Nasser Rabbat

Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Architecture
Director, Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture (AKPIA)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA

Articles and Reviews

  • “Where Europe Begins and Where It Ends?,” in Visual Reflections across the Mediterranean Sea, Natalie Fritz and Paola von Wyss-Giacosa eds. (Idem: Sienna, 2023), 126-33.
  • “The Quest for Thermal Delight,” The Environment and Ecology in Islamic Art and Culture, Radha Dalal, Sean Roberts and Jochen Sokoly (eds.) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023), 45-59, 252-55.
  • “Memlûklerle Yildizlaşan Müslüman Metropol: Kahire,” Deri’n Tarih 24: Islâm Baskentleri-1(2023): 174-79.
  • “Coopting the Street: The Urban Character of Mamluk Architecture,” in Routledge Handbook on Cairo, Nezar AlSayyad, ed. (London: Routledge, 2023), 66-82.
  • “Vernacular Architecture as a Radical Humanist Enterprise,” in Inclusive Architecture: Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2022, Sarah Whiting ed. (Berlin: ArchiTangle, 2022), 166-73.
  • “Foreword,” to Elisa Dainese and Aleksandar Staničić, eds. War Diaries. Design after the Destruction of Art and Architecture (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2022), VII-IX.
  • “Afterword: From Trade Cities to Traded Cities in the Arabian Gulf,” in Harvey Molotch and Davide Ponzini, Seeing through Gulf Cities: Urbanization in and from the Arabian Peninsula (Trento and Barcelona: ListLab edition, 2022), 140-51.
  • “The Paradox of Being Mamluk,” in The Mamluk-Ottoman Transition. Continuity and Change in Egypt and Bilad al-Sham in the Sixteenth Century, 2, Stephan Conermann/Gül Şen, eds. (Bonn: Bonn University Press, 2022), 91-108, https://doi.org/10.14220/9783737011525.91
  • “Rifat al-Chadirji (1926–2020): Designing a transhistorical Iraq,” Journal of Contemporary Iraq & the Arab World 15,1&2 (2021): 255-62, https://doi.org/10.1386/jciaw_00052_3
  • “Where Europe Begins and Where It Ends?,” in People in Motion: Entangled Histories of Displacementacross the Mediterranean (1492-1923),June 11, 2021 http://www.peopleinmotion-costaction.org/2021/06/11/2887/
  • “The Global Phenomenon of Islam Through the Lens of Late Antiquity,” Cromohs – Cyber Review of Modern Historiography, May 2021. https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/cromohs/article/view/12844
  • “Continuity and Rupture in Islamic Architecture,” The International Journal of Islamic Architecture 10, 1 (January 2021): 47-55.
  • “Heritage in Context,” Oxford Handbook of Islamic Archaeology, Bethany J. Walker, Timothy Insoll, and Corisande Fenwick, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 671-89.
  • “Letter to a Young Architect,”The Architectural Review Online, December 21, 2020
  • https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/letters-to-a-young-architect/nasser-rabbat-letter-to-a-young-architect
  • “The Levantine Age: Cosmopolitanism and Colonialism in the Eastern Mediterranean,” Being Urban. Community, Conflict and Belonging in the Middle East, Simon Goldhill, ed. (London: Routledge, 2020), 219-32.
  •  “The Palaces of Cairo’s Belle Époque,” The Arabist: Budapest Studies in Arabic (Special Issue: Papers Presented to István Ormos on His Seventieth Birthday) K. Dévényi & P. T. Nagy, eds., 41 (2020): 141-68.
  • “The Architecture of Death in Islam: A Brief Cross-cultural History,” in Architecture of Coexistence: Building Pluralism, Azra Akšamija, ed. (Berlin: Architangle; Aga Khan Award for Architecture, 2020), 52-63.
  • “A Very Brief History of Modern Syria,” in Christine Gedeon, Aleppo: Deconstruction/Reconstruction (Berlin: Kerber Verlag, 2020), 87-92.
  • “Brotherhood of the Towers: On the Spatiality of the Mamluk Caste,” Thresholds 48 (2020): 116-21.
  •  “Kamal Boullata: For the Love of Jerusalem”, Third Text Online, www.thirdtext/org/rabbat-boullata 16 March 2020.
