then finally how they apply mechanisms of governance during readmission or
return. More specifically, he shows how states’ policies and actions at these three stages all impact
citizens’ capacity and interest in participating politically. As Tsourapas suggests, it is increas-
ingly apparent that authoritarian states deploy active resources toward managing their citizens’
transnational movements as well as their levels of participation, and that they have the capacity
to create, influence and, if necessary, dismantle diaspora populations. This chapter suggests that
different Middle Eastern states have changed and adopted new policies depending on their
particular political agendas. At times states have supported and facilitated their citizens’ migra-
tion by creating supportive exit and return structures of governance, but at other times, when
migration has become securitized, they have engaged in curtailment of their citizens departure
and extensive surveillance of their diaspora groups abroad.
The arrival of international labour migrants into the six monarchies of the Persian Gulf since
about the middle of the last century has shaped not only the region’s demography, but also the
evolution of its citizenship laws and practices. Citizenship is difficult to obtain in most Gulf
Cooperation Council States, even for those who are Arab and who can claim that their ances-
tors have inhabited a particular Gulf territory for a long period of time. There is an economic
rationale for these states to limit citizenship, given that there are a range of social and economic
benefits attached to it, and a motivation for regimes to not dilute these benefits by expand-
ing citizenship through naturalization of the foreign workers that make up the majority of the
region’s population. Additionally, citizenship laws across the region emphasize the importance
of family lineage and ancestry, not only for the purpose of determining who can actually claim

12
 Introduction

citizenship but also for deciding on which “tier” citizenship will be bestowed. In Chapter 28,
Zahra R. Babar provides a review of the interaction between migration and citizenship in the
Gulf, and how the dynamics around one have influenced the other. Through the establishment
of the kafala, or worker-sponsorship system, coupled with short duration work contracts and
very limited access to citizenship, for decades the Gulf states have managed to import large
numbers of temporary labor migrants to be deployed across the labor market, without substan-
tially adding to their cohort of nationals. However, while these mechanisms of rigidly manag-
ing migration might have served to protect citizenship as the rare preserve for the few who can
authentically claim it, they have not succeeded in completely preventing long-term settlement
for many others. There are many communities of migrants across the region that are into their
second and third generation of settlement, albeit still under sponsorship arrangements on visas
tied to their employment status, and this diasporic footprint is likely to grow. More recently,
the Gulf monarchies have received increasing scrutiny and critique for their lack of capacity
and interest in protecting human, economic and social rights for lower income and low-skill
migrant workers. It is not only the states or governments that receive international censure
but frequently Gulf citizens themselves are apportioned direct blame for their lack of concern
about migrants’ welfare and rights. The kafala system itself, incorporates citizens directly into
the regulation of international migration, and turns citizen-sponsors into agents of enforcement
of migration policy.
Claire Beaugrand, in Chapter 29, untangles the various approaches adopted across the Arab
world to either embrace or completely deny the right toward multiple citizenship. As she
suggests, in the broader citizenship literature Middle Eastern states are frequently viewed as
engaging in archaic practices of citizenship that are patriarchal in nature and rigid in concep-
tion. Beaugrand argues that when it comes to adopting dual citizenship a static and rigid view
of the Middle East does not hold, and suggests that rather than adopting a unilateral approach
this part of the world exhibits a great deal of divergence and diversity both in policy terms as
well as conceptually. The Gulf states stand at one end of the spectrum, where for a variety of
economic and political reasons they adopt a very hard line where the offer of citizenship is
conditional on its exclusivity – Gulf citizens stand to lose their citizenship should they take on
another. Beaugrand suggests that Lebanon, Jordan, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Syria offer a
greater acceptance of dual nationals, based on experiences with colonialism, and with social ties
and cultural affinities to other parts of the world, as well as historical patterns of out migration.
Libya, early on and influenced by its Baathist ideals, demonstrated a supportive approach toward
dual nationality rights for its citizens. Egypt and Yemen seem to hold a complicated relationship
with dual nationality, allowing for it reluctantly it on some grounds while also seeming to resist
it also on the basis of loyalty and patriotic nationalism.
Migration, as Rusen Yasar suggests in Chapter 30, is certainly not a recent phenomenon in
Turkey. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire population movements occurred both toward
the Turkish heartland and away from it, so that the very foundations of the modern republic of
Turkey and its nascent ideas of citizenship were shaped by human mobility. Additionally, over
the past several decades, Turkey has seen the increasing outward migration of its citizenry seek-
ing work opportunities abroad, which has led to a growing Turkish diaspora in Western Europe.
Yasar states that citizenship in Turkey has principally developed along the lines of exclusive
ethno-nationalistic interpretations of identity and belonging wedded to inclusive and more
broadminded secular republican ideals of civic citizenship. Yasar argues that this duality and
fluidity to national conceptions and practices around citizenship have allowed the state to adapt
and mold Turkish citizenship laws and practices (as well as attitudes and approaches towards
migrants) to different contexts and according to the state’s political and economic objectives of

