Category Archives: Folklore and Proverbs

Manure Matters

Agriculture, Animals, Books You Should Read, Folklore and Proverbs, Languages


Shit happens but Manure Matters. The latter is the title of a recently published anthology, edited by Richard Jones for Ashgate with details about the historical use of manure in Europe, India and the Arab World. My own contribution to the volume is entitled “Zibl and Zirā‘a: Coming to Terms with Manure in Arab Agriculture,” (pp. 129-143).

Here is the description of the book, as posted on Ashgate’s website:

This book brings together the work of a group of international scholars working on social, cultural, and economic issues relating to past manure and manuring. Contributors use textual, linguistic, archaeological, scientific and ethnographic evidence as the basis for their analyses. The scope of the papers is temporally and geographically broad; they span the Neolithic through to the modern period and cover studies from the Middle East, Britain and Atlantic Europe, and India. Together they allow us to explore the signatures that manure and manuring have left behind, and the vast range of attitudes that have surrounded both substance and activity in the past and present.

Contents: Why manure matters, Richard Jones; Science and practice: the ecology of manure in historical retrospect, Robert Shiel; Middening and manuring in Neolithic Europe: issues of plausibility, intensity and archaeological method, Amy Bogaard; (Re)cycles of life in late Bronze Age southern Britain, Kate Waddington; Organic geochemical signatures of ancient manure use, Ian Bull and Richard Evershed; Dung and stable manure on waterlogged archaeological occupation sites: some ruminations on the evidence from plant and invertebrate remains, Harry Kenward and Allan Hall; Manure and middens in English place-names, Paul Cullen and Richard Jones; The formation of anthropogenic soils across three marginal landscapes on Fair Isle and in The Netherlands and Ireland, Ben Pears; Zibl and zira’a: coming to terms with manure in Arab agriculture, Daniel Varisco; Understanding medieval manure, Richard Jones; Lost soles: ethnographic observations on manuring practices in a Mediterranean community, Hamish Forbes; Manure, soil and the Vedic literature: agricultural knowledge and practice on the Indian subcontinent over the last two millennia, Vanaja Ramprasad; Postscript, Richard Jones; Bibliography; Index.

Prologue to Ozymandias

Books You Should Read, Folklore and Proverbs, Islamic History, Literature, Poetry


The fall of the dictators still echoes across North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, with Syria’s Asad teetering at the brink. Mubarak, Qaddafi and Ali Abdullah Salih join the legion of past icons of unchecked power. Pharaohs and kings, caliphs and sultans, whether the divine myth of rule or the blatant Machiavellian Leviathan: oh how the mighty have fallen. No poem seems more poignant to capture the moment that Shelley’s timeless take on Ozymandias:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away”.

But the fantasized Ozymandias has a prologue, in Arabic graffiti and belles lettres. The entertaining text, today as ever before, known as The Book of Strangers and attributed to Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani, reports the handwriting on the wall when the walls come tumbling down. An anecdote related by an old secretary tells of an inscription on the wall of a palace built by the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil:

Money was spent and used up
and buildings were erected for fate to destroy.
When they arrived at the peak of their kingship,
a caravan leader cried out that it was time for the grave,
and he emptied the palaces, giving no respite to either the powerful or the oppressed.

Continue reading Prologue to Ozymandias →

Falconry and Chicanery

Animals, Folklore and Proverbs, Qatar


The hunting trip is a time when falconers night spend up to six weeks away from their homes, families and business in the desert. These days the trip need no longer be frugal and it is possible to provide every comfort.

So writes the Qatari veterinarian Faris al-Timimi in his 1987 book Falcons & Falconry in Qatar (Doha: Ali bin Ali Press). I met Dr. al-Timimi in 1988, when I was conducting research in Qatar on the seasonal almanac knowledge of the Gulf. He showed me some of his prized falcons and explained the long established practice of hunting with falcons in Qatar. At that time a superb falcon might be worth $30,000, so I can only imagine what a prize falcon would sell for in today’s commercially enhanced Qatar. Unlike many other sports, where the animals are domesticated and, in Darwinian terms, bred for the task, the best hunting birds are said to be those captured young in the wild. Those that are captured and kept for a future hunting season are those who excel at catching the bustard (Chlamydotis undulata), known in Arabic as the houbara.

