Consequences of Displacement after the Gulf Crisis: A Study of the Responses of 207 Displaced Palestinian and Jordanian Workers

Throughout the war period and immediately thereafter, punitive measures were instituted against Jordanian nationals working in the Gulf; hundreds of thousands were dismissed from their jobs without compensation, and many more were expelled from the Gulf, leaving behind personal belongings, as well as bitter memories. The purpose of this study is to: (1) investigate the effects of the Gulf Crisis on the amount of annual contributions to Jordan's economy by Gulf workers; (2) measure the amount of property loss incurred by Gulf workers as a result of the displacement; (3) examine the duration of unemployment caused among the displaced workers; and (4) measure attitudinal changes among the displaced workers regarding their economic future and the future of Jordan's economy.     

Health Financing Systems,Health Equity and Universal Health Coverage in Arab Countries

This article provides an overview of health financing structures in Arab countries in the context of their preparedness for universal health coverage. Current arrangements have left large swathes of the population shouldering high financial burdens and facing hardships when using healthcare, with significant impoverishing and deterrent effects. Health protection schemes are most comprehensive for those who can afford healthcare; they are mainly based on contributions and formal employment and thus fail to cater for the poor and the rural and informal sectors. Financing systems also lack the operational bases and institutional prerequisites for effective resource pooling and risk sharing, with segmentation and fragmentation worsening horizontal and vertical inequities. The neglect of public health systems has reinforced inequities by widening the gap between needs and provision, and by emphasizing the ability to pay as a basis for accessing quality care. In a context of informality and poverty, focusing reforms on health insurance is not a panacea. Rather, moving towards universal health coverage and reducing health inequities will require changes in the level of political tolerance for social injustice, and a paradigm shift to a more equity‐based political economy which views health as an investment and an entitlement.     

A Theory of Reduplication: Eightfold Meters in Classical Persian Poetry

It is a known fact that classical Persian poets were partial to poetic meters composed of eight feet, known as muthamman. On this topic, however, two issues remain unsolved: How did the Persian poets devise these meters in the first place? Despite their flagrant predilection for eightfold meters, why did the Persians never use such meters as sarī? and qarīb in this form? This paper argues that the Persians, influenced by the structure of the Arabic eightfold base meters, crafted their muthamman meters after a specific process of reduplication. This theory also accounts for the lack of eightfold sarī? and qarīb meters, their structure being incompatible with the reduplication process.     

Obsidian sources in highland Yemen and their relevance to archaeological research in the Red Sea region

The Red Sea and surrounding area formed through dynamic uplift and rifting of Afro-Arabia, and associated volcanism (both oceanic and continental in character). As a result, volcanic landforms and products are widespread and play a vital role in the natural and cultural landscapes of humans occupying the highlands and lowlands on both sides of the Red Sea. Archaeologists have suggested for some time that Afro-Arabian trade in obsidian had its roots in the prehistoric period and that the region was very likely the source of an abundance of obsidian artefacts found as far afield as Egypt, the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia, and which do not match the well-known Anatolian, Transcaucasian or Mediterranean sources. Nonetheless, the southern Red Sea is one of the few obsidian-rich regions exploited in antiquity that has been barely investigated. In this paper, we highlight new geochemical analyses (carried out by LA-ICP-MS) of obsidian sources in Southern Arabia and beyond, that enhance our knowledge of obsidian exploitation from as early as the Neolithic period, and which enable us to evaluate the role that highland Yemen obsidian sources played in prehistoric long-distance trade. In addition, we present new evidence for explosive volcanic eruptions that likely affected the highland populations of Yemen in the 4th millennium BC.     

Islam intensified: snapshot historiography and the making of Muslim identities

The celebrated, and oft-criticised, 1001 Inventions exhibition offered a particular vision of Islam and Muslims in the West that is imbedded in the postcolonial reality of the post-9/11 world. Built around the coupling of Islam and science, the exhibition and its critics negotiate the place of Muslims in the contemporary world as mapped through the simultaneous intensification of Islam and science as epistemological categories. Such intensification is built on a symmetrical epistemology that deploys science as a universal value perceivable in snapshot historiographies. The article here argues that the exhibition and connected narratives, seen as examples of producing Muslim identities in the West, use the juncture of Islam and science, written in conforming agency, to re-inscribe and affirm the definition of Islam as a core and unchanging identity for Muslims.     

Excavations at MR11 on Marawah Island (Abu Dhabi,UAE): new insight into the architecture and planning of Arabian Neolithic settlements and early evidence for pearling

In 1992, an archaeological survey of Marawah Island conducted by the Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey identified two significant Neolithic settlements known as MR1 and MR11. Both sites are constructed on prominent rocky platforms located towards the western end of the island. In 2000 and 2003, small-scale excavations took place at MR11, with the first full excavation taking place in 2004. Excavations continued at MR11 between 2014 up to 2019. Radiocarbon dating demonstrates that the site was occupied between the earliest part of the sixth millennium to the mid-fifth millennium BC. Three areas have been so far examined. Area A—a tripartite house (2004 and 2014–2017 excavation seasons); Area B—a partial structure (in 2003 and 2017–2018); and Area C—a series of at least five rooms (in 2017–2019). The results provide a valuable new insight into the architecture and planning of Arabian Neolithic settlements in the region, as well as the earliest known evidence for pearling.