Category Archives: Countries

In Memoriam: Selma Al-Radi

Archaeology and Antiquities, Scholars, Yemen


Dr. Selma Al-Radi, the Iraqi project director who restored the Amiriya complex in Rada, Yemen, over a 26 year period, receiving her 2007 Aga Khan Award for Architecture. The winners are being congratulated by Malaysian Prime Minister Badawi and His Highness the Aga Khan. Photo credit: AKDN/Gary Otte

Selma Al-Radi died peacefully at her home in New York City on October 7, 2010. She was 71 and was surrounded by family and friends. Often described as “a force of nature” by many, she was slowly robbed of that energy by her Alzheimer’s affliction, leaving a ruin that was rapidly demolished by ovarian cancer in a little over a year after symptoms were first detected.

Selma was born on 23 July 1939 in Baghdad and grew up in many countries but largely in Iran and India where her father served as the Iraqi Ambassador for a number of years. She graduated from Cambridge University in Archaeology and Ancient Semitic Languages, and earned her Master’s degree at Columbia where she came under the influence of her lifelong mentor, the late Dr. Edith Porada. She obtained her PhD at the University of Amsterdam but remained under the mentorship of Dr. Porada along with Dr. Maurits van Loon. Her thesis work focused on a Neolithic site in Cyprus (Phlamoudhi Vounari).

A consummate “dirt” archaeologist, working mainly on excavations in the field, Selma excavated on sites in most of the Middle East including Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Kuwait, Egypt, and Yemen. But Yemen was where she would spend much of her career. Continue reading In Memoriam: Selma Al-Radi →

Nawal El Saadawi on Osama Bin Laden

Afghanistan, Gender and Sexuality, Osama Bin Laden


Nawal El Saadawi


Nawal El Saadawi: Leftist support of Taliban is short-sighted

by Sahar Saba, Viewpoint, Pakistan, September 10, 2010

Award-winning Egyptian writer and feminist Nawal El Saadawi hardly deserves an introduction. Author of over forty books—-translated to over 30 languages—-she has inspired women all over the world but particularly in Muslim world with her writings as well as courageous struggle against obscurantism. She has faced threats to her life, was fired from job by Egyptian authorities and imprisoned, has seen her books banned, even went in exile but has been steadfast and vocal when it comes to women rights and socialism.

Sahar Saba: Osama bin Laden’s act nine years ago became instantly popular all over the Muslim world. Now after nine years, in your assessment, how has the Muslim/Arab world benefitted or suffered as a result of September 11?

Nawal El Saadawi: After nine years of September 11, nobody has benefitted from Sept 11 except global and local powers who started the colonial oil war and triggered religious conflicts in the Arab region. Continue reading Nawal El Saadawi on Osama Bin Laden →

A Comic Approach to Tragedy

Indonesia, Literature, Terrorism Issue


A novel, even comic, approach to combating terrorist acts by extremist Muslims in South Asia is currently underway in Indonesia. This is a comic book about Ali Imran, who engineered the 2002 bombing of a hotel in Bali. Through the life story of the bomber, the story urges young Muslims not to be duped by anyone praising suicide bombing as an Islamic duty. For a video account of the book on Al Jazeera, click here.

Spiritual Malaria?

Ethics, Islamic Law, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Wahhabi


by Nadeem F. Paracha, blog.dawn.com, July 1
 
A recent fatwa from a ‘Saudi Council of Muftis’ has this advice for fellow
Muslims: Do not say [or write] ‘mosque.’ Always say ‘masjid’ because mosque
may mean mosquito. Another myopic case of Saudi malaria perhaps?

Certainly. But that’s not all. The grand fatwa goes on to suggest that
Muslims should not write ‘Mecca’ but Makkah, because Mecca may mean ‘house
of wines.’ I am serious. But then so are the Muftis. They certainly need to
get a life.

But I’m not all that surprised by such fatwas that usually emanate from
Saudi Arabia. While vicious reactionary literature originating in
totalitarian puritanical Muslim states impact and mutate the political
bearings of various religious parties and groups in Pakistan, ‘social
fatwas’ like the one mentioned above also began appearing in the early 1980s
to influence the more apolitical sections of Muslim societies.

Reactionary literature generated by the Saudi propaganda machine started
being distributed in Pakistan from 1979 onwards, mostly in the shape of
pamphlets and books.

Duly translated into Urdu, they glorify and propagate violent action (jihad)
not only against non-Muslims (or infidels) but also against those Muslims
who fail to follow the thorny dictates of a certain puritanical strain of
the faith. Continue reading Spiritual Malaria? →

Leaves from an old Bible Atlas #5

Bible and Holy Land, Orientalism, Photography, Syria


Hurlbutt’s Atlas, p. 118


Athens, Hurlbutt’s Atlas, p. 119

The Christian fascination with the Holy Land as a window into interpretation of the Bible has a long and indeed fascinating history of its own. Here I continue the thread on Jesse Lyman Hurlbutt’s A Bible Atlas (New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1947, first published in 1882). One of the interesting aspects of the accompanying illustrations is the sense that what you see in the photograph is essentially unchanged from the days of Paul’s missionary journeys. Both these images appear to have been taken before the turn of the 20th century.

To be continued …

UN Fact-Finding Mission Says Israelis “Executed” US Citizen Furkan Dogan

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Israel, Journalism and Media, Obama Administration, Palestine, Turkey


Furkan Dogan, a 19-year-old US citizen of Turkish descent, was aboard the Mavi Marmara when he was killed by Israeli commandos. (Photo: freegazaorg; Edited: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)

by Gareth Porter, t r u t h o u t Monday 27 September 2010

The report of the fact-finding mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla released last week shows conclusively, for the first time, that US citizen Furkan Dogan and five Turkish citizens were murdered execution-style by Israeli commandos.

The report reveals that Dogan, the 19-year-old US citizen of Turkish descent, was filming with a small video camera on the top deck of the Mavi Marmara when he was shot twice in the head, once in the back and in the left leg and foot and that he was shot in the face at point blank range while lying on the ground.

The report says Dogan had apparently been “lying on the deck in a conscious or semi-conscious, state for some time” before being shot in his face. Continue reading UN Fact-Finding Mission Says Israelis “Executed” US Citizen Furkan Dogan →

Art Territories

Contemporary Art, Egypt, Orientalist Art, Photography, Teaching Resources

Check out this new website, initiated by Ursula Biemann and Shuruq Harb, this month: “ArtTerritories is conceived as an independent platform for artists, thinkers, researchers and curators to reflect on their art practice and engage in critical exchange on matters of art and visual culture in the Middle East and the Arab World. Dedicated to the interview format, the initiative encourages discussion of artistic process with an emphasis on discursive art and media practices, collaborative initiatives, and cultural and institutional politics. ArtTerritories aims to define, connect and expand already existing art communities in the region as well as an ever-growing invested international arts community.”


Photograph by Ahmad Hosni, from his Go Down, Moses project

The following is a sample of an interview with photographer Ahmad Hosni.

Ursula: The book is the result of intense but somewhat undirected exposure to desert experience with its chance encounters, local stories and tourist ethnographies, tinted by a literary reading of an eclectic range of writers, some of whom are discussed in the book. Continue reading Art Territories →