There is a rich literature on Arab falconry,known as bayzara in Arabic. In his 10th century bibliographic survey of Arabic books, Ibn al-Nadīm listed ten books on the subject, in addition to the numerous references that would have been found in other kinds of texts. Today both texts and videos are only a click away in cyberspace, including sites devoted specifically to falcon hunting in Qatar. Al-Jazeera recently posted a photographic montage on the most recent hunting expeditions in Qatar. In addition to the use of falcons, followed by high-speed cars rather than racing camels, there is the use of hunting dogs. While the trajectory of a falcon on its prey is purely natural, the sport of hunting dogs has reached a true dog-days syndrome, as an contraption-bound gazelle along a mechanical path substitutes for the open range, the host of SUVs spurting up dust. I do not doubt that Abbasid princes or Mamluk sultans would have adopted the same vehicular superiority, if they had known it, but there is something pitiful about an animal trapped in a mechanical game that does not give the prey a sporting chance.

For a set of extraordinary pictures by photographer Matthew Cassel on falcon hunting in Qatar al-Jazeera, click here.

Daniel Martin Varisco

Tabsir Redux: Resolving the New Year

Folklore and Proverbs, Food and Drink, Travel


Wilfrid Scawn Blunt, left; Mark Twain, right

There is a curious annual custom inherited in many of our families, but one I am resolved not to take too seriously this year. I refer to the half-drunk notion of making resolutions for the new year (which I see no sound reason to capitalize, as my German blood is very far removed), as though the arbitrary turning of the calendar is a time to reflect on what went wrong over the last 365 days and pretend that things should go better in the next eighteen and a quarter score days. I have heard the rural urban tale that the pin-up 19th century cowgirl sharpshooter Annie Oakley started the custom of sending out Christmas Cards, but I am not sure which genius came up with penning new year’s resolutions, unless it was Johnny Walker in one of his more sober moments. Most people, and I surely fall into this anomalous category, do not remember the resolutions made a year ago. But then most godfearing redneck Americans could not repeat the 10 Commandments in order to save their souls, unless perhaps they were dead drunk. So my re-solution, since it is the defacto one I have been following for quite a few years, is to resolve to forget any resolution before I even make one. This saves me from having to make up a resolution, which is the same as making as silly a resolution as I can imagine.

I am not the first person to take aim at this impotent cultural pastime which has long since ceased to have any influence on what people really do. Mark Twain said it well over a century and a half ago:

New Year’s Day–Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: Resolving the New Year →

Authenticity, Identity and the Spirit of the UAE Union

Anthropology/Sociology, Folklore and Proverbs, Food and Drink, Music and Dance, United Arab Emirates


Spirit of the Union (UAE)

by el-Sayed el-Aswad, United Arab Emirates University

Over the past forty years there have been rapid transformations of the United Arab Emirates from rural and tribal communities to modern national states. Such transformations raise critical concerns related to authenticity, heritage, and social memory and identity construction. Heritage, indicating past and authentic lifestyles that people use in the construction of their identity, can be redefined according to a modern significance. Identity refers to the continuity of inherent constituents that last through all the various transformations individuals might undergo. Identity is not a given, but an ongoing activity that people engage in all the time.

In the UAE one observes continuous negotiations over ideas of authenticity, tradition, identity, modernity, leadership, and local-national performances. For example, this year the UAE is celebrating its 40th anniversary in terms of authenticity. The official site of the UAE National Day, “Spirit of the Union”, includes such phrase as “Our Heritage, Our Pride,” “the Union shall forever remain,” and “It is the Spirit of the Union that celebrates our culture and heritage, and yet shapes our future.”

Tradition is negotiated because it enters into the construction of social identity that is based on the concept of authenticity (aṣāla). For the Emirates, aṣāla (or aṣīl) is a multiple meaning concept that can imply values of rootedness, descent, origin, nobility, honor, self-sufficiency and social status. Authenticity also refers to good manners of people, men and women, defining gender relations. Continue reading Authenticity, Identity and the Spirit of the UAE Union →

11/11/11

Books You Should Read, Folklore and Proverbs, Islamic Sciences


Ah the magic of numbers. Today we can triple our numeratic pleasure as the 11s line up like a row of ducks. The esoteric knowledge of the symbolism of numbers stretches across time and cultures. Some numbers are wildly popular, such as the trinity (where three is not a crowd but a godhead), the dreaded three 6s (which Michele Bachman recently used to tax the imagination of Herman Cain), the nines (addressed to those who are well dressed), the decidedly decimal tens (from Moses to metrics), and the well disciplined 12s (for which the jury is never out). But, what about that rather odd dual digit number 11? Apart from a painting of The Last Supper with Judas out of the room, when was the last time you thought of 11 of anything? Well, if you like bad horror movies that stroke biblical demons to death, try out the film 11/11/11.