  • “Les villes fabuleuses de «l’Orient,»” in Araborama: Le monde arabe existe-t-il (encore)? Chirine El Messiri et al., eds. (Paris: Éditions du Seuil; Institut du monde arabe, 2020), 239-48.
  •  “The Complex Image of the Islamic Garden,” in Islamic Gardens: Multi-Meaning of Paradise, Despoina Zavraka, ed. (Kavala, Greece: MOHA Research Center, 2019), 24-55.
  • “Recovering A Fuller Arab Heritage,” in Nomadic Traces: Journeys of Arabian Scripts, Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, ed. (Abu Dhabi: Warehouse 421, 2019), 13-15.
  • “The Hidden Hand: Edward Said’s Orientalism and Architectural History,” in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 77, 4 (December 2018): 388-96.
  • “A Brief History of Green Spaces in Cairo,” in Cairo: Renewing the Historic City, Philip Jodidio, ed. (Munich: Prestel; The Aga Khan Historic Cities Programme, 2018), 77-89.
  • “The Islamic and the Contemporary in Art,” in the catalogue of the exhibition Infinite Present: Revelations from Islamic Design in Contemporary Art. Cambridge Gallery 344, Sep 17-Nov 30, 2018, curated by Marie Costello, 5-7.
  • “The Nakba and Arab Culture,” in Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents (MoMA Primary Documents), Anneka Lenssen, Sarah Rogers, and Nada Shabout, eds. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, distributed by Duke University Press, 2018), 161-62.
  • “Cities of Incense and Myrrh: Fantasy and Capitalism in the Arabian Gulf,” in A History of Architecture and Trade, Patrick Haughey, ed. (London and New York: Routledge, 2018), 62-79.
  • “Ethics of Intervention: Framing the Debate on Reconstruction in Syria,” in Syria-The Making of the Future: From Urbicide to the Architecture of the City Benno Albercht & Jacopo Galli eds. (Venice: Università Iuav de Venezia and Conegliano, TV, Ital.: Incipit Editore, 2017), 175-94.
  • “Identity, Modernity, and the Destruction of Heritage,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 49, 4 (Nov 2017), 739-41. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-middle-east-studies/article/identity-modernity-and-the-destruction-of-heritage/
  • “Heritage as a Right: Heritage and the Arab Spring,” International Journal of Islamic Architecture 5, 2 (2016): 267-278.
  • “Arab Cities and Identity Crisis,” in The Arab City: Architecture and Representation, Amale Andraos, Nora Akawi, and Caitlin Blanchfield eds. (New York: Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2016), 41-49.
  • “Islamic Architecture,” Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, 2d edition Richard C. Martin, general ed., 2 vols. (Farmington Hills, MI: Gale’s Macmillan Reference USA, 2016), 1,88-97.
  • “Le jardin Arabo-Musulman: une image complexe,” in Jardins d’orient: de l’Alhambra au Taj Mahal, Exhibition Catalog, (Paris:Institut du Monde Arabe, 2016), 118-25.
  • “They Shoot Historians, Don’t They?,” Artforum (Nov. 2015) https://artforum.com/inprint/issue=201509&id=55521
  • Greek translation http://moha.center/index.php/el/news-mnu-gr/215-nasser-rabbat-sis-el
  • Encounters with Modernity in the Arab World, Yale Law School, Occasional Papers, The Dallah Al-Baraka on Islamic Law and Civilization, 2015.
  • “Architecture,” in The Cambridge Companion to Modern Arab Culture, Dwight Reynolds, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 209-23.
  • “The Innocence of the Image: The Representations of the Prophet in the Islamic Tradition,“ Artforum 53, 8(April, 2015): 228-31.
  • “Politicizing the Religious: Or How the Umayyads Co-opted Classical Iconography,” in Religious Identities in the Levant from Alexander to Muhammed. Continuity and Change.  Michael Blömer, Achim Lichtenberger, and Rubina Raja, eds. (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2015), 95-104.
  •  “Staging the City: Or How Mamluk Architecture Coopted the Streets of Cairo,” Ulrich Haarmann Memorial Lecture, Vol 9 (Annemarie Schimmel Kolleg, University of Bonn; Berlin: EBVerlag, 2014).
  • “Islamic Architecture’ and the Profession,” The International Journal of Islamic Architecture 3, 1 (March 2014): 37-40.  Republished in Islamic Architecture Today and Tomorrow (Re)defining the Field M. Gharipour and D. E. Coslett (eds.) (Bristol: Intellect, 2022), 401-407.
