All posts by tabsir

Cloning the Pharaohs

Humor and Satire, Luke R. E. Publican, YouTube Watch

The lunatic fringe is no longer a fringe on Youtube. Every wild idea you could possibly think of is out there somewhere. For example, not only is Egypt the mother of all civilizations, an idea that has been around for awhile, but today we see ancient Egyptians being cloned. There is Obama, who must be relieved to know he is an ancient Egyptian and not a Muslim. And there is Michael Jackson, who probably would make a great MTV video if he had only known his true roots. If you want more proof of the clones, just check out this Youtube video.

Yemen’s Houthis and Islamist republicanism under strain

"Arab Spring", Huthis, Sunni, Yemen, Zaydi

By Stacey Philbrick Yadav, The Monkey Cage, Washington Post, February 2

This post is part of the “Islamist Politics in the Shadow of the Islamic State” symposium.

A Houthi, an Islahi and an independent Islamist walked into a bar. Okay, actually, it was a conference room. It was 2012, and these three youth leaders from rival movements stood together across from a group of similarly diverse secular youth, debating the possibility of a madani (civil) state in Yemen built on an Islamic foundation. In that moment, they were what I call Islamist republicans, more than they were Shafai or Zaydi Muslims (let alone Sunni or Shiite), or members of any particular political organization. By this I mean that they shared an ideological convergence made possible by the upheavals of 2011. That solidarity has been largely (but not entirely) eroded by events over the past two years. But in that moment, those commitments were real and sensible in the context of Yemeni politics. The erosion of the concept of Islamist republicanism in Yemen over the past two years of “transition” has troubling implications for the ability to sustain many Yemenis’ dream of a civil state.

Yemen’s current spiraling crises can be read in light of the proxies and flows of interests outside of Yemen as much as within it. This is not to say that domestic politics aren’t primary – they establish the basic terrain of conflict, without a doubt. But since 2011, Yemen’s politics have been continually negotiated by a complex (often opaque) web of actors stretching from Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and Tehran to Washington and London. This has entailed both qualitative and quantitative shifts in the nature of foreign interest and action in Yemen, much of it driven by anxieties over or misunderstandings of Islamic republicanism. In the face of the transitional government’s resignation on Jan. 22, it became less clear than ever who is actually in charge of what in Yemen. Continue reading Yemen’s Houthis and Islamist republicanism under strain →

If Lincoln Had Seen Aladdin…

Literature, Orientalism


Grover’s Theater, Washington D.C.


[Today is Lincoln’s Birthday, but perhaps it is useful to remember his death as well…]

April 14, 1865. For Americans, at least above the Mason Dixon line, this is one of those dates that live in infamy. John Wilkes Booth, a rather bad actor on the stage, shot President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre. According to an account by Mrs. Helen Palmes Moss in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine for 1909, Lincoln had the option of going to a rival theatre, the National or Grover’s, that night where a private box had been prepared for him by Mr. C. D. Hess, the co-manager. Apparently Booth had planned to attempt the assassination at whichever theater Lincoln attended. He much preferred Ford’s, since he had no inside help at the National and would have to shoot Lincoln as he stepped out of the carriage. What does this fateful event have to do with the Middle East? If Lincoln had attended the National Theatre and J. Wilkes Booth had missed, the President would have seen a dramatization of the Arabian Nights tale ‘Aladdin.’ Would that Lincoln had been more of an Orientalist?¦ Continue reading If Lincoln Had Seen Aladdin… →

CNN on Yemen’s Border

"Arab Spring", Film and Video, Huthis, Immigration Issues, Journalism and Media, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, YouTube Watch, Zaydi

The media news network CNN sent reporter Nic Robertson to the border of Saudi Arabia and Yemen, where he was given a tour and saw several of the Yemenis caught smuggling over the border. One of the items being smuggled was qat. A young boy was given $50 to smuggle it into Saudi territory. The authorities tell him that in the past three months they captured close to half a million tons of qat worth 100 million dollars on the street. Here is one way the Huthis are getting cash. The report indicates that the Saudis are spending a lot of money to build fences and guard towers, although much of the border is so rugged it is impossible to stop everyone. Robertson is a bit overactive in his role at one point telling the Saudi interior spokesman with him that the Iranians are behind the Huthis and then saying this is what the Saudis say. I suspect it is what the Saudis say, but it was presented as a statement in the excerpt provided.

You can watch the video here in English, here in Arabic and read about it in Arabic here.

Bullfighting in the UAE

Animals, Anthropology/Sociology, Photography, United Arab Emirates

Reuters has an interesting photo essay of recent bullfighting in the UAE.

Two bulls lock their horns during a bullfight in the eastern emirate of Fujairah October 17, 2014. There are no matadors or picadors, but bulls locking horns with each other draw big crowds to bullfights in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). An hour’s drive from the dancing water fountains of Dubai’s glitzy downtown, hundreds of fans gather in Fujairah to watch bulls fighting, or perhaps more accurately head butting, with honour rather than money at stake. The UAE sport involves two bulls locking horns in a three-to-four minute Sumo-wrestling-like fight that usually ends with no bloodshed. Picture taken October 17, 2014. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah

Symposium at Berlin State Library

Conferences and Talks, Islamic Texts, Miniatures, Orientalism, Scholars


Johann Gottfried Wetzstein (1815 – 1905)

by Christoph Rauch, H-Net

Arabic manuscripts and Oriental studies: Symposium on the occasion of the 200th birthday of Johann Gottfried Wetzstein.

The international symposium “Studies on Johann Gottfried Wetzstein (1815-1905): Manuscripts, Politics and Oriental Studies” will be held at Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin from 19th to 21st February 2015. (Venue: Potsdamer Strasse 33, 10785 Berlin)

The symposium will be inaugurated Thursday, 19th February 2015, 6:00 PM with a keynote lecture by François Déroche (Paris): “The Qur’anic collections acquired by Wetzstein”; and a musical-literary program by Claudia Ott and her ensemble. Furthermore, some original documents and manuscripts related to Wetzstein will be exhibited at the opening.

If you plan to attend the conference please register before 31st January at the secretary of the Oriental Department, Mrs. Muenchow, orientabt@sbb.spk-berlin.de.

The symposium is generously supported by the Fritz Thyssen-Stiftung and the Verein der Freunde der Staatsbibliothek e.V.; and is organized in cooperation with the Oriental Institute of Leipzig University.

Here is the list of contributions in alphabetical order:

Ibrahim Akel (Paris), Wetzstein in Arabic sources and remarks on some manuscripts from his collections

Kaoukab Chebaro and Samar El Mikati El Kaissi (Beirut), Manuscript ownership and readership at the American University of Beirut at the turn of the 20th century

Alba Fedeli (Cambridge), Tischendorf and the Mingana Collection: Manuscript acquisition and Qur’ānic Studies

Ludmilla Hanisch (Berlin), Semitic studies at the University of Berlin during Wetzstein’s lifetime.

Michaela Hoffmann-Ruf (Bonn), The Wetzstein collection at Tuebingen University Library – its history, its content and its reception in Oriental Studies

Ingeborg Huhn (Berlin), Some remarks concerning the official correspondence of Johann Gottfried Wetzstein

Robert Irwin (London), The Arabist and Consul in Damascus Sir Richard Burton and the problematic nature of his translation of The Thousand and One Nights
Continue reading Symposium at Berlin State Library →