In 1991 while on a World Bank consultancy in Aden, I had an opportunity to visit al-Shihr on the Hadrami coast. Here are some scenes from that trip.
Monument to honor the revolution against the British occupation
Youtube has quite a few old Egyptian films with music, dancing, the colorful Egyptian dialect and some very strange plots. Baba ‘Aris is well worth watching… For details on the film, click here.
A beautiful song by Mahmoud Darwish, sung by the Palestinian Nai Barghouti.
There is a fascinating talk on Youtube by Travis Zadeh on marvels and wonders in Islamic texts, especially the many versions of al-Qazwini.
There is an early 1920 video on Youtube with views of agriculture, bread making, spinning and weaving in Egypt at the time. No details are provided on the Youtube page.
There is a recent article in the Arab News on the Al-Khalidi library in Jerusalem.
You can also visit the website of the library here. I attach the description from the library website. There are several online works in Arabic by Tarif Khalidi.
“The Khalidi Library (Al Khalidiyya), established in Jerusalem in 1900 by Haj Raghib al Khalidi (d.1951), is the first Arab public library established by private initiative in Palestine. The Khalidiyya is located in the Old City of Jerusalem in Tariq Bab al Silsilah about 150 yards away from Bab al Silsilah, one of the main gates to al Haram al Sharif. The Khalidiyya contains the largest private collection of Arabic manuscripts in Palestine and one of the largest such collections in the world. The Khalidiyya MS holdings contain approximately 1200 titles, the oldest of which is about 1000 years old, while its printed collection, mostly of 19th century vintage, contain around 5,500 volumes. In addition there is a massive archival corpus of family papers going back to the early 18thCentury.”
