Why do Islamists regularly win elections in the Middle East? Why, for instance, did Ennahda perform well in every election in Tunisia’s democratic era (2011–2021)? I argue that regular interactions in mosques allow Islamists to build deeper ties and greater trust with their supporters than secular parties can. Post-election, this trust also allows Islamists to better sell their performance and justify their compromises, contributing to re-election as well. I test this infrastructure advantage in Tunisia in two ways. First, an original survey shows that mosque attendance strongly correlates with voting for Ennahda in the 2019 elections and that this correlation is driven by greater trust in Ennahda. Second, a dataset of Tunisia’s 6,000 mosques shows that sub-nationally, mosque density strongly correlated with Islamist vote share in the 2011, 2014, and 2019 elections. Overall, these results help us understand the continued victories of Islamist political parties even in contexts of poor performance.

Understanding the development and use of musical instruments in prehistory is often hampered by poor preservation of perishable materials and the relative rarity of durable examples. Here, the authors present a pair of third-millennium BC copper cymbals, excavated at Dahwa, Oman. Although they are the only well-contextualised examples from Arabia, the Dahwa cymbals are paralleled by contemporaneous examples from the Indus Valley and images in Mesopotamian iconography. Not only do the cymbals add to the body of evidence interpreted in terms of Indus migrants in Early Bronze Age Oman, they also suggest shared musical and potentially ritual practices around the Arabian Gulf at that time.

The Eridu region in southern Mesopotamia was occupied from the sixth until the early first millennium BC, and its archaeological landscape remains well preserved. The present study has identified and mapped a vast, intensive, well-developed network of artificial irrigation canals in this region.

The earliest pottery vessels in the Arabian Gulf, appearing in the mid-sixth millennium BC, belong to two distinct traditions: Ubaid Ware was imported from Mesopotamia, but the origins of the Coarse Red Ware have remained obscure. Geochemical examination of pottery from Bahra 1, in modern-day Kuwait, and geological samples from the surrounding area reveal a regional origin for the clay. Further exploration of the Bahra 1 assemblage indicates that Coarse Red Ware was probably made at the site by low-skilled potters. This research provides insights into the organisation of pottery production and distribution in the Arabian Neolithic.

This article studies the rise and fall of commercial aviation in Iran, then known as Persia, between 1923 and 1932. Two airlines, the German Junkers Luftverkehr AG and Britain’s Imperial Airways, invested significant time and effort in developing air routes but eventually failed due to financial hardship and political intransigence. Exploring this erratic development, the article has two aims: first, to investigate the entangled history of two of the world’s oldest airlines and the challenges they navigated; and second, to assess the fraught relationship between state and business interests. The German and British airlines were rivals in Iran, but they became partly dependent on each other. Both airlines suffered from the global political dynamics of the interwar period while Junkers, in particular, also struggled financially. Meanwhile, the Iranian state had yet to decide whether to view the new technology with enthusiasm or concern. Its ambivalent and reluctant reaction had profound effects on the trajectories of Junkers and Imperial Airways. Assessing the capability of a nascent airline industry to develop viable business models outside of Europe, the article also serves as a case study revealing the headwinds airlines encountered in the earliest phase of commercial aviation.

Recent research on the organisation and growth of large settlements (both urban and non-urban) has prompted a reassessment of factors driving population aggregation. Systematic aerial and ground survey of the South Caucasus mega-fortress Dmanisis Gora, described here, contributes to the understanding of large fortress settlements in the South Caucasus (c. 1500–500 BC) as part of this wider debate. Substantial defensive walls and stone architecture in the outer settlement contrast with low-intensity occupation, possibly by a seasonally mobile segment of the population. The exceptional size of Dmanisis Gora helps add new dimensions to population aggregation models in Eurasia and beyond.

The purchase of commercial spyware by at least 43 authoritarian states has drawn attention to the links between the international private technology trade and autocrats. This article sits at the intersection of the literatures on the international relations of authoritarian regimes, digital authoritarianism and the political economy of authoritarianism, asking, what impacts, if any, do the foreign technology trade relations of authoritarian regimes have on authoritarian resilience? Building a four-mechanism model to explain the interaction between the private technology trade and digital authoritarianism, the article then tests the model on a case study of Iran. It argues that while global technology companies lack the ideological or geopolitical interests that drive the engagement between authoritarian regimes and foreign states, an intense overlap in interests still exists between profit-hungry private technology companies and technology-hungry regimes. This facilitates the establishment of mutually beneficial relationships that contribute to authoritarian resilience and survival, however inadvertently.

Cervical cancer, closely linked to human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, is a major global health concern. Our study aims to fill the gap in understanding HPV vaccine awareness and acceptance in the Middle East, where national immunization programs are often lacking and cultural perceptions hinder acceptance. This systematic review and meta-analysis adhered to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. A comprehensive literature search across several databases was conducted on 5 September 2023. We included quantitative studies on HPV vaccine awareness and acceptance in Middle Eastern countries. Data extraction and quality assessment were conducted independently by multiple reviewers to ensure accuracy. Statistical analyses, including subgroup analyses, were performed using R to calculate pooled estimates, assess heterogeneity, and publication bias. We reviewed 159 articles from 15 Middle Eastern countries, focusing on 93,730 participants, predominantly female and healthcare workers. HPV vaccine awareness was found to be 41.7% (95% CI 37.4%–46.1%), with higher awareness among healthcare workers. The pooled acceptance rate was 45.6% (95% CI 41.3%–50.1%), with similar rates between healthcare and non-healthcare workers. Our study highlights the critical need for increased HPV vaccine awareness and acceptance in the Middle East, emphasizing the importance of integrating the vaccine into national immunization programs and addressing cultural and religious factors to improve public health outcomes.

During the fourth millennium BC, public institutions developed at several large settlements across greater Mesopotamia. These are widely acknowledged as the first cities and states, yet surprisingly little is known about their emergence, functioning and demise. Here, the authors present new evidence of public institutions at the site of Shakhi Kora in the lower Sirwan/upper Diyala river valley of north-east Iraq. A sequence of four Late Chalcolithic institutional households precedes population dispersal and the apparent regional rejection of centralised social forms of organisation that were not then revisited for almost 1500 years.