- In How Commerce Became Legal: Merchants and Market Governance in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Stanford University Press), Omar Youssef Cheta (Syracuse University) observes that “when Egypt’s markets opened to private capital in the 1840s, a new infrastructure of commercial laws and institutions emerged. Egypt became the site of profound legal experimentation, and the resulting commercial sphere reflected the political contestations among the governors of Egypt, European consulates, Ottoman rulers, and a growing number of private entrepreneurs, both foreign and local. How Commerce Became Legal explores the legal and business practices that resulted from this fusion of Ottoman, French, and Islamic legal concepts and governed commerce in Egypt.”
- In “Between Solidarity And Sovereignty: Morocco’s Humanitarian Tradition In Historical And Contemporary Perspective” (Eurasia Review), Mohamed Chtatou (University of Rabat) “examines the multidimensional humanitarian tradition of Morocco through a synthesis of Islamic ethics, Amazigh communal practice, royal diplomacy, and modern state policy. Drawing on historical, anthropological, and political science scholarship, [he] argues that Morocco’s humanitarian culture is not a recent construct but an enduring civilizational inheritance shaped by centuries of intercultural encounter, religious obligation, and collective survival.”