[Column » 'By the Book' by JOSEPH RICHARD PREVILLE and JULIE POUCHER HARBIN for ISLAMiCommentary] How did the rise of nation-states in the 20th century doom religious diversity and pluralism in the Middle East?

Are Muslims embraced as part of the mosaic of Europe? Or, are they considered and treated as outsiders,…

Dozens of Middle East studies scholars, students and the general public packed a public talk — “Beyond Hysteria and Apologia: The ISIS Challenge in Perspective” — given by retired US diplomat Ambassador Alberto Fernandez.

Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) was a colossus among Muslim scholars. Stephen Frederic Dale gives us a portrait of this extraordinary man in his new intellectual biography, "The Orange Trees of Marrakesh: Ibn Khaldun and the Science of Man."

Is there a more tragic country in the world today than Syria ? How did it descend into chaos, conflict, and crisis? John McHugo offers some answers in "Syria: A History of the Last Hundred Years." (The New Press, 2015).

There are varying explanations for the uptick in violence in Israel-Palestine over the past few days, but one explanation that appears to have caught on with the Israeli government and much Western media...is incitement through social media.

“Now let’s see what happens with all these comments, but there is definitely an openness (to the Republican party) that I didn’t feel for sure in 2008 or even in 2012."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that Ankara could not continue the peace process with the Kurds amid continuing attacks against Turkish targets.

This past Spring Amira Hass, correspondent for Haaretz, spoke at Duke University. She gave two public talks — “The Israeli Occupation and Jewish-Israeli Dissent” and “Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Jew in an Occupied Land” — and also met with

Cooking and conflict? It’s a different approach, but it works, and these blended themes still resonate five years after Laila El-Haddad and co-author Maggie Schmitt first began to research their documentary cookbook.

"Digital Militarism," by Adi Kunstman and Rebecca Stein, has been called “a pioneering book, showing how information and communication technologies have turned into wartime arsenals, and the Internet and social networks into digital battlefields..."

Great journalists invite us to be companions with them on their journeys to extraordinary places. Carla Power offers such an invitation in her new book, "If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran."

“America’s first Muslims were perceived as less than human – people put in chains, forced to do field work at gunpoint, required to take new names and a new religion. So much has changed in 400 years, even if the struggle for acceptance."

In her new book, "The Struggle for Pakistan: A Muslim Homeland and Global Politics" (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014), Ayesha Jalal examines Pakistan’s history from its creation in 1947 to the present.

The life of Prophet Muhammad has inspired the development of a vast body of literature over the centuries. Kecia Ali takes a look at this diverse literature in her new book, "The Lives of Muhammad" (Harvard University Press, 2014).

In The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East (Simon and Schuster, 2014), Juan Cole takes a detailed look inside the recent revolutions by Arab youth in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.

Girl in Gaza. (origin of photos unknown) by ROBIN KIRK for ISLAMiCommentary Of all of the images of the destruction …

Provided elections go forward April 5, there’s likely to be a second round, said the WSJ’s Nathan Hodge, which according to the IEC, would likely be sometime later in May.

"What is happening in Turkey now doesn’t feel like just a simple political disagreement, or even a war-game. It’s an all-out war, whose opening gambits have been politically damaging to both sides."

Julie Poucher Harbin, EDITOR, ISLAMiCommentary, interviews two scholars on Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.