  • “Al-Maqrīzī’s Connection to the Fatimids,” in The Study of Shi‘i Islam: History, Theology, and Law, Farhad Daftari & Gurdofarid Miskinzoda, eds. (London: I.B. Tauris; Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2014), 67-75.
  • “The Ka‘ba: A Primordial Locus of Memory.” In The challenge of the object: 33rd congress of the International Committee of the History of Art, Nuremberg, 15th – 20th July 2012 = Die Herausforderung des Objekts: 33. Internationaler Kunsthistoriker-Kongress/ CIHA 2012, G. U. Großmann and P. Krutisch, eds. (Nürnberg: Germanisches Nationalmuseum, 2013),1073-74.
  • “The Right to Architecture,” Thresholds 41 (2013): 98-103.  http://thresholds.mit.edu/issue/41a.html
  • “Why is Contemporary Islamic Architecture Risking Banality?” In Homogenization of Representations Modjtaba Sadria, ed. (London: I.B.Tauris; Aga Khan Award for Architecture, 2013), 107-15.
  • “Islamic Art at a Crossroads?” In Islamic Art and the Museum: Approaches to Art and Archaeology of the Muslim World in the Twenty-First Century, Benoît Junod, Georges Khalil, Stefan Weber and Gerhard Wolf, eds. (London: Saqi Books, 2013), 76-83.
  • “Ideal-Type and Urban History: The Development of the Suq in Damascus,” in The Bazaar in the Islamic City: Design, Culture, and History, Mohammad Gharipour, ed. (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2012), 51-74.
  • “Was al-Maqrīzī’s Khiṭaṭ a Khaldūnian History?” Der Islam 89, 1-2 (November 2012): 118–140. http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/islm.2012.89.issue-1-2/islam-2012-0007/islam-2012-0007.xml?format=INT
  • “The Arab Revolution Takes Back the Public Space” Critical Inquiry 39, 1 (Autumn, 2012): 198-208.
  •  “Surveying Islamic Art and Architecture,” in Eothen: Münchner Beiträge zur Geschichte der islamischen Kunst und Kultur, Band 5 (Munich, 2012): 267-274.
  • “In Search of a Triumphant Image: the Experimental Quality of Early Mamluk Art,” in The Arts of the Mamluks in Egypt and Syria­­ – Evolution and Impact, Doris Behrens-Abouseif, ed. (Berlin: Bonn University Press, 2012), 21-35.
  • “What is Islamic Architecture?” in Architecture in Islamic Art: Treasures of the Aga Khan Museum, M. Graves & B. Junod, eds.(Geneva: the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, 2012), 17-29.  Republished with changes as ‘What is Islamic architecture anyway?’ in Journal of Art Historiography, no. 6: special issue, “Islamic art historiography”, http://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/rabbat1.pdf                                       Persian translation in http://asmaneh.com/feed/5adc35c25aafa41103b83ec5
  • “MIA and the Memory of Ibn Tulun,” in Reflections on Islamic Art, Ahdaf Soueif ed. (Doha, Qatar: Qatar Museum Authority, 2011), 231-37.
  • “The Pedigreed Domain of Architecture: A View from the Cultural Margin,” Perspecta 44 (2011): 6-11.
  • “Mosques and the Western Claim of Secularism,” in Faith in the City: The Mosque in the Contemporary Urban West, Justin Jaeckle and Füsun Türetken, eds. (London: The Architecture Foundation, 2011), 4-7.
  • “Circling the Square: Architecture and Revolution in Cairo,” Artforum 49, 8(April 2011): 182-91.  Reprinted as “Egypt Speaks for Itself in Tahrir Square: Cairo,” in In the Life of Cities, Mohsen Mostafavi, ed. (Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge; Lars Müller Publishers, Zürich, 2012), 195-205.
  • “The Urban Character of al-Darb al-Ahmar,” in Living in Historic Cairo: Past and Present in an Islamic City, Farhad Daftary, Elizabeth Fernea, and Azim Nanji, eds. (London: Azimuth Editions; Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2010), 28-34.
  • “Umayyad Architecture: A Spectacular Intra-Cultural Synthesis in Bilad al-Sham,” in Residences, Castles, Settlements: Transformation Processes from Late Antiquity to Early Islam in Bilad al-Sham. Karin Bartl and Abd al-Razzaq Moaz, eds. (Rahden/Westfalen: Verlag Marie Leidorf GmbH, 2009),13-18.
