MESA book awards

The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) offers four book awards at its fall annual conference.

Albert Hourani Book Award

The Albert Hourani Book Award is an award honoring scholarly non-fiction books, given by the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) to "recognize outstanding publishing in Middle East studies" and to honor work "that exemplifies scholarly excellence and clarity of presentation in the tradition of Albert Hourani", the distinguished scholar of Arab and Islamic history.^[1] On occasion two authors have shared the year's award; in some years, the society has given honorable mention distinctions. MESA first gave the award in 1991.

Award winners

Year	Author	Title	Publisher	Distinction
1991	Abraham Marcus	The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity: Aleppo in the Eighteenth Century	Columbia University Press	Winner
	Steven Caton	"Peaks of Yemen I Summon": Poetry as Cultural Practice in a North Yemeni Tribe	University of California Press	Honorable Mention
1993	Brinkley Messick	The Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society	University of California Press	Winner
	Sabra J. Webber	Romancing the Real: Folklore and Ethnographic Representation in North Africa	University of Pennsylvania Press	Honorable Mention
	Robert D. McChesney	Waqf in Central Asia: Four Hundred Years in the History of a Muslim Shrine	Princeton University Press	Honorable Mention
	Kenneth Cuno	The Pasha's Peasants: Land, Society, and Economy in Lower Egypt, 1740-1858	Cambridge University Press	Honorable Mention
1994	Chibli Mallat	The Renewal of Islamic Law	Cambridge University Press	Co-Winner
	Richard M. Eaton	The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760	University of California Press	Co-Winner
	Tarif Khalidi	Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period	Cambridge University Press	Honorable Mention
1995	Devin DeWeese	Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde: Baba Tukles and Conversion to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition	Penn State Press	Winner
	Julia Clancy Smith	Rebel and Saint: Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria and Tunisia, 1800-1904)	University of California Press	Honorable Mention
1996	Gülru Necipoğlu	The Topkapi Scroll—Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture	The Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities	Winner
	Michael Gilsenan	Lords of the Lebanese Marches: Violence and Narrative in Arab Society	I.B. Tauris	Honorable Mention
1997	Andrew Shryock	Nationalism and Genealogical Imagination: Oral History and Textual Authority in Tribal Jordan	University of California Press	Co-Winner
	Rashid I. Khalidi	Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness	Columbia University Press	Co-Winner
1998	Kiren Aziz Chaudhry	The Price of Wealth: Economies and Institutions in the Middle East	Cornell University Press	Co-Winner
	Marsha Pripstein Posusney	Labor and the State in Egypt: Workers, Unions, and Economic Restructuring	Columbia University Press	Co-Winner
	Marianna Shreve Simpson	Sultan Ibrahim Mirza's Haft Awrang: A Princely Manuscript from Sixteenth-Century Iran	Yale University Press	Honorable Mention
1999	Susan Slyomovics	The Object of Memory: Arab and Jew Narrate the Palestinian Village	University of Pennsylvania Press	Winner
	Mohammed A. Bamyeh	The Social Origins of Islam: Mind, Economy, Discourse	University of Minnesota Press	Honorable Mention
2000	Eugene Rogan	Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850–1921	Cambridge University Press	Winner
	Tayeb El-Hibri	Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography: Harun al-Rashid and the Narrative of the Abbasid Caliphate	Cambridge University Press	Honorable Mention
	Carole Hillenbrand	The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives	Edinburgh University Press	Honorable Mention
	Meron Benvenisti	Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948	University of California Press	Honorable Mention
2001	Michael Cook	Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought	Cambridge University Press	Winner
2002	Nadia Abu El-Haj	Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society	University of Chicago Press	Co-Winner
	Gershon Shafir & Yoav Peled	Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship	Cambridge University Press	Co-Winner
	Jonathan Bloom	Paper before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World	Yale University Press	Honorable Mention
2003	Jonathan P. Berkey	The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600-1800	Cambridge University Press	Winner
	Heather J. Sharkey	Living with Colonialism: Nationalism and Culture in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan	University of California Press	Honorable Mention
	Farha Ghannam	Remaking the Modern: Space, Relocation, and the Politics of Identity in a Global Cairo	University of California Press	Honorable Mention
