This timely book examines the power and role of the image in modern Middle Eastern societies. The essays explore the role and function of image making to highlight the ways in which the images "speak" and what visual languages mean for the construction of Islamic subjectivities, the distribution of power, and the formation of identity and belonging. Visual Culture in the Modern Middle East addresses aspects of the visual in the Islamic world, including the presentation of Islam on television; on the internet and other digital media; in banners, posters, murals, and graffiti; and in the satirical press, cartoons, and children's books.

Christiane Gruber is Associate Professor of Islamic Art, Department of Art History, University of Michigan.

Sune Haugbolle is Associate Professor in Global Studies and Sociology at the Department for Society and Globalization at Roskilde University.

IntroductionI. "Moving" Images1. Images of the Prophet Muhammad In and Out of Modernity: The Curious Case of a 2008 Mural in Tehran /Christiane J. Gruber2. Secular Domesticities, Shiite Modernities: Khomeini's Illustrated Tawzh al-Masail /Pamela Karimi3. Memory and Ideology: Images of Saladin in Syria and Iraq /Stefan Heidemann4. "You Will (Not) Be Able to Take Your Eyes Off It!": Mass-Mediated Images and Politico-Ethical Reform in the Egyptian Islamic Revival /Patricia KubalaII. Islamist Iconographies5. The Muslim "Crying Boy" in Turkey: Aestheticization and Politicization of Suffering in Islamic Imagination /Özlem Sava6. The New Happy Child in Islamic Picture Books in Turkey /Umut Azak7. Sadrabiliyya: The Visual Narrative of Muqtada Al-Sadr's Islamist Politics and Insurgency in Iraq /Ibrahim Al-Marashi8. The Martyr's Fading Body: Propaganda vs. Beautification in the Tehran Cityscape /Ulrich MarzolphIII. Satirical Contestations9. Pushing Out Islam: Cartoons of the Reform Period in Turkey (19231930) /Yasemin Gencer10. Blasphemy or Critique?: Secularists and Islamists in Turkish Cartoon Images /Pinar Batur and John VanderLippe11. Naji al-Ali and the Iconography of Arab Secularism /Sune HaugbolleIV. Authenticity and Reality in Trans-National Broadcasting12. Arab Television Drama Production and the Islamic Public Sphere /Christa Salamandra13. Saudi-Islamist Rhetorics about Visual Culture /Marwan KraidyBibliographyNotes on ContributorsIndex