13
 Roel Meijer et al.

the day. Rusen’s chapter provides a thorough review of Turkish nationality and citizenship and
its relationship to migration from the early years of the new republic to the current moment.
He posits that the citizenship regime has moved from a generally conservative one of deny-
ing the rights to dual nationality, based on the suspicion that it breeds dual loyalties, to the
more liberal approach today where dual nationality is actively encouraged as it is seen to foster
the present Turkish government’s economic and political ambitions. This chapter argues that
changes to citizenship laws and practice are a reflection of fundamental political and economic
objectives of the state as they have evolved through various stages of nation-building. Whereas
Yasar highlights the current Turkish government’s interest in cultivating political participation
and remote inclusion in the nation for its diaspora, Dana M. Moss’s chapter on Libyan and Syr-
ian exiles provides a starkly different story.
In Chapter 31, Moss focuses on Syrian and Libyan emigrants, initially providing insight
on their activism and behavior before the Arab Spring, and on the strategies of intimidation
that the Gaddafi and Assad regimes successfully engaged in at that time to stifle and limit the
political capacity of their diasporas. These two Middle Eastern states’ long-distance relation-
ship with their diaspora communities for many years exhibited what Moss refers to as different
forms of “transnational repression”. Both these regimes deployed a variety of oppressive tactics
to spread fear and division amongst groups of their overseas citizens whom they conceived of
as critics and dissidents. Fear and intimidation were used to dampen overseas citizens’ prospects
for group activism and capacity to engage in oppositional forms of long-distance citizenship.
The environment, however, changed significantly and rapidly for overseas Libyans and Syr-
ians following the revolutions and revolts of the Arab Spring, as these two states’ capacity to
repress their diaspora populations was curtailed. Moss states that the Arab Spring allowed for
an opening up of space for voices in exile, and that during the course of it many Syrians and
Libyans living abroad, in the United States and the United Kingdom in particular, were quick
to seize the new found opportunity. During this period, no longer in fear of state repression and
aggressive reaction, Syrians and Libyans established new forms of diaspora activism and political
participation, and a host of civil society groups arose to advocate for Western support for pro-
democracy groups in Libya and Syria, as well as for humanitarian aid for civilians affected by the
ongoing conflict. Sadly, as Moss continues in her chapter, the post–Arab Spring environment
has not seen sustained levels of forms of organized activism for Syrian and Libyan emigrants, as
conditions in both Libya and Syria have deteriorated to an extent that no longer make this pos-
sible. With the reassertion of the Assad regime in Syria, the dismemberment of the opposition
forces and the lack of international support for anti-Assad forces, the revolution there is for all
intents and purposes over, so overseas citizen-activists do not have much of a platform nor cause
to unite and rally for. In Libya the ongoing fracture of society and ongoing civil conflict have
also dimmed the prospects for democracy and inclusive citizenship. Without grounds to ani-
mate them or goals to assemble around, the political activism of expatriate Libyans has become
muted once again. Changing ground realities in the post–Arab Spring era, as Moss suggests,
have clearly had an impact on the opportunities for overseas Libyans and Syrians to claim their
rights of voice and participation.
Françoise De Bel-Air, in Chapter 32, examines North African migration, and how the
confluence of global migration policies (and particularly those adopted by the European Union
following on from the refugee crisis) have impacted “citizenship at home” for Tunisians. Among
other things, De Bel-Air argues that following on from the Arab Spring of 2011 as well as the
subsequent civil wars in Libya and Syria, a new generation of stringent migration policies have
been adopted by the EU, specifically aimed at stemming the flow of migration from North
Africa. In order to contend with the “refugee crisis”, EU states began applying increasing