2004	Leslie Peirce	Morality Tales: Law and Gender in the Ottoman Court of Aintab	University of California Press	Winner
	Maya Rosenfeld	Confronting the Occupation: Work, Education, & Political Activism of Palestinian Families in a Refugee Camp	Stanford University Press	Honorable Mention
	Rashid I. Khalidi	Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East	Beacon Press	Honorable Mention
2005	Robert R. Bianchi	Guests of God: Pilgrimage and Politics in the Islamic World	Oxford University Press	Winner
	Gülru Necipoglu	The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire	Princeton University Press	Honorable Mention
	Saba Mahmood	Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject	Princeton University Press	Honorable Mention
2006	Rudi Matthee	The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500-1900	Princeton University Press	Winner
2007	Jessica Winegar	Creative Reckonings: The Politics of Art and Culture in Contemporary Egypt	Stanford University Press	Co-Winner
	Leor Halevi	Muhammad's Grave: Death Rites and the Making of Islamic Society	Columbia University Press	Co-Winner
2008	Ussama Makdisi	Artillery of Heaven: American Missionaries and the Failed Conversion of the Middle East	Cornell University Press	Co-Winner
	Marc David Baer	Honored by the Glory of Islam: Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe	Oxford University Press	Co-Winner
2009	Sophia Vasalou	Moral Agents and Their Deserts: The Character of Mu'tazilite Ethics	Princeton University Press	Winner
2010	Benjamin Claude Brower	A Desert Named Peace: The Violence of France's Empire in the Algerian Sahara, 1844-1902	Columbia University Press	Winner
2011	Nile Green	Bombay Islam: The Religious Economy of the West Indian Ocean, 1840-1915	Cambridge University Press	Co-Winner
	Rochelle Davis	Palestinian Village Histories: Geographies of the Displaced	Stanford University Press	Co-Winner
2012	Sam White	The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire	Cambridge University Press	Winner
2013	Patricia Crone	Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran: Rural Revolt and Local Zoroastrianism	Cambridge University Press	Co-Winner
	Taner Akçam	The Young Turks' Crime against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire	Princeton University Press	Co-Winner
2014	Brian Catlos	Muslims of Medieval Latin Christendom, c. 1050-1614	Cambridge University Press	Winner
2015	Kenneth M. Cuno	Modernizing Marriage: Family, Ideology and Law in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Egypt	Syracuse University Press	Winner
2016	Nükhet Varlık	Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: The Ottoman Experience, 1347-1600	Cambridge University Press	Winner
	Seema Alavi	Muslim Cosmopolitanism in the Age of Empire	Harvard University Press	Honorable Mention
2017	Noah Salomon	For Love of the Prophet: An Ethnography of Sudan's Islamic State	Princeton University Press	Winner
2018	Alireza Doostdar	The Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in Science, Islam, and the Uncanny	Princeton University Press	Winner
	J.R. Osborn	Letters of Light: Arabic Script in Calligraphy, Print, and Digital Design	Harvard University Press	Honorable Mention
2019	Fredrik Meiton	Electrical Palestine: Capital and Technology from the Empire to Nation	University of California Press	Winner
	Jack Tannous	The Making of the Medieval Middle East: Religion, Society, and Simple Believers	Princeton University Press	Honorable Mention
2020	Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins	Waste Siege: The Life of Infrastructure in Palestine	Stanford University Press	Winner
	Wendy M. K. Shaw	What is 'Islamic' Art? Between Religion and Perception	Cambridge University Press	Honorable Mention
2021	Michael Christopher Low	Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj	Columbia University Press	Winner
	James Pickett	Polymaths of Islam: Power and Networks of Knowledge in Central Asia	Cornell University Press	Honorable Mention
	Caterina Scaramelli	How to Make a Wetland: Water and Moral Ecology in Turkey	Stanford University Press	Honorable Mention
2022	Waleed Ziad	Hidden Caliphate: Sufi Saints beyond the Oxus and Indus	Harvard University Press	Winner
	Helen Pfeifer	Empire of Salons: Conquest and Community in Early Modern Ottoman Lands	Princeton University Press	Honorable Mention
2023	Jessica M. Marglin	The Shamama Case: Contesting Citizenship Across the Modern Mediterranean	Princeton University Press	Co-Winner
	Mostafa Minawi	Losing Istanbul: Arab-Ottoman Imperialists and the End of Empire	Stanford University Press	Co-Winner
	Nomi Stone	Pinelandia: An Anthropology and Field Poetics of War and Empire	University of California Press	Honorable Mention
2024	Lisa Bhungalia	Elastic Empire: Refashioning War through Aid in Palestine	Stanford University Press	Winner

