Category Archives: Countries

The Land and the Book #4: Bringing in the Sheaves

Bible and Holy Land, Lithographs, Orientalism, Palestine


Threshing Sledge or Mowrej from Thomson’s “The Land and the Book”, p. 540

Almost 150 years ago one of the most popular travel accounts of the Holy Land was penned by an American missionary named William M. Thomson. Born in Ohio, my own home state, the 28-year old Thomson and his young bride arrived in Lebanon in 1834 as Protestant missionaries. This was a mere 15 or so years after the first American missionaries had made the Holy Land a mission field. At once an entertaining travel account and Sunday School commentary on the places and people of the Bible, this may have been one the most widely read books ever written by a Protestant missionary.


Reading Thomson is like reading one of the early English novels. The language is less familiar, although still thoroughly Yankee and the devotional tone has long since disappeared for a readership buying out The Da Vinci Code as soon as it hit the bookstores. The biblical exegesis, literalist yet frankly pragmatic at times, is intertwined with astute and at times humorous accounts of the people Thomson met along the way. But the style is not at all dry or discouragingly didactic. From the start Thomson engages in a dialogue with the reader, making the text (which stretches over 700 pages in the 1901 version) a rhetorical trip in itself.

While hardly free from Yankee hubris and missionary zeal, Thomson’s observations are often useful as well as colorful, especially when accompanied by illustrations. Consider, for example, this description of threshing on a visit to Yebna, about three and a half hours from Haifa through Wadi Hanayn in Palestine: Continue reading The Land and the Book #4: Bringing in the Sheaves →

Bury on Yemen

Aden, Travel, Yemen

[Note: One of the early 19th century travelers to Yemen was the British birder G. Wyman Bury. His Arabia Infelix, or The Turks in Yamen (London: MacMillan, 1915) is a personal and informative account of his visit to the southern part of Yemen, especially Aden and its hinterlands. Near the end of his book, he discusses the political climate of his day, when Britain was firmly in control of Aden as part of its Indian Empire. Clearly biased in favor of his own British order, there is nevertheless a note of irony for a country which until this day has yet to attain stability.]

The Yameni is not fanatical. He has his own religious views, but realizes, from the sects into which his own people are divided, that there are at least two sides to every religious question.

He is a patriot ; and who, indeed, could help loving a country like the highlands of Yamen, in spite of past and present woes ? His patriotism, however, does not blind him to the fact that his local rulers have done and can do little for the welfare of his country. He would gladly throw off his present yoke for any change of government that promised more stability. Continue reading Bury on Yemen →

Acid Pain

Bangladesh, Ethics, Gender and Sexuality


Twenty six year old Saira Liaqat poses for the camera, while holding a picture of her former self before her betrothed doused her face with acid.


Scarred by acid in Bangladesh

By Nicolas Haque in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Al-Jazeera, July 11, 2009

Rahima Begum, a young woman in the village of Kaligonj in the northwest of Bangladesh, turned down the romantic advances of a neighbour and paid dearly for it.

In the dead of night, while she was asleep, her neighbour poured acid over her face, leaving her disfigured for life.

“I may be still alive but he took my life away, I have become the shame of my family and of my village. I have no where to go,” she says.

According to official figures, there are only around 200 acid-related crimes reported every year in Bangladesh. Continue reading Acid Pain →

A Poet’s Recipe

Books You Should Read, Food and Drink, Iraq, Miniatures


A host tending to the needs of his guests, Maqâmât al-Harîrî, 1236 CE

As richly illustrated in Geert Jan van Gelder’s delightul God’s Banquet: Food in Classical Arabic Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), Arab poets loved food and wrote extensively on the adab of cuisine. There are poems devoted to specific foods, but even a few recipes for the cook with a wit as well as a greasy thumb. Here is van Gelder’s translation of a recipe poem by the Baghdadi poet Kushajim (died 961 CE):

You have asked me about the best of dishes:
You’ve asked today someone who is not ignorant!
Now take, my friend, some ribs of meat,
And after that some meat of leg, and fat,
And chop some fat and succulent meat
And rinse it with sweet and clear water. Continue reading A Poet’s Recipe →

