Monthly Archives: July 2012

Comment peut-on être Persan?

Humor and Satire, Iran, Literature, Travel


The French savant and satirist Charles-Louis de Secondat, better known as Baron Montesquieu penned his Lettres Persanes in 1721, almost three centuries ago. This was long before the age of computers or the idea that eventually germinated in the head of Steve Jobs and blossomed into the Mac (and I do not mean the big kind you eat). I suspect that Montesquieu wrote by candle light with a quill for a pen, but he would have been delighted to type away on a Macbook, especially since it comes prepackaged with both a French keyboard and a Persian font. But, alas, poor Usbek and Rica would not be able to board an Air France flight to New York, connect to Atlanta and then walk into an Apple Store and buy a much smaller Air than the one they flew from Charles de Gaulle.

Shocking, is it not. But as Jamal Abdi writes in today’s New York Times, how to be a Persian has taken on new meaning in our globally-fixated-on-terrorism age:

Last month, Sahar Sabet, a 19-year-old Iranian-American woman, was improperly prevented from buying an iPad at an Apple store in Alpharetta, Ga. After she had gone over the various options with two Apple sales clerks, a third clerk, who had overheard Ms. Sabet speaking Persian to her uncle, intervened. He asked what language they were speaking and, when he found out it was the language of Iran, he said she could not buy anything because “our countries do not have good relations” — never mind that she intended to give it to her sister in North Carolina.

Of course, Montesquieu himself could walk into Le Apple Store in Paris and come out high on his own Airs. So I can only wonder what he might have added in the new updated version of Le emails persane. Perhaps it would go like this: Continue reading Comment peut-on être Persan? →

Travels with Ibn al-Mujabbir #2

Anthropology/Sociology, Conferences and Talks, Folklore and Proverbs, Islamic History, Travel, Yemen


Sailing Seasons in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean:
The View from Rasulid (13th-14th Centuries) Aden

by Daniel Martin Varisco

[This is a lecture presented at the Red Sea Trade and Travel Study Day of the Society for Arabian Studies at the British Museum, October 5, 2002, and subsequently published in Yemen Update. For Part 1, click here.]

Monday, 13 Rajab, 691 (June 30, 1292)

Bismillah al-rahman al-rahim. I, Ibn al-Mujabbir, begin this diary full of hope, a pilgrim sure of his destination, not a lost soul adrift. Who but God in his indescribable mercy could have provided a calmer sea and more willing wind to our sails than our good fortune holds aboard this ship, Hut Yunis. As Jonah was saved in God’s good time, so I trust in that very God to set foot once again in my homeland. There are three ships under the protection of the Karimi assurances, traveling together for safety and among the last of the season bound south for Yemen. I humbly beg forgiveness from the One before whom I submit, who knows the danger in every unseen shoal.

In two hours time, before the evening prayer, the captain informs me we will put ashore in a safe place. We sail by day in sight of land, but at night we rest. As God is our only guide, the wisely guided do not lead themselves into temptation. There are many dangers here, for they say the devil himself is master of the sea when darkness settles and the afarit do his bidding. Even Solomon, wise and powerful as God made him, took precaution when traveling to see Sheba’s beauty queen. Should I, a poor Yemeni born in Zabid, and now a stranger to no land where freshly minted Kamiliya dirhams are valued, do less. There are, I trust, no monsters in these depths, but the jinn inhabit all seven climes and more, if there be more. Continue reading Travels with Ibn al-Mujabbir #2 →

Travels with Ibn al-Mujabbir #1

Anthropology/Sociology, Conferences and Talks, Folklore and Proverbs, Islamic History, Travel, Yemen


13th century illustration of an Arab ship in the Indian Ocean

Sailing Seasons in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean:
The View from Rasulid (13th-14th Centuries) Aden

by Daniel Martin Varisco

[This is a lecture presented at the Red Sea Trade and Travel Study Day of the Society for Arabian Studies at the British Museum, October 5, 2002, and subsequently published in Yemen Update.]

The province of Aden is governed by a king, who bears the title of soldan… The soldan of Aden possesses immense treasures, arising from the imposts he lays, as well upon the merchandise that comes from India, as upon that which is shipped in his port as the returning cargo; this being the most considerable mart in all that quarter for the exchange of commodities, and the place to which all trading vessels resort… Marco Polo, reflecting in a prison cell on information he obtained at the close of the 13th century.

The subject of my talk today is the view from a vital hub of the vibrant Red Sea and Indian Ocean trading network, the view from the Rasulid port of Aden; more specifically, a fresh re-view of what it might have been like to be an Arab merchant sailing to and from Aden at the same time as Marco Polo set out to return from his epic sojourn under the immense Oriental pleasure dome of Kublai Khan. I invite you to return with me to the year 1292 of the Christian Era – as it is commonly known – for a fleeting Arab businessman’s eyeview from the deck of a trading dhow bound from Aydhab on the Egyptian Coast to Aden, the best natural harbor on the South Arabian coast. Let us call this tajjir (merchant) Muhammad Ibn Mujabbir, a Yemeni by birth and at the time a successful merchant employed by the Karimi syndicate out of Egypt. He is about 35 years old, young enough to marvel at the outrageous tales told by sailors and fellow travelers, old enough to know better than to believe any of them. We will join him aboard ship sailing south of Aydhab and follow his diaried notes until he lands with his entrusted consignment of wares in Aden customs. We shall, in effect, sail through a narrow stretch of commercial maritime history with a seasoned traveler at the helm. Continue reading Travels with Ibn al-Mujabbir #1 →

A Salacious Salafi

Bible and Holy Land, Egypt, Ethics, Gender and Sexuality, Islam and Christianity


Sheikh Wanis and his fellow adulterers

Al-Ahram has published an account of a salacious encounter of an Egyptian Salafi who is a former MP.

