All posts by dvarisco

Tabsir Redux: Islamic Folk Astronomy, #2

Folklore and Proverbs, Islamic Sciences, Scholars

Time Reckoning

Era means a definite space of time, reckoned from the beginning of some past year, in which either a prophet, with signs and wonders, and with a proof of his divine mission, was sent, or a great and powerful king rose, or in which a nation perished by a universal destructive deluge, or by a violent earthquake and the sinking of the earth, or a sweeping pestilence, or by intense drought, or in which a change of dynasty or religion took place, or any grand event of the celestial and the famous tellurian miraculous occurrences, which do not happen save at long intervals and at times far distant from each other. Al-Bîrûnî (1879:16)

Time is relative. Given the modern world’s reliance on formalized calendars and machines that define time for us, it is easy to forget that the expansion of Islam occurred at a time when telling time was not dependent on a formal science of astronomy. How time is measured is not only a practical issue but also reflective of the desired interval of duration and the precision in defining it. Simple observation of the sun rising and setting, as well as its location, can easily yield calendars to determining hours, days, months and years. Similarly, the moon’s phases made it a useful measure for the Islamic lunar calendar. Observations of movements by the stars, as well as the planets, also provided practical ways of measuring units of time both short and long. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: Islamic Folk Astronomy, #2 →

Tabsir Redux: Islamic Folk Astronomy, #1

Folklore and Proverbs, Islamic Sciences, Qur'an


from Ibn Balkhi’s manuscript on astronomy, 850 CE

It was He that gave the sun his brightness and the moon her light, ordaining her phases that you may learn to compute the seasons and the years. He created them only to manifest the truth. He makes plain His revelation to men of understanding. Yûnus 10:9 (Dawood 1968:64)

When the Quran was revealed in seventh century Arabia as the basis for Islam, references were made to the sun, moon and stars as evidence of the creative power and practical foresight of God. The idea that God, or a particular god or goddess, had created the visible heavens was not unique. Creating stories about astronomical phenomena is as old as the first civilizations that appeared in the ancient Near East. Some of these survived, in highly edited variants, in the scriptures of Judaism and Christianity. As Muslim science evolved, a variety of religious and scientific knowledge from classical Greek texts, as well as Zoroastrian and Hindu sources, was encountered. While the influence of these classical and textual traditions on Islamic astronomy has been the focus of much previous study on the history of Islamic science, little attention has been paid to the oral folk traditions of peoples who embraced Islam. How ordinary Muslims viewed the same heavens visible to educated scientist or illiterate shepherd is the subject of this chapter. For practical reasons the focus here will be on the Middle East, especially the textual information on the pre-Islamic Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula and contemporary tribal groups in the region.

What is Islamic Folk Astronomy?

It is unfortunate that many times the idea of “folk astronomy” is understood mainly by what it is not. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: Islamic Folk Astronomy, #1 →

CUNY talk on Islam in Digital Humanities

Anthropology/Sociology, Conferences and Talks, CyberOrient, Folklore and Proverbs, Islamophobia, Yemen


Traditional Plow Agriculture in highland Yemen, for which there are many proverbs

When “Being There” is Here: An Anthropologist at Large in Digital Humanities

On Wednesday, March 5, I will be giving a talk at the CUNY Graduate Center for the Program on Religion, directed by Prof. Bryan Turner. Lunch will be served, and coffee too, of course. The talk will be in room 5307 of the Graduate Center at 34th St. and 5th Avenue, 12.30-2 (lunch served from 12.15), to discuss a topic pertinent to many disciplines.

Abstract:

The aim of this talk is to explore the role of traditional field-based ethnography in the rapidly evolving world of digital humanities. I look back on my original ethnographic fieldwork in Yemen in 1978-79, before there was an Internet or laptop computer. While technology has long been an important resource for anthropologists, the digital world allows for instantaneous contact in a way never available before. There is now a role for e-ethnography, analysis of representation and communication in cyberspace in which the field literally comes to the computer of the researcher. The talk will explore the implications of recent advances in the digital humanities on the nature and future of anthropological research.

Daniel Martin Varisco is President of the American Institute for Yemeni Studies. He is the founding editor of CyberOrient, an online journal co-sponsored by the American Anthropological Association and Charles University in Prague. His last book was Reading Orientalism: Said and the Unsaid (2007) and he is currently finishing a book titled Culture Still Matters: Notes from the Field.