To the Kabbalists no stone can be left unturned and no number uninterpreted. In her fascinating book, The Mystery of Numbers (Oxford University Press, 1993), Annemarie Schimmel devotes only a mere three pages to the semiotics of 11. As she notes, “Larger than 10 and smaller than 12, it stands between 2 very important round numbers and therefore, while every other number has at least one positive aspect, 11 was always interpreted in medieval exegesis ad malam partem, in a purely negative sense.” For medieval Christians 11 was the number of sinners, not the total number of course, but the curse of going beyond the 10 commandments and not reaching the 12 disciples.

In Islamic texts Schimmel only notes that the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-Safa) also thought of 11 as negative and as a “mute” number. But for those who love conspiracy theories, here is one that is too precious not to repeat:

1) New York City has 11 letters
2) Afghanistan has 11 letters.
3) Ramsin Yuseb (The terrorist who threatened to destroy the Twin Towers in 1993) has 11 letters.
4) George W Bush has 11 letters.

This could be a mere coincidence, but this gets more interesting:

1) New York is the 11th state.
2) The first plane crashing against the Twin Towers was flight number 11.
3) Flight 11 was carrying 92 passengers. 9 + 2 = 11
4) Flight 77 which also hit Twin Towers , was carrying 65
passengers. 6+5 = 11
5) The tragedy was on September 11, or 9/11 as it is now known. 9 + 1+ 1 =
11
6) The date is equal to the US emergency services telephone number 911. 9 +
1 + 1 = 11

Sheer coincidence. .?! Read on and make up your own mind:

1) The total number of victims inside all the hi-jacked planes was 254. 2 +
5 + 4 = 11.
2) September 11 is day number 254 of the calendar year. Again 2 + 5 + 4 = 11.
3) The Madridbombing took place on 3/11/2004. 3 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 4 = 11.
4) The tragedy of Madrid happened 911 days after the Twin Towers incident.

Now this is where things get totally eerie:

The most recognized symbol for the US , after the Stars & Stripes, is the Eagle. The following verse is taken from the Quran, the Islamic holy book:

“For it is written that a son of Arabia would awaken a fearsome Eagle. The wrath of the Eagle would be felt throughout the lands of Allah while some of the people trembled in despair still more rejoiced: for the wrath of the Eagle cleansed the lands of Allah and there was peace.” That verse is number 9.11 of the Quran.

Still unconvinced about all of this..?! Try this and see how you feel afterwards, it made my hair stand on end:

Open Microsoft Word and do the following:
1. Type in capitals Q33 NY. This is the flight number of the first plane to hit one of the Twin Towers.*
2. Highlight the Q33 NY.
3. Change the font size to 48.
4. Change the actual font to the WINGDINGS.

Nice try, but the real Quranic 9:11 flies in the face of this scenario: “And if they turn to God, keep up the prayer, and pay the prescribed alms, then they are your brothers in faith.” Oops, this hardly seems like a call for aerial jihad. But 11/11/11 mongers have even prompted Egyptian authorities to close the Khufu pyramid for fear of Masonic rites there.

And you thought 11 was a rather harmless number… But, perhaps the last word about 11 should be the most sporting one. A soccer team, anyone? And, to top the hat trick, German goalkeepers are said to call the penalty kick an Elfmeter (11 meters).

Tabsir Redux: With Ratzel in North Africa

Anthropology/Sociology, Folklore and Proverbs, Lithographs, Morocco

One of the most important German geographers of the late 19th century was Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904), whose three-volume Völkerkunde (Leipzig and Vienna, Bibliographisches Institut, 1890) is one of those encyclopedia cultural accounts that circulated just as the discipline of anthropology was getting off (in this case literally “on”) the ground. While now a text for curiosity rather than critical scholarship on peoples and cultures, Ratzel’s work is still a fascinating portrayal of cultures being colonized for both revealing the biases of the day and the then-contemporary illustrations of people and material culture. My university library recently divested itself of uncirculated books in storage and one of these was an 1890 edition of the third volume on “Die Kulturvölker der Alten und Neuen Welt.” Whether it was the eye-watering althochdeutsch script of the volume or the mere fact it was written in German, no student or professor at Hofstra ever checked this volume out.

In salvaging a third of Ratzel’s opus for a mere dollar, I could not help but be drawn to the illustrations, mostly lithographs but with a few beautiful color plates. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: With Ratzel in North Africa →