Healing Herbs in Yemen

Anthropology/Sociology, Conferences and Talks, Food and Drink, Islamic Law, Islamic Texts, Scholars, Yemen


Aloe and Opuntia (balas Turkî) in al-Ahjur, central highlands of Yemen

Today I am flying on Lufthansa to Leipzig, and then on to Halle Wittenberg for a conference called “The use of herbs in Yemeni healing practices. An interdisciplinary workshop on traditional knowledge and cultural concepts in scientific perspective.“ The conference takes place September 25-26, 2009 at the Orientwissenschaftliches Zentrum , Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. It has been funded by the Royal Ontario Museum Foundation, Ryerson University (both Toronto/Canada), and Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. Click here for the order of the program.

The organizers are Dr Hanne Schönig (Orientwissenschaftliches Zentrum
Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, homepage: http://www.owz.uni-halle.de/owz.php?pid=2) and Dr Ingrid Hehmeyer (Department of History, Ryerson University, Toronto, homepage: http://www.ryerson.ca/history/faculty/Hehmeyeri.html) and Dr Anne Regourd, Collaborateur Scientifique, Dept of Islamic arts, Musée du Louvre, Paris – France, homepage: http://www.anne.regourd.org.

The conference participants and papers are noted below: Continue reading Healing Herbs in Yemen →

Bani Hushaysh Archaeology

Archaeology and Antiquities, Yemen

Archeological sites in Bani Hushaish suffer from vandalism

by Mansur Ali al-Muntasir, Yemen Observer, February 3, 2009

The Bani Hushaish district in the Sana’a governorate is 30 km east of the capital, and contains several important archeological sites.

Yemen has a great wealth of ancient archeological sites many of which date as far back as the pre-Islamic era and many more site which are still waiting to be discovered and documented. There is a fear though amongst the Yemen’s archeological establishment that without adequate protection and preservation much of Yemen’s historical record could be lost to natural and human damage. This article seeks to highlight the richness of Yemen’s archeological heritage and the need to preserve and document such heritage for future generations.

The most important of the discovered archeological sites is in Shibam al-Ghras, where several mummies were found. The district contains several other neglected sites, which have not yet been identified by archeological authorities. This is disturbing; as these sites have been damaged as a result of official negligence, and a lack of public awareness about their value and importance to Yemeni heritage. Continue reading Bani Hushaysh Archaeology →

MECA Study Day at Hofstra

Anthropology/Sociology, Architecture, Central Asia, Conferences and Talks, Egypt, Gender and Sexuality, Iran, Islam in America, Jordan, Literature

Hofstra University Announces Middle Eastern and Central Asian Study Day
A Series of Presentations Focused on Faculty Research

Who: Hofstra faculty who have conducted research on Middle Eastern and Central Asian (MECA) studies
What: MECA Study Day
When: September 16, 2009
Where: 310 C.V. Starr Hall and 117 Berliner Hall, South Campus
Why: To highlight and learn about the research Hofstra faculty have done on MECA studies

Hofstra faculty from a variety of departments such as fine art, art history, anthropology, history, comparative literature, economics, political science and religious studies will give presentations on their research in MECA studies. Topics from their research will include archeology, women’s issues, history and the contemporary Middle Eastern and Central Asian world. These talks are free and open to the public.

MECA Schedule

Western and Central Asia in the Middle Ages
9:30 – 11:15 a.m., C.V. Starr Hall, 310
Moderator: Dr. Stefanie Nanes, Department of Political Science

• Greeting by Dr. Bernard Firestone, Dean of Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
• Opening remarks by Dr. Daniel Martin Varisco, Department of Anthropology

• Dr. Aleksandr Naymark, Department of Fine Arts/Art History
Amazing Sogdians: Masters and Creatures of the Silk Road

• Dr. Anna Feuerbach, Department of Anthropology
The Damascus Steel Sword

• Dr. Daniel Martin Varisco, Department of Anthropology
The Sultan’s Green Thumb: Yemeni Agriculture in the 14th Century Continue reading MECA Study Day at Hofstra →