Roger Owen Book Award

The Roger Owen Book Award, first given in 2011, recognizes the very best in economics, economic history, or the political economy of the Middle East and North Africa scholarship. The award honors Roger Owen for his long and distinguished career and scholarly contributions. The biennial award is given in odd-numbered years

Award winners

Year	Author	Institution	Title	Publisher	Distinction
2011	Alan Mikhail	Yale University	Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt: An Environmental History	Cambridge University Press	Winner
2013	Nancy Y. Reynolds	Washington University in St. Louis	A City Consumed: Urban Commerce, the Cairo Fire, and the Politics of Decolonization in Egypt	Stanford University Press	Winner
2015	Zeinab Abul-Magd	Oberlin College	Imagined Empires: A History of Revolt in Egypt	University of California Press	Winner
2017	Johan Mathew	Rutgers University	Margins of the Market: Trafficking and Capitalism across the Arabian Sea	University of California Press	Winner
	Hanan H. Hammad	Texas Christian University	Industrial Sexuality: Gender, Urbanization, and Social Transformation in Egypt	University of Texas Press	Honorable Mention
2019	Fredrik Meiton	University of New Hampshire	Electrical Palestine: Capital and Technology from Empire to Nation	University of California Press	Winner
2021	Amr Adly	American University in Cairo	Cleft Capitalism: The Social Origins of Failed Market Making in Egypt	Stanford University Press	Winner
	Aaron Jakes	The New School	Egypt's Occupation: Colonial Economism and the Crises of Capitalism	Stanford University Press	Honorable Mention
2023	Natasha Iskander	New York University	Does Skill Make Us Human? Migrant Workers in 21-st Century Qatar and Beyond	Princeton University Press	Co-Winner
	José Ciro Martínez	University of York	States of Subsistence: The Politics of Bread in Contemporary Jordan	Stanford University Press	Co-Winner

Fatema Mernissi Book Award

The Fatema Mernissi Book Award was established in 2017 to recognize outstanding scholarship in studies of gender, sexuality, and women’s lived experience. The annual award was named for Fatema Mernissi to recognize her long and distinguished career as a scholar and as a public intellectual.

