All posts by tabsir

Tuareg Blues

Anthropology/Sociology, Environment, Mali


[Tuareg man serving tea; photo by Jane Greenhalgh for NPR.]

“Climate Connections” on today’s NPR website has a slideshow and brief article on recent changes in Tuareg lifestyle in southern Mali. Known as the “Blue Men” of the desert (for their indigo clothing) and serving as a prime ethnographic example of a society where the men (rather than the women) veil, life for the Tuareg is undergoing rapid change. In this case it is prolonged drought that has served as the main impetus for change. The slide feature is well worth a look.

The Little Rebellion that Was

Huthis, Qatar, Terrorism Issue, Yemen


[Illustration: Emir Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani of Qatar, left; bombed out buildings in northern Yemeni town of Sa‘da in 2004 fighting, center; Husayn al-Houthi, right.]

In September, 2004, Yemen’s military captured and killed a Zaydi cleric in the northern part of their country. His name was Husayn al-Houthi and he is alleged to have started a rebellion with a strong anti-American thrust. Although claims were made that he was trying to revive the Zaydi imamate (which was toppled in 1962 in the revolution that formed a republic in North Yemen), such an al-Qaeda clone conspiracy theory are exaggerated. Nevertheless, his followers carried on a regional rebellion, lately under the leadership of his son Abd al-Malik, and as a result thousands of soldiers, rebels and civilians have died and tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced. It is not surprising that you may not have seen much about the fighting in the media. Indeed it has been a little rebellion compared to events in Iraq, Afghanistan or Gaza, and it certainly did not threaten the ruling government’s overall hold on the country. But it was certainly a big deal in Yemen. And now, with mediation by the Emir of Qatar, it appears that there will be an end to the armed conflict. Details are provided in today’s Yemen Observer.

Al-Houthi rebels descend the mountains, lay down their weapons

Written By: Nasser Arrabyee
Yemen Observer, Jun 30, 2007

Al-Houthi rebels have come down from the mountains of northern Yemen to put down their weapons and return home, as instructed by a Qatari-brokered agreement to end the five-month war between them and the government troops, said mediators Thursday. Continue reading The Little Rebellion that Was →

Reading the Qur’an: Mohammed Arkoun

Anthropology/Sociology, Islam in America, Qur'an

By Jane Dammen McAuliffe
Dean of Arts and Sciences, Georgetown University
Professor, Department of Arabic and History

Mohammed Arkoun is the most honored French Islamicist alive today and continues to receive lecture invitations from around the world. His first language was Berber, and he learned Arabic and studied Islamic sources in French-speaking schools, first in Algeria and then in Paris (Gunther:127-131). Arkoun’s life-long project has been the sustained analysis of Islamic reason from the perspective of the contemporary epistemologies, both philosophical and social scientific. He is well-schooled in the successive forms of critical theory that have occupied humanistic scholarship for the last generation, particularly structural linguistics and semiotics. Continue reading Reading the Qur’an: Mohammed Arkoun →

Laughter that Lasts 12 Centuries

Ethics, Humor and Satire, Literature

The honor of being the greatest writer in Arabic prose, at least in the eyes of numerous Arab literati for the last millennium, belongs to the Iraqi Abu ‘Uthman ‘Amr ibn Bahr al-Jahiz. Born in Basra in 776 C.E., a full millennium before our own nation was founded, Jahiz lived most of his life between the recently founded Baghdad and Samarra. He is the acknowledged master of Arabic adab literature, an eclectic form both entertaining and instructive. The elegance of his writing is matched by the grounding of his reflections on the ordinary and the lowest parts of the social order.

One of his most entertaining works that survives is a satirical look at misers and the nature of avarice. In a culture that idealized hospitality from the poor Bedouin’s goat-hair tent to the sumptuous silk cushions of the sultan’s palace, this is a telling admission that not everyone abides by the social norms. Continue reading Laughter that Lasts 12 Centuries →

Always a Kurd

Iran, Travel

In his post-World War II visit to the Kurdish highlands of Iran, Justice William O. Douglas was clearly thrilled by the resilience of his hosts in the face of threatened Soviet dominance. His comments on the Kurds here are worth remembering more than half a century of political change later:

I learned three things from my visit among the Kurds. ‘First’: Kurdish nationalism is in the marrow of these tribesmen – deeper than any creed or dogma. They want a state of their own, one in which they have a degree of self-government. But their basic loyalty is to Persia. There it will remain. They have pride in the tradition that they are Medes. They have pride in their historic role – border patrol. Neither their misery and poverty nor Communist propaganda have altered those articles of their faith. Continue reading Always a Kurd →

The Dervish Dishes it Out

Ethics, Poetry, Sufism

Some messages are timeless. This poem of Rumi, though at least seven centuries old, still resonates no matter how sanitized the morality of the day.

Dervish at the Door

A dervish knocked at a house
to ask for a piece of dry bread,
or moist, it didn’t matter.

‘This is not a bakery,’ said the owner.

‘Might you have a bit of gristle then?’

‘Does this like like a butchershop?’

‘A little flour?’

‘Do you hear a grinding stone?’ Continue reading The Dervish Dishes it Out →

A Candid[e] View of an Honest Turk

Books You Should Read, Literature, Orientalism, Travel

[One of the great moral tales of the 18th century is Voltaire’s (1759) Candide, a book well worth reading and rereading from time to time. Here is an excerpt from the end of the book, but it is not Orientalism in the Saidian sense of negative portrayal; indeed it is the honest Turk which stands in contrast to tyrants of all stripes.]

During this conversation, news was spread abroad that two viziers of the bench and the mufti had just been strangled at Constantinople, and several of their friends impaled. This catastrophe made a great noise for some hours. Pangloss, Candide, and Martin, as they were returning to the little farm, met with a good-looking old man, who was taking the air at his door, under an alcove formed of the boughs of orange trees. Pangloss, who was as inquisitive as he was disputative, asked him what was the name of the mufti who was lately strangled.

“I cannot tell,” answered the good old man; “I never knew the name of any mufti, or vizier breathing. I am entirely ignorant of the event you speak of; I presume that in general such as are concerned in public affairs sometimes come to a miserable end; and that they deserve it: but I never inquire what is doing at Constantinople; I am contented with sending thither the produce of my garden, which I cultivate with my own hands.” Continue reading A Candid[e] View of an Honest Turk →

Book of Curiosities

Art, Islamic Sciences, Islamic Texts, Maps

The Bodleian Library in collaboration with The Oriental Institute, University of Oxford, announces the electronic publication of The Book of Curiosities of the Sciences and Marvels for the Eyes, a newly discovered medieval Arabic treatise on the depiction of the Heavens and the Earth. The treatise is one of the most important recent finds in the history of Islamic cartography in particular, and for the history of pre-modern cartography in general. The publication of the treatise is mounted on a dedicated website employing a new method for publishing medieval maps. Continue reading Book of Curiosities →