Dr. Foley delivered a paper, “How Big Tobacco Used Islam and Modernity to Conquer Saudi Arabia” to a conference at Maltepe University (Istanbul, Turkey). The conference, entitled “American Foreign Policy in the Middle East,” featured scholars from America, Turkey, and the Arab World. His paper hightlited the political, religious, and socio-economic factors that explain the emergence of smoking in the Kigndom — a rarely discussed but critical aspect of daily life there and America’s special relationship with the Kingdom. In particular, he noted that these issues are important today as Saudi poltiical and relgious leaders seek to curb smoking as a way to both (a) improve public health and (b) blunt the appeal of the Islamic State, which has destoryed cigarettes and imposed draconian penalties on smokers.