Egyptian authorities have decided to put on trial a Salafist ex-MP who was caught allegedly performing an “indecent” sexual act with a woman in public, a judicial source said on Thursday.

Ali Wanis’s trial is set for Sunday and will take place on time although he has gone missing since police found him last month engaged in a sexual act with a 22-year-old woman in a car parked on a highway.

The woman, a university student, is behind bars and the public prosecutor’s office has ordered the arrest of Wanis, a cleric and former MP for the ultra-conservative Al-Nour party.

After the incident in early June, Wanis denied any wrongdoing and said in a video posted on his website that he had parked along the side of the road because his passenger “became sick.”

But the pair have been accused of performing an “indecent” sexual act in public.

Al-Nour party, won the second largest number of seats in parliamentary elections last winter after the Muslim Brotherhood.

It was hit with a scandal in March when another lawmaker was forced to resign from parliament and from his party after claiming he was injured in a carjacking — to explain bandages on his face — when in fact he had had a nose job.

Wow — a blow job and a nose job and the appeal of Salafism takes a nose dive. Continue reading A Salacious Salafi →

Muslims are well-integrated in Britain – but no one seems to believe it

Islam in Europe, Islamophobia


More than half (55%) of Britons would be concerned if a mosque was built in their area.’ Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian

by Leon Moosavi, guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 3 July 2012

British Muslims often express a stronger sense of belonging than other citizens, so why are they still seen as outsiders?

In Britain today there is a mismatch between how non-Muslims often perceive Muslims and how Muslims typically perceive themselves. This disconnect is down to a tendency by non-Muslims to assume that Muslims struggle with their British identity and divided loyalties. These concerns were challenged a few days ago,in a report by the University of Essex that found Muslims actually identify with Britishness more than any other Britons.

This study is just one of several recent studies that have consistently found that Muslims in Britain express a stronger sense of belonging in Britain than their compatriots. Consider the following examples:

• 83% of Muslims are proud to be a British citizen, compared to 79% of the general public.

• 77% of Muslims strongly identify with Britain while only 50% of the wider population do.

• 86.4% of Muslims feel they belong in Britain, slightly more than the 85.9% of Christians.

• 82% of Muslims want to live in diverse and mixed neighbourhoods compared to 63% of non-Muslim Britons.

• 90% of Pakistanis feel a strong sense of belonging in Britain compared to 84% of white people.

Those who work closely with Muslim communities will attest to the integrated position of British Muslims and that despite frequent exoticisation, British Muslim lives are much the same as any other citizen’s. British Muslims also appreciate their ability to practise their religion in Britain without the type of subjugation that fellow Muslims are subjected to under despotic regimes in several Muslim-majority countries. Even though negative depictions may encourage people to imagine Muslims as similar to the 7/7 bombers who struck seven years ago this week, your average British Muslim is much more likely to be similar to a confident Amir Khan, a bubbly Konnie Huq or a hardworking James Caan. Continue reading Muslims are well-integrated in Britain – but no one seems to believe it →

Tabsir Redux: An American Treaty on Religion

Algeria, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Orientalist Art


Yes, a treaty and not a Humean treatise, although Hume’s treatise on Religion no doubt had an influence on the creators of the text. The third treaty established by the young United States, recently liberated from British rule, with the nations of the “Barbary Coast” was with the Bey of Algiers in 1797. Like the earlier two treaties, the focus was on maritime trade in the Mediterranean and the problem of Barbary “pirates” as well as neutrality of the Barbary states when the U.S. was battling other “Christian” powers. Our Founding Fathers (for surely those members of Congress in 1797 were as close to being Founding Fathers as Sarah Palin’s contorted dubbing of John Quincy Adams, who had just turned 20 and had yet to enter politics) were obviously not working hard to free slaves (as these treaties will bear out), but they did stress a point that many rightwing pundits conveniently gloss over: the United States was not created as a “Christian nation.”

As you read the treaty below, in celebration of the 4th of July, note article 11 in particular. It turns out that the translation provided to Congress by Joseph Barlow, is not very accurate and the original Arabic version did not contain what we find in Article 11. But in fact, Congress never knew that and only saw the version printed here; this was accepted unanimously and then acknowledged as well by President John Adams at the time. So it was certainly not the contention of the Dey of Algiers that the U.S. was not a Christian nation, but an idea that resonated well with the young Congress.

Treaty of Peace and Friendship, signed at Tripoli November 4, 1796 (3 Ramada I, A. H. 1211), and at Algiers January 3, 1797 (4 Rajab, A. H. 1211). Original in Arabic. Submitted to the Senate May 29, 1797. (Message of May 26, 1797.) Resolution of advice and consent June 7, 1797. Ratified by the United States June 10, 1797. As to the ratification generally, see the notes. Proclaimed Jane 10, 1797.

[Translation]
Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary.

ARTICLE 1.
There is a firm and perpetual Peace and friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and subjects of Tripoli of Barbary, made by the free consent of both parties, and guaranteed by the most potent Dey & regency of Algiers.

ARTICLE 2.
If any goods belonging to any nation with which either of the parties is at war shall be loaded on board of vessels belonging to the other party they shall pass free, and no attempt shall be made to take or detain them.

ARTICLE 3.
If any citizens, subjects or effects belonging to either party shall be found on board a prize vessel taken from an enemy by the other party, such citizens or subjects shall be set at liberty, and the effects restored to the owners. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: An American Treaty on Religion →