Award winners

Year	Author	Institution	Title	Publisher	Distinction
2018	Attiya Ahmad	George Washington University	Everyday Conversions: Islam, Domestic Work, and South Asian Migrant Women in Kuwait	Duke University Press	Winner
2019	Ilana Feldman	George Washington University	Life Lived in Relief: Humanitarian Predicaments and Palestinian Refugee Politics	University of California Press	Winner
	Stefania Pandolfo	University of California, Berkeley	Knot of the Soul: Madness, Psychoanalysis, Islam	University of Chicago Press	Honorable Mention
2020	Salih Can Açıksöz	UCLA	Sacrificial Limbs: Masculinity, Disability, and Political Violence in Turkey	University of California Press	Winner
	Zahra Ayubi	Dartmouth College	Gendered Morality: Classical Islamic Ethics of the Self, Family, and Society	Columbia University Press	Honorable Mention
2021	Niloofar Haeri	Johns Hopkins University	Say What Your Longing Heart Desires: Women, Prayer, and Poetry in Iran	Stanford University Press	Winner
	Hagar Kotef	SOAS, University of London	The Colonizing Self: Or, Home and Homelessness in Israel/Palestine	Duke University Press	Honorable Mention
	Sima Shakhsari	University of Minnesota	Politics of Rightful Killing: Civil Society, Gender, and Sexuality in Weblogistan	Duke University Press	Honorable Mention
2022	Sonia Ahsan-Tirmizi	Columbia University	Pious Peripheries: Runaway Women in Post-Taliban Afghanistan	Stanford University Press	Winner
	Kathryn Babayan	University of Michigan	The City as Anthology: Eroticism and Urbanity in Early Modern Isfahan	Stanford University Press	Honorable Mention
2023	Maya Mikdashi	Rutgers University	Sextarianism: Sovereignty, Secularism, and the State in Lebanon	Stanford University Press	Winner
	Kirsten L. Scheid	American University in Beirut	Fantasmic Objects: Art and Sociality from Lebanon, 1920-1950	Indiana University Press	Honorable Mention
2024	Emek Ergun	University of North Carolina at Charlotte	Virgin Crossing Borders: Feminist Resistance and Solidarity in Translation	University of Illinois Press	Winner

Nikki Keddie Book Award

The Nikki Keddie Book Award was established in 2017 to recognize outstanding scholarly work in the area of religion, revolution, and/or society. The annual award was named for Nikki Keddie to recognize her long and distinguished career as a scholar and teacher.

Award winners

Year	Author	Institution	Title	Publisher	Distinction
2018	Kevan Harris	University of California, Los Angeles	A Social Revolution: Politics and the Welfare State in Iran	University of California Press	Co-Winner
	Orit Bashkin	The University of Chicago	Impossible Exodus: Iraqi Jews in Israel	Stanford University Press	Co-Winner
2019	Hiba Bou Akar	Columbia University	For the War Yet to Come: Planning Beirut's Frontiers	Stanford University Press	Winner
	Eric Calderwood	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	Colonial al-Andalus: Spain and the Making of Modern Moroccan Culture	Harvard University Press	Honorable Mention
2020	Maziyar Ghiabi	SOAS, University of London and University of Exeter	Drugs Politics: Managing Disorder in the Islamic Republic of Iran	Cambridge University Press	Winner
	M'hamed Oualdi	Sciences Po	A Slave Between Empires: A Transimperial History of North Africa	Columbia University Press	Honorable Mention
2021	Elise K. Burton	University of Toronto	Genetic Crossroads: The Middle East and the Science of Human Heredity	Stanford University Press	Winner
	Fadi A. Bardawil	Duke University	Revolution and Disenchantment: Arab Marxism and the Binds of Emancipation	Duke University Press	Honorable Mention
	Rosie Bsheer	Harvard University	Archive Wars: The Politics of History in Saudi Arabia	Stanford University Press	Honorable Mention
2022	Chris Gratien	University of Virginia	The Unsettled Plain: An Environmental History of the Late Ottoman Frontier	Stanford University Press	Co-Winner
	Karen E. Rignall	University of Kentucky	An Elusive Common: Land, Politics, and Agrarian Rurality in a Moroccan Oasis	Cornell University Press	Co-Winner
	Mona El-Ghobashy	New York University	Bread and Freedom: Egypt's Revolutionary Situation	Stanford University Press	Honorable Mention
2023	Nadim Bawalsa	Institute for Palestine Studies	Transnational Palestine: Migration and the Right of Return Before 1948	Stanford University Press	Winner
	Carel Bertram	San Francisco State University	A House in the Homeland: Armenian Pilgrimages to Places of Ancestral Memory	Stanford University Press	Honorable Mention
	Manijeh Moradian	Barnard College, Columbia University	This Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States	Duke University Press	Honorable Mention
2024	Sara Rahnama	Morgan State University	The Future is Feminist: Women and Social Change in Interwar Algeria	Cornell University Press	Co-Winner
	Annika Schmeding	The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW)	Sufi Civilities: Religious Authority and Political Change in Afghanistan	Stanford University Press	Co-Winner