14
 Introduction

pressure on North African states, including Tunisia, to ensure that they would provide an addi-
tional layer of protection to Europe’s borders. By creating policies and ramping up measures
to control, contain and prevent the outward flows of “irregular” migrants off their territory
and heading towards Europe, North African states have in general served as Europe’s front line
defense against refugee movements and migration. As a result of EU pressure, the Tunisian state
has adopted a far more aggressive approach toward preventing Tunisian citizens from leaving
the country than it did previously, affecting the agency and choice for many individual Tuni-
sians. De Bel-Air argues that these European migration policies have produced certain forms of
precarious citizenship for Tunisians living within Tunisia, those living (temporarily or perma-
nently) in an EU host state, as well as those who are part of the larger Tunisian diaspora. This is
one of several examples that De Bel-Air provides, to demonstrate the complicated (and unethi-
cal) consequences of European states’ development of self-interested and unilateral measures to
combat migration, particularly given that there are asymmetrical relations between Europe and
North Africa. The EU has far greater power to ensure its preferred outcomes, and the Tunisian
government’s willingness to comply leads to various forms of insecurity for Tunisian citizens,
both within Tunisia as well as when abroad.
Note on transliteration. We have followed a simplified transliteration method without the
long vowels and the diactrical marks (but the ayn and hamza) based on the International Journal
of Middle East Studies, except in Chapter 1 and Chapter 6, which have fully applied the IJMES
transliteration system.

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16
 PART 1

Emergence of modern citizenship

 1
PEACE TO THOSE OF FAITH
Political affiliation and belonging in classical
Islamic thought

Omar Farahat

This chapter examines some of the central concepts of human community and belonging
and their implications in a number of classical legal and exegetical works. This is done by
highlighting early and classical Islamic concepts that occupied a place comparable to ideas of
nation and citizenship, understood as a specific form of political status and identity, or the
“need to belong to a community” (as described in Heater 1990: 182), with an emphasis on
the disciplines of Quranic exegesis and substantive law. I argue that, in several noteworthy
texts in both of these scholarly domains, classical Muslim intellectuals continued to think
of concepts pertaining to human association through the lens of tribe-like formations. For
classical scholars, humans belonged to circles of kinship of various degrees of breadth and
quality. As with tribal affiliation, the methods and boundaries of belonging were fluid and
multi-layered. Affiliation did not occur in a strict institutional way, nor were there universal
notions of identification in the writings of such scholars. Rather than an abstract nation,
institutionalized within a political entity that individuals could join under certain conditions,
acquiring a certain set of rights (as theorized, for example, in Heater 1990: 1–15), classical
Muslim scholarship adopted a more pragmatic approach based on actual kinship and centered
on the extent to which a person could be trusted as a peaceful or potentially harmful partici-
pant in a community.
This unique outlook notwithstanding, affiliation to the community naturally determined
access to a whole host of rights and privileges specific to members and affiliates of the Muslim
communities, a feature classical belonging has in common with modern citizenship. Further-
more, conceiving of human communities as networks of kinship and protection reflects a cer-
tain continuity with tribal practice, Muslim scholarship was distinguished by an emphasis on
faith in God and moral behavior as central to determining the ideal human community: the
Muslim umma. Not only was the declared faith in God a social asset that signaled trustworthi-
ness and proximity or belonging to the Muslim umma, it was a foundational moral principle
that shaped the classical Islamic viewpoint of the Muslim nation as morally central. This was
critical to determining the classical discourse governing Muslim interactions with non-Muslim
communities. The formulation of those ideas in commentaries on two much-discussed Quranic
verses will be addressed in the first section, whereas some substantive legal discussions will be
analyzed in the second section. The third section will briefly discuss the idea of citizenship as

19
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Dulcie recalled with wonder the humble position she had held at
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her flight, and how strange it seemed to her to be able to act as guide and
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And in a week or two more Finella and Hammersley were coming

thither on their honeymoon trip.

THE END.

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