  • “Design Without Representation in Medieval Egypt,” Muqarnas 25 (2008): 147-54 (Special Issue—Frontiers of Islamic Art and Architecture: Essays in Celebration of Oleg Grabar’s Eightieth Birthday).  Persian translation published July 2018, http://asmaneh.com/feed/5b3791b9af9d862526bb6b71
  • “Egypt: Modernity and Identity,” The Middle East Institute Viewpoints: Architecture and Urbanism in the Middle East (2008): 16-18. http://www.mideasti.org/publications/architecture-and-urbanism
  •  “‘Ajib and Gharib: Artistic Perception in Medieval Arabic Sources,” The Medieval History Journal 9, 1 (2006): 99-113.
  • “Günümüzde İslam Mimarlığı Araştırmaları,“ Arredamento Mimarlık 5 (2006): 75-78.
  • “The Militarization of Taste in Medieval Bilad al-Sham,” in Muslim Military Architecture in Greater Syria from the Coming of Islam to the Ottoman Period, Hugh Kennedy, ed. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2005), 84-105.
  • “Toward a Critical Historiography of Islamic Architecture,” in Actes de colloques “Repenser les limites: l’architecture à travers l’espace, le temps et les disciplines,” (Paris: INHA, 2005), http://inha.revues.org/642
  • “The Transcultural Meaning of the Dome of the Rock,” in The Open Veins of Jerusalem, Munir Akash and Fouad Moughrabi, eds. (Jusoor Book, distributed by Syracuse University Press, 2005), 71-107.
  • “The Medieval Link: Maqrizi’s Khitat and Modern Narratives of Cairo,” in Making Cairo Medieval, eds. Nezar AlSayyad, Irene Bierman, and Nasser Rabbat (Lantham, Md.: Lexington Press, 2005), 29-47.
  • “Documenting Buildings in the Waqf System,” Thresholds 28 “concerto barocco: essays in honor of Henry A. Millon” (Spring 2005): 30-32.
  • “Islamic Architecture as a Field of Historical Inquiry,” AD Architectural Design, Special Issue Islam+Architecture 74, 6 (Nov-Dec 2004): 18-23.
  • “A Brief History of Green Spaces in Cairo,” in Cairo: Revitalising a Historic Metropolis, S. Bianca and P. Jodidio (Geneva: The Aga Khan Trust for Culture, 2004), 43-53.
  • “The Visual Milieu of the Counter-Crusade in Syria and Egypt” in The Crusades: Other Experiences, Alternate Perspectives. Selected Proceedings from the 32d Annual CEMERS Conference, K. I. Semaan, ed. (Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 2003), 71-81.
  • “Who Was al-Maqrizi? A Biographical Sketch,” Mamluk Studies Review 7, 2 (2003): 1-19.
  • “Hassan Fathy and the Identity Debate,” in Fault Lines: Contemporary African Art and Shifting Landscapes, Gilane Tawadros and Sarah Campbell, eds., (London: Institute of International Visual Art, 2003), 196-203.
  • “The Dialogic Dimension in Umayyad Art,” RES 43 (Spring 2003): 78-94.
  • “In the Beginning Was the House: On the Image of the Two Noble Sanctuaries of Islam,” Thresholds 25 (Fall 2002): 56-59; reprinted in Lonaard-Art and Architecture Magazine vol. 1, issue 6 (Nov 2011):24-29.    http://www.lonaard.com/issue6/index.html
  • “Concluding Remarks: The Boundaries of Architectural Education Today,” in Architectural Education Today: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, A. Salama, W. O’Reilly, and K. Noschis, eds. (Lausanne: Comportements, 2002), 149-53.
  • “Perception of Architecture in Mamluk Sources,” Mamluk Studies Review 6 (2002): 155-76.
  • “Maqrizi’s Khitat: An Egyptian Lieu de Mémoire” in The Cairo Heritage. Papers in Honor of Layla Ali Ibrahim, Doris Behrens-Abouseif,ed. (Cairo, AUC Press, 2001), 17-30.
  • “Representing the Mamluks in Mamluk Historical Writing,” in The Historiography of Islamic Egypt, c. 950-1800, Hugh Kennedy, ed. (Leiden, E. J. Brill, 2000), 59-75.
