This special issue examines how war, genocide, and political violence in the Arab world reshape social life and the conditions of knowledge production. Drawing on the notion of dark times, it describes contexts in which the legacies of the past intersect with present violence and future possibilities, blurring boundaries between war and its aftermath. This introductory article situates the issue within broader shifts in sociology and anthropology, from explaining the causes and organization of violence to examining its effects on bodies, memory, place, and time. The contributions address struggles over labelling genocide, the militarization of everyday life, languages of suffering and trauma, violence against funerary spaces, medical violence, and prospects for thinking about hope and the future. Taken together, this material understands violence as a process that reconfigures life, relations, knowledge, and potential action.