Monthly Archives: January 2008

Observations on the Baboons in the Garden of the “Bostan” Restaurant (1)

Food and Drink, Sanaa, Travel, Yemen

Observations on the Baboons in the Garden of the “Bostan” Restaurant (Part One)

[Note: These observations were first published in 1991 in Yemen Update and are archived online. The “Boston” has long since disappeared, but memories live on.]

It was a bright and breezy Friday afternoon in Sanaa. Having only recently arrived to the Sheba Hotel, I decided to forego experiencing the haute cuisine available in my room or at poolside for a Lebanese repast at the “Bostan Restaurant”. This Levantine oasis in Yemen is located only a stone’s throw away from the great wall of the Chinese Embassy on the road that parallels Zubeiri Street. On the sign outside you are welcomed to the “Bostan Tourism Restaurant”, although the astute diner will note that on the menu cover this metamorphoses into “Boustan”. (Perhaps the menu cover was printed in Paris? The French seem to love adding the letter “u” to words that can be perfectly well pronounced without: when I see “Bilquis” my tongue utterly fails). Continue reading Observations on the Baboons in the Garden of the “Bostan” Restaurant (1) →

Woman by a Fountain

Art, Iran, Miniatures

We are accustomed to Persian miniatures which depict the “Oriental” face, but later Persian art at times draws on Italianate style. The example above is entitled “Woman by a Fountain” and was painted by ‘Ali-Qoli Beyg Jebadar, around 1660 ce, probably in Isfahan.

Illustration from Abdolala Soudavar, Art of the Persian Courts (New York: Rizzoli, 1992), p.370.

Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post–Islamist Turn

Books You Should Read, Egypt, Islam in America, Islam in Europe

Book Review of Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post–Islamist Turn (Asef Bayat)

by Richard Bulliet
Published on NYU Center for Dialogues website

Discussions of contemporary Islam in the United States tend to be held in black and white, with the religion depicted either as a backward, dangerous and hateful force, or as a misunderstood and moderate foundation for peaceful living. Discussions in Europe range over a somewhat larger spectrum because they are often based on experiences with immigrant communities, and usually engage cultural issues in addition to security–related ones.

The most colorful and useful expositions for readers in search of a deep understanding of Islam today, however, are those based on detailed and long–term observations made in Muslim–majority countries, where interactions with Euro–American sensibilities do not confound the issue. Having said that, the drawback with such in–depth analyses is that they typically examine a single country, leaving it to readers to decide how similar or dissimilar Muslim life in Morocco, say, is from that in Bangladesh or Somalia. Continue reading Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post–Islamist Turn →

Research Fellowship on Muslim Modernities

Fellowships and Grants, Immigration Issues, Islam in America, Islam in Europe, Terrorism Issue

2008 DPDF Research Field:
Muslim Modernities

Research Directors: Charles Kurzman and Bruce B. Lawrence

Islamic fundamentalists and Western Orientalists often emphasize pre-modern resonances in contemporary Muslim communities. Over the past generation, by contrast, an interdisciplinary set of scholars has come to emphasize the ways in which Islamic historical heritages are extruded, redefined, or invented through modern processes. We label this emerging field “Muslim Modernities.”

The idea of modernity was invented in Western Europe to distinguish the region from the rest of the world, including Muslim societies. Scholars disagreed about what modernity consisted of — capitalism, division of labor, rationalization, reflexivity, etc. — but broadly agreed that these were characteristics of the West and not of other societies. Increasingly, however, the study of Muslim communities has contributed to a re-thinking of the West’s monopolistic claims to modernity. Instead of measuring modernization as the adoption of Western institutions and norms, these studies have explored the development of alternative forms of modernity. These alternative forms are modern in three potentially distinct ways: their proponents claim that they are modern; they are recent, not found in “tradition,” though sometimes imposed retroactively on tradition; and they exhibit characteristics frequently associated with Western modernity, such as universalism, rationalization, and reflexivity. Continue reading Research Fellowship on Muslim Modernities →

Truth, Troops, Tooth and Clausewitz

Iraq War, Terrorism Issue


Maj. Gen. Charles J. Dunlap Jr., left; General Carl von Clausewitz, right

The surge to victory for John McCain in yesterday’s New Hampshire primary is attributed by Senator McCain to his telling the truth on a statewide bus tour. Truth and politics are seldom embedded fellows, so surely there is more at stake. It may be that the seeming success of the “surge” of U.S. troops combined with McCain’s last ditch, Chuck Norris tactic of shouting that he will get Osama on Day One in the White House was a factor in rousing New England independents to brave the snowbanks. Less American soldiers are reported dead in the daily papers, the suicide bombings in Baghdad are claiming less lives, and the economy looms larger in voter minds in the current trillion-dollar-deficit-spent free fall. The Democrats, on the other partisan hand, dismiss the Bush/McCain surge as the kind of military victory that can not win the diplomatic war in the end. Most of us would like to find some kind of truth in all the spin, but the super-media-charged primary machine surges on with truth as the main casualty.

