Book Reviews

Spring 2026 Book Reviews
Book Reviews
100 Contradictions and Scientific Errors in the Quran
By Majid Oukacha. Independently published, 2025. 176 pp. $20 (Amazon paperback); $9.99 (Kindle).


Reviewed by Raymond Ibrahim
February 27, 2026
Book Reviews
While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East
By Yaacov Katz and Amir Bohbot. New York: St Martin’s Press, 2025. 336 pp.; $19.96 (hardcover); 14.99 (Kindle)

Reviewed by Jonathan Spyer
February 27, 2026
Book Reviews
Edward Said: The Politics of an Oppositional Intellectual
By Nubar Hovsepian. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2025. 317 pp.; $49.95 (hardcover); $24.95 (paperback)

Reviewed by Craig Considine
February 27, 2026
Book Reviews
Bordering on War: A Social and Political History of Khuzestan
By Shaherzad Ahmadi. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2024. 256 pp.; $55 (hardcover)

Reviewed by Michael Rubin
February 27, 2026
Book Reviews
The Conquest of al-Andalus: A Translation of Fatḥ al-Andalus
Translated and edited by Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi. London: Routledge, 2025. 184 pp.; $142.50 (hardcover), $42.74 (Kindle)

Reviewed by Darío Fernández-Morera
February 27, 2026
Book Reviews
Romanticizing Masculinity in Baathist Syria: Gender, Identity and Ideology.
By Rahaf Aldoughli. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2024. 224 pp.; $130 (hardcover)

Reviewed by Zainab Al-Suwaij
February 27, 2026
Book Reviews
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy
By Nathan Thrall. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2023. 272 pp., $29.99 (hardcover)


Reviewed by Alex Safian
February 27, 2026
Book Reviews
King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution—A Story of Hubris, Delusion, and Catastrophic Miscalculation
By Scott Anderson. New York: Doubleday, 2025. 512 pp.; $35 (hardcover).

Reviewed by Patrick Clawson
February 27, 2026
Book Reviews
Antisemitism in the Arab-Israeli Conflict: Time to Confront the Elephant in the Room
By David H. Stone. London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2025. 248 pp., $69.95 (hardcover), $24.95 (paperback)

Reviewed by Judith Friedman Rosen
February 27, 2026
More from MEF
Press Releases
Middle East Forum Opens Its Research to the Public on 17 Free Sites
The Sites Are Open Access, with No Registration and No Paywall
October 6, 2026
A Somali police officer oversees traffic in Mogadishu, Somalia.
Middle East Forum Observer
Will Turkey Double Down on Somalia as Mogadishu’s African Partners Depart?
Fewer Attacks by Al-Shabaab May Just as Likely Reflect Accommodation as a Successful Security Plan
October 6, 2026
 · 
Siyad Madey
The San Diego chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling the shots in local government. On September 15, 2026, the San Diego City Council voted 8–0 to adopt CAIR’s working definition of “Islamophobia” and send it to every city department, including the police—without naming the group that wrote it. Federal prosecutors listed CAIR as an uncharged coconspirator in a Hamas-financing case. Moreover, the governors of Texas and Florida have designated CAIR a terrorist organization.
FWI Research
How San Diego Let CAIR Define ‘Islamophobia’
San Diego’s new definition of ‘Islamophobia’ was drafted in the local office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group named in a Hamas-financing case and designated a terrorist organization by two American governors. Nearly 2,000 pages of city records show how it happened.
October 5, 2026
 · 
Gregg Roman
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his party are making use of the powers available to them to advance a regional strategy that comfortably combines a neo-Ottoman nationalism with an outlook deriving from Sunni political Islam.
Middle East Forum Online
Are Israel and Turkey Headed for Conflict?
Israel and Turkey Are Increasingly Finding Themselves on Opposite Sides of the Region’s Most Consequential Flashpoints
October 5, 2026
 · 
Jonathan Spyer
Pope Leo XIV blesses the faithful inside Saint-Étienne Cathedral in Metz, France, on September 28, 2026, the final day of his apostolic journey to France.
FWI News
Muslim Brotherhood-Tied Imam Granted Seat at Pope Leo’s Interfaith Table in France
Grand Mosque Rector Urged Muslims to Work Secretly for Global Islamic State
October 5, 2026
 · 
Jules Gomes
The Naqib market in Sulaymani, Iraqi Kurdistan Region.
Middle East Forum Observer
The United States Should Crack Down on Alleged Iranian Front Companies in Iraqi Kurdistan
Iraqis Complain About Iran’s Dumping of Cheap Manufactured and Agricultural Goods That Undercut Local Industries
October 5, 2026
 · 
Michael Rubin
Skyscrapers in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
Middle East Forum Observer
Iran Sees United Arab Emirates as an Enemy Alongside the United States and Israel
Iran’s Relationship with the Emirates Appears to Be Reaching a Point of No Return
October 5, 2026
 · 
Shay Khatiri
It was under the leadership of the late Qassem Soleimani, from 1998, that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Quds Force turned revolutionary and proxy warfare into a key tool of power projection for Tehran. Above: Soleimani’s funeral after he was killed by an American drone strike; Tehran, Jan. 7, 2020.
Middle East Forum Observer
Rethinking the Haj Hamed Network in Iraq
Iran Is Not Abandoning Iraq’s Militias—It Is Protecting Them
October 5, 2026
 · 
Ali Almrayatee
Some past and present diplomats are upset that the State Department has removed the flags of all the countries and territories in which the United States has diplomatic relations, replacing them with American flags. “It’s so much worse than ‘America First,’” former peace processer Aaron David Miller quipped. Image: Flags in the lobby of the U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C., June 15, 2016.
Middle East Forum Online
The State Department’s Replacement of Flags Should Only Be the Start
Why Not Make the State Department Lobby a Rotating Display of Industrial Might and Goods?
October 4, 2026
 · 
Michael Rubin
A Russian-controlled digital forensics company that sold investigative software to sensitive U.S. government agencies allegedly used Turkey in multiple ways to obscure its Russian connections.
Middle East Forum Online
Russian Forensic Software Firm Used Turkish Identity, Turkey-Based Server to Infiltrate U.S. Agencies
October 4, 2026
 · 
Abdullah Bozkurt