Sponge Bob in Winterland

"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, Arabic Cartoons, Egypt, Film and Video, Humor and Satire, YouTube Watch

The future belongs to the young, no matter how much older generations try to shape that future. Educations plays a key role, as does the whole family context, but in the past century it is the expansion of media that has establishing a seemingly hegemonic control over the curiosity of the young. Disney launched the careers of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, not to mention the lily white Snow White or comfortably brown Bambi. In my day there was Woody Woodpecker, but my son’s generation was mesmerized by the Ninja Turtles. I have not kept up with cartoon evolution, but I had heard something about a cheesy character named Sponge Bob. It seems that there are many episodes of Sponge Bob available in Arabic on Youtube. The image above is from an adventure in a hibernating-bear-in-an-igloo winterland.

I have seen Arabic translations of Western and Japanese cartoon shows before, and anthropologist Mark Peterson has written a fascinating ethnography (Connected in Cairo: Growing Up Cosmopolitan in the Modern Middle East, Indiana University Press 2011) about the Pokemon phenomenon and other comic characters in Cairo. It is important to remember that the urban generation that has taken to the streets in the Arab Spring and lives and dies through the social media has also been brought up in a steady diet of cartoons, both comic books and videos. While academics have been arguing over the impact of erudite Orientalism, there is a far more potent source influencing the thought of the young: I call this “cartoonality,” the shaping of opinion through fictional non-human or ultra-human cartoon characters. Continue reading Sponge Bob in Winterland →

Yemeni Federalism: The Fix is Six

"Arab Spring", Aden, Ali Abdullah Salih, Development, Huthis, Sanaa, Tihama, Yemen

Yemen is about to shrink administratively, but there is hope for a resolution of the ongoing insecurity in the wake of the Arab spring toppling of Ali Abdullah Salih, who ruled Yemen for more than three decades. One result of the National Dialogue Conference is a recommendation that Yemen become a federalist state with six regions to replace the former major regional units. As described in the official Saba News agency of the Yemeni government, the existing governorates would be assigned as follows:

• Hadramout will include al-Mahra, Hadramawt, Shabwa and Socotra, with al-Muklâ as its capital.

• Saba will include al-Jawf, Ma’rib and Al-Baydha, with Marib as its capital.

• Aden will comprise Aden, Abyan, Lahj and Dhala‘, with the capital in Aden.

• Janad will comprise Taiz and Ibb, with Taiz as a capital.

• Azal will consist of Sa‘da, San‘a, Amran and Dhamar with the capital to be determined within the former San‘a governorate, but not San‘a city.

• Tihama will include al-Hudayda, Rayma, al-Mahwit and Hajja with its capital in the city of al-Hudayda.

For those who prefer to see the divisions in Arabic, here they are:

الإقليم الأول: محافظات المهرة حضرموت شبوة سقطرى، ويسمى إقليم «حضرموت» وعاصمته المكلا.

الإقليم الثاني: محافظات الجوف مارب البيضاء، ويسمى إقليم «سبأ» وعاصمته «سبأ».

الإقليم الثالث: محافظات عدن ابين لحج الضالع، ويسمى إقليم «عدن» وعاصمته عدن.

الإقليم الرابع: محافظتا تعز إب ويسمى إقليم «الجند» وعاصمته تعز.

الإقليم الخامس: محافظات صعدة صنعاء عمران ذمار، ويسمى إقليم «آزال» وعاصمته صنعاء.

الإقليم السادس: محافظات الحديدة ريمة المحويت حجة، ويسمى إقليم «تهامة» وعاصمته الحديدة.

The plan also calls for the city of San‘a being an independent capital area, perhaps like the District of Columbia in the United States, to guarantee its impartiality. Its geographical extent will be increased by some 40 percent. Aden will also have special status as an economic zone and its geographical extent as a city enlarged. Continue reading Yemeni Federalism: The Fix is Six →

Huthis vs. Hashid

"Arab Spring", Ali Abdullah Salih, Huthis, Terrorism Issue, Tribalism, Yemen


Embattled residence of Husayn al-Ahmar

I wish this was a commentary about rival football clubs in Yemen, but it is not. The news this morning is that Huthi forces have battled the tribal guard of the al-Ahmar clan, specifically the home of Husayn of al-Ahmar. Husayn is the son of the late Abdullah al-Ahmar, who passed away in 2007 but had been paramount shaykh of Hashid since the execution of his father by Imam Ahmad. Before the revolution that toppled the Zaydi imamate, the two tribal confederations of Hashid and Bakil were said to be the wings of the imamate, cautiously manipulated by the last dynasty of Zaydi imams in the north. While tribal identity, and more importantly tribal values embedded in an honor code of qabyala, is still of major importance in Yemen today, the importance of Hashid and Bakil as major political blocks has weakened. This is due in part to the efforts of Ali Abdullah Salih, Yemen’s last president, to create loyalty to his regime. But it is also a result of imported views of Islam, including the Saudi-funded Salafis.

