About Al‑Mantiq
Al‑Mantiq (المنطق) is the Arabic word for logic. The discipline of clear reasoning, sound argument and informed judgement. It is also the principle that guides our work.
Al‑Mantiq is an independent publication examining the forces shaping the Middle East and North Africa. We look beyond the immediate news cycle to explore the ideas, interests and histories behind the region’s defining developments.
The Middle East and North Africa are too often understood through headlines that privilege urgency over understanding or through analysis produced at too great a distance. Complex societies are reduced to their conflicts, while political developments are detached from the histories, ideas and local realities that gave rise to them.
We believe serious analysis requires both intellectual discipline and knowledge rooted in the region. By bringing these together, we seek to explain not merely what is happening, but why it is happening, how it is understood by those living through it and what may follow.
We favour informed judgement over instant commentary. In a media environment driven by speed, outrage and certainty, we make room for evidence, context and reflection.
Our analysis is guided by facts and honest inquiry. We follow arguments wherever they lead, including when their conclusions are uncomfortable or unfashionable.
The Middle East and North Africa are not a single story. We recognise the region’s political, cultural and social diversity, and resist explanations that flatten its differences or disregard local realities.
No event exists in isolation. We place contemporary developments within their historical, regional and international settings, tracing connections that shorter accounts often miss.
Serious analysis does not require uniformity. We welcome differing interpretations when they are advanced in good faith, supported by evidence and expressed with intellectual respect.
Expertise should illuminate rather than obscure. We make sophisticated arguments accessible without stripping away the complexity their subjects demand.
Al‑Mantiq publishes analysis, commentary, essays and reviews by scholars and journalists whose work combines intellectual rigour, professional experience and knowledge grounded in the region.
We write for readers who want to understand the Middle East and North Africa in greater depth, whether they encounter the region through policy, scholarship, journalism or business.
Al‑Mantiq: where logic meets perspective.