Black Wave

Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Rivalry That Unravelled the Middle East

By: Kim Ghattas

Narrated by: Kim Ghattas, Nan McNamara

A timely and unprecedented examination of how the modern Middle East unravelled, and why it started with the pivotal year of 1979

'What happened to us?'

For decades, the 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, award-winning journalist and author Kim 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. Before this year, Saudi Arabia and Iran had been working allies and twin pillars of US strategy in the region - but the radical legacy of these events made them mortal enemies, unleashing a process that transformed culture, society, religion and geopolitics across the region for decades to come.

Drawing on a sweeping cast of characters across seven countries over forty years, Ghattas demonstrates how this rivalry for religious and cultural supremacy has fed intolerance, suppressed cultural expression, encouraged sectarian violence, birthed groups like Hezbollah and ISIS and, ultimately, upended the lives of millions. At once bold and intimate, Black Wave is a remarkable and engrossing story of the Middle East as it has never been told before.

(P)2020 Tantor©2020 Kim Ghattas

An extraordinary book of our times

Kim Ghattas took a very difficult topic for research. But honestly, she did the job fantastically. In this book, she tells us the backstories of modern time changes in the Middle East and introduces us to the characters who brought these changes or are part of these changes. She ruthlessly clears her point without any if and but. Few other books are also on this topic of the middle east but not with such profound effect as this is. She goes deep into the roots of unrest in the Muslim World and tries to tell us with examples that "What happened to Muslim World?"