So what do the generals say we should do? Today’s New York Times carries an op-ed commentary by Charles J. Dunlap Jr., an Air Force major general, who is about to publish a monograph called Shortchanging the Joint Fight?. In the general’s gung-ho “We Still Need the Big Guns,” he writes tooth and Clausewitz that effective counter insurgency in Iraq and future conflicts still needs to be measured in dead insurgent bodies. As he states:

Many analysts understandably attribute the success to our troops’ following the dictums of the Army’s lauded new counterinsurgency manual. While the manual is a vast improvement over its predecessors, it would be a huge mistake to take it as proof — as some in the press, academia and independent policy organizations have — that victory over insurgents is achievable by anything other than traditional military force.

Unfortunately, starry-eyed enthusiasts have misread the manual to say that defeating an insurgency is all about winning hearts and minds with teams of anthropologists, propagandists and civil-affairs officers armed with democracy-in-a-box kits and volleyball nets. They dismiss as passé killing or capturing insurgents. Continue reading Truth, Troops, Tooth and Clausewitz →

Pin the Biblical Tale on …

Bible and Holy Land, Israel

Riddle of the day (stretching back a bit): How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Before you answer, here is what the theologian St. Aquinas had to say:

Q. 52, a. 3 – “Whether Several Angels Can Be At The Same Time In the Same Place? There are not two angels in the same place. The reason for this is because it is impossible for two complete causes to be immediately the causes of one and the same thing. This is evident in every class of causes. For there is one proximate form of one thing, and there is one proximate mover, although there may be several remote movers. Nor can it be objected that several individuals may row a boat, since no one of them is a perfect mover, because no one man’s strength is sufficient for moving the boat; the fact is rather that all together are as one mover, in so far as their united powers all combine in producing the one movement. Hence, since the angel is said to be in one place by the fact that his power touches the place immediately by way of a perfect container, as was said (Q. 52, a. 1) there can be but one angel in one place.”

So the devout answer would be “one,” assuming it was an angel who knew how to dance.

Next riddle: How many Bible tales can you inscribe on the head of a pin? Here is what the BBC has to say: Continue reading Pin the Biblical Tale on … →

Yemen College of Middle Eastern Studies

Anthropology/Sociology, Yemen


left to right, Sabri Saleem, founder; Dr. ‘Abd al-Karim al-Iryani; Dr. Steven Caton, Dean

by Bradley Heinz, Yemen Observer, January 5, 2008

Sana’a may well be on its way to hosting the leading center for scholarship of the contemporary Middle East, so say members of the Board of Governors of the newly organized Yemen College of Middle Eastern Studies (YCMES). In preparation for the inaugural year, prominent scholars, businessmen, and diplomats from Yemen and beyond met Thursday to discuss the logistics and direction for Yemen’s newest teaching and learning center. The meetings are set to last through Saturday and are being held at the Taj Shiba Hotel.

“These meetings are extremely important. They’re the beginning of the realization of an educational vision in the making for years,” said Steve Caton, Dean of the new college and an anthropologist who studied the role of poetry in Yemeni society. Continue reading Yemen College of Middle Eastern Studies →

The Da Vinci Code and the Girls of Riyadh

Egypt, Islam and Christianity, Literature, Saudi Arabia

By Hussein Shobokshi for the Yemen Observer, June 27, 2006

Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code has been translated into 40 languages, including Arabic. The book has been adapted into a film showing all over the world, reaping millions of dollars. The story, as the majority of people know, questions the life of Jesus and claims that he married Maria Magdalene and fathered her child.

The suggestion has caused much controversy and has been strongly condemned by various Christian sects, which eventually led to the film being banned in Egypt and Lebanon (the book is sold in Egypt, but is censored in Lebanon). What was noticeable however was that the request for censorship in the Egyptian Parliament was made by Muslim MPs, who wanted to express their solidarity with the Copts and to defend Jesus. Continue reading The Da Vinci Code and the Girls of Riyadh →