Yemen is beset with internal strife, fueled in large part by outside interests. The recent National Dialogue Conference has recommended a resolution to the current political stalemate along the lines of a federalist state. The expansion of Huthi influence closer to the capital may be part of the jousting for position in determining the boundaries of new federal states. Whatever the reason, this escalation of violence only exacerbates the tension that exists between Yemenis in various regions. Assassinations now seem to be almost a daily occurrence and Yemen’s economy has ground to a standstill. It is reported that the agricultural lands near Sa’da have been destroyed due to the fighting there between the Huthis and their foes, both the military excursions that Salih sent and the Salafis based in Dammaj. In this unrest, the feeble AQAP is able to operate with virtual impunity, despite the continued use of drones to target suspected terrorists.

The Riya-lity of Power

"Arab Spring", Ali Abdullah Salih, Ethics, Journalism and Media, Syria, Yemen

Michel Foucault, the French philosopher/historian, is oft quoted for equating knowledge (savoir) with power (pouvoir). Thanks to investigative reporting by Yemeni journalists, we now have knowledge about how Ali Abdullah Salih, the former President of Yemen, used his power to create riyal-ity, that is fabulous wealth skimmed off Yemen’s oil revenues in riyals. As reported in Yemen Press, Salih funneled millions of his wealth to the United Arab Emirates, also having villas built for his family. He has also distributed his vast wealth, as yet unaccounted for, to Morocco, France, Germany and Italy. It is reported that he did not use his own name, but those of family members.

So what else is new? Dictators, like kings and sultans of the past, have always enriched themselves while poor people starved on the streets. The more power tends to be absolute,or near absolute, the more the coffers get filled. Mamluk sultans in Egypt would periodically sack wealthy officials or merchants just to absorb their wealth. While most contemporary states have safeguards to prevent wholesale laundering of a country’s wealth, dictators generally define their own rules. While Asad hangs on to power in embattled Syria, there are no doubt several bank accounts full of cash if he ends up being forced out.

While it is true that there are various kinds of power, positive as well as negative, economics trumps the abstract notion of knowledge. Greed explains more than prejudice, although the two generally go hand in hand. Yemen is a special case in the seasonal shift following the Arab Spring. Continue reading The Riya-lity of Power →

Hawks before the War on Terror

Animals, Contemporary Art


“The Start: Arabs Setting out with Falcons to Course Gazelles. It is difficult to tell just when hawking began. The Arabs, perhaps as early as any other people, trained certain hawks to course the swift desert game. In coursing gazelles, three, five or more hawks are used, and the aid of dogs is required for the actual kill, the hawks worrying and bewildering the game until the dogs can catch up. These hawks are always fed from the eye-sockets of a calf’s head, and naturally turn to this spot in their living quarry. There is great danger that the hawks may be impaled on the horns of the gazelle.

In leafing through a vintage National Geographic Magazine from December, 1920, I came across an article entitled “Falconry, the Sport of Kings” by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, who also drew the paintings included with his text. Falconry, as Fuertes writes, was far more than the sport of kings: “A vast impetus was given to falconry by the returning crusaders, who had become familiar with the methods of the Orient and had brought with them both falcons and trainers. War lords never left their courts without their falconers and a cadge of hawks, to be flown at anything that might be deemed worthy.” The author noted that hunting with falcons was greatly curtailed after the introduction of guns, but continued as a sport. But he wrote just after the Great War, now known as World War I, had ended, and hoped that some of the “less serious pursuits” like falconry would be revived. Although his article does not discuss the falconry of the Middle East in any detail, it does provide two illustrations, which I provide above and below.


This is one of the most thrilling of all uses of the falcon, for the chase often continues for many miles over the rough desert, where only the stanchest horse can follow. The size and stamina of the quarry, combined with the habit of fleet running instead of flying, make it hard as well as dangerous for the little lanner falcon to kill, as there is so little space to turn away from the ground after the stroke.