Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Rivalry that Unravelled the Middle East

This event launches Kim Ghattas' latest book 'Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Rivalry that Unravelled the Middle East'.

For decades, a question has haunted the Arab and Muslim world, heard across Iran and Syria, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and in the author's home country of Lebanon. Was it always so? When did the extremism, intolerance and bloodletting of today displace the region's cultural promise and diversity?

In Black Wave, Ghattas argues that the turning point in the modern history of the Middle East can be located in the toxic confluence of three major events in 1979: the Iranian Revolution; the siege of the Holy Mosque in Mecca; and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 

Ghattas draws on a sweeping cast of characters across seven countries and over forty years, demonstrating how this rivalry for religious and cultural supremacy has fed intolerance, suppressed cultural expression, encouraged sectarian violence, and ultimately, upended the lives of millions. 

Kim Ghattas is an Emmy-award winning journalist and writer who covered the Middle East for twenty years for the BBC and the Financial Times. She has also reported on the U.S State Department and American politics. She is currently a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. 

Madawi Al-Rasheed is Visiting Professor at the LSE Middle East Centre. Previously, she was Research Fellow at the Open Society Foundation. Between 1994–2013, she was Professor of Anthropology of Religion at King’s College London. Since joining the MEC, Madawi has been conducting research on mutations among Saudi Islamists after the 2011 Arab uprisings. This research focuses on the new reinterpretations of Islamic texts prevalent among a small minority of Saudi reformers and the activism in the pursuit of democratic governance and civil society.

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