  • “Restoration Projects in Islamic Cairo Critiqued,” in Medina 13 (May-June 2000): 48-51.
  • “The Changing Concept of Mamluk in the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt and Syria,” in Slave Elites in the Middle East and Africa: A Comparative Study, Miura Toru And John Edward Philips, eds.(London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 2000), 81-98.
  • “The Mosaics of the Qubba al-Zahiriyya in Damascus: A Classical Syrian Medium Acquires a Mamluk Signature.” Aram 9-10 (1997-1998 [1999]): 1-13.
  • “The Interplay of History and Archaeology in Beirut,” in Projecting Beirut: Episodes in the Construction and Reconstruction of the Modern City. Peter G. Rowe and Hashim Sarkis, eds. (Munich; London; New York: Prestel, 1998),19-22.
  • “Architects and Artists in Mamluk Society: The Perspective of the Sources,” Journal of Architectural Education 52, 1 (Sept. 1998): 30-37.
  • “The Formation of the Neo-Mamluk Style in Modern Egypt.” In The Education of the Architect: Historiography, Urbanism and the Growth of Architectural Knowledge. Essays Presented to Stanford Anderson on his Sixty-Second Birthday. Martha Pollak, ed., (Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1997), 363-86.
  • “My Life with Salah al-Din: The Memoirs of ‘Imad al-Din al-Katib al-Isfahani.” Edebiyat 7: 2 (Fall 1996): 61-81.
  • “Al-Azhar Mosque: An Architectural Chronicle of Cairo’s History.” Muqarnas 13 (1996): 45-67.
  • “The Ideological Significance of the Dar al-‘Adl in the Medieval Islamic Orient.” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 27, 1 (Feb 1995): 3-28.
  • “Writing the History of Islamic Architecture in Cairo.” Design Book Review 31 (Winter 1994): 48-51.
  • “The ‘Militarization’ of Architectural Expression in the Medieval Middle East: An Outline.” al-‘Usur al-Wusta 6, 1 (April 1994): 4-6.
  • “Mamluk Throne Halls: Qubba or Iwan.” Ars Orientalis 23 (1993): 201-18.                         Persian translation, February 2019, http://asmaneh.com/feed/5c666387ab0e99478504d48a
  • “The Dome of the Rock Revisited: Some Remarks on al-Wasiti’s Accounts.”                         Muqarnas 10 (1993): 67-75 (Special Issue: Festschrift for Oleg Grabar).
  • “The Meaning of the Umayyad Dome of the Rock.” Muqarnas 6 (1990): 12-21.
  • The Citadel of Cairo. (Geneva, 1989) a 32-page booklet commissioned by the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, Geneva, Switzerland
  • “The Iwans of the Madrasa of Sultan Hasan.” ARCE Newsletter 143-44 (1988/89): 5-8.
  • “The Palace of the Lions in Alhambra and the Role of Water in its Conception.” AARP/Environmental Design 2 (1985): 64-73.
  • Other Articles and Book Sections
  • “Precious Gardens,” Catalog of Alia Hamaoui, Passing Pari-daiza: Enclosure as Voyage (London: Foolscap Editions, 2023), 48-52.
  • “Al-Muhajir: The Immigrant Sailing Away,” Catalog of Issam Kourbaj, Dark Water, Burning World (London: IK Projects, 2023).
  • “Queen Elizabeth II through the Arab prism,” Global Voices, posted September 21, 2022,  https://globalvoices.org/2022/09/21/queen-elizabeth-ii-through-the-arab-prism/
  • “Reflections on the Humanities in Higher Education Today,” The MIT Faculty Newsletter 33, 3 (2021): 1, 4, https://fnl.mit.edu/january-february-2021/reflections-on-the-humanities-in-higher-learning-today/
  • “Kamal Boullata (1942-2019),” Artforum (November 2019), 57. https://www.artforum.com/print/201909/nasser-rabbat-on-kamal-boullata-81059
  • “What Triggered the Middle Eastern Revolts in 2011? The economics of Arabellion,” Qantara.de (October 2, 2018), https://en.qantara.de/print/32905
  • “Enter Islam,” “The Modern Time,” Dig into History (March 2018) Special Issue on Syria, 26-30, 42-44.
  • “On Immigration and Humanist Values,” The MIT Faculty Newsletter 29, 4 (2017): 1, 8-9, http://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/294/rabbat.html
  • “With an Iron Fist: The Historical Causes for Despotism, Tyranny and Oppression in the Arab world,” Qantara.de (March 15, 2017), https://en.qantara.de/content/the-decline-of-humanism-in-the-arab-world-with-an-iron-fist
  • “When a Poster Is a Work of Art: José Luis Argüello and the AKPIA Posters (2001–2016),” Medium.com (February 14, 2017), https://medium.com/@MITSAP/when-a-poster-is-a-work-of-art-ea0fed19d2a5#.btrjjyu88
  • “Syria’s past can be a path to its future,” op-ed, The Globe and Mail of Toronto, October 28, 2016, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/syrias-past-can-be-a-path-to-its-future/article32555371/
  • “Un cruel manque de curiosité,” Courrier International, hors-série (Novembre-Décembre 2016), 47-48. https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/libres-penseurs-de-lislam-le-monde-musulman-fait-preuve-dun-manque-cruel-de-curiosite
  • “Anatomy of the Syrian Regime,” London Review of Books 38, 14 (14 July 2016): 32-33, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n14/nasser-rabbat/anatomy-of-the-syrian-regime
  • “Passages, Zaha Hadid (1950-2016),” Artforum (Summer 2016): 83, https://artforum.com/inprint/issue=201606&id=60076
  • “The Tragedy of Forced Migration and What MIT Can Do About It,”The MIT Faculty Newsletter 28, 2 (2015): 1, 8-9. http://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/282/rabbat.html
  • Preface to Cities of the Dead: The Ancestral Cemeteries of Kyrgyzstan, Photographs by Margaret Morton (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2014), XVII.
  • “The Man with the Death Certificate,” in Madinati al-Qahira (My Cairo Mein Kairo), Jörg Armbruster and Suleman Taufiq, eds. (Stuttgart: Edition Esefeld & Traub, 2014), 232-35. 
  • “A Eulogy for My Father—and My Country: Bidding goodbye to the first generation of Syrians, and the nation they hoped to build,” The Atlantic, March 9, 2014 http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/the-death-of-a-syrian-dream/284315/
  • Reprinted in the Syrian Studies Association Bulletin, Vol 19, No 1 (2014) https://ojcs.siue.edu/ojs/index.php/ssa/issue/current
  • “Why Isn’t The Kofi Annan Plan for Syria Working?”  www.middleastforum.com, Sunday, July 29, 2012.
  •  “Arab secularism and its discontents,” Stephen Walt, Foreign Policy Blog, http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/07/01/arab_secularism_and_its_discontents Sunday, July 1, 2012.
  • “The Difficult Quest For Freedom,” Middle East Forum, http://www,middleastforum.com, Sunday, May 27, 2012.
  • “Arab Christians, Citizens not Minorities,” Middle East Forum, http://www.middleastforum.com, Sunday, February 6, 2011.
  • “The Story of Cairo’s Belle Époque,” Turath: Egypt’s Heritage Review 4, 6 (2009):26-35.
  • “Jarr al-‘Amud,” Turath: Egypt’s Heritage Review. 0 (2008):78-80.
  • “A Mosque and an Imperial Dream,” al-Ahram Weekly (18-24 August 2005),18, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/756/special.htm
  • “Foreword,” to Adonis, A Time between Ashes and Roses, translated from the Arabic by Shawkat M. Toorawa (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2004).
  • “On being named Nasser,” Al-Ahram Weekly (18-24 July 2002), 16, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2002/595/sc161.htm
  • “Le classicisme, version arabe contemporaine,” Qantara 42 (Hiver 2001-2002): 30-34.
  • “Salâh al-Dîn et l’imaginaire,” Qantara 41 (Automne 2001): 30-36.
  • “The Shaping of the Mamlouk Image,” in Hadeeth al-Dar 10 (2001): 2-5.
  • “Adonis, l’homme critique et poète d’un même souffle,” in Adonis, un poète dans le monde d’aujourd’hui, 1950-2000 (Paris: Institut du Monde Arabe, 2000), 314-16.
  • “On Arabs and Arabness,” The Thistle, Alternative News Collective at MIT, 10,15 (Dec. 11, 1996), 3, 11,  http://web.mit.edu/thistle/www/v10/10.15/arabness.html
  • “Où vivaient les sultans mamelouks?” Aujourd’hui L’Égypte 9 (Automne 1989): 34-39.