Here is a postcard from a century ago entitled “Arab on Camel … BAGDAD.” I guess for the postcard title writer, a camel rider outside the city of Baghdad might as well be down town. But one wonders why the title was even needed. Where else would the person receiving the postcard at the time have imagined an “Arab” would be?
World’s First Camel-Milk Chocolates Going Global
Asharq Alawsat, July 22, 2009
DUBAI (Reuters) – Dubai’s Al Nassma, the world’s first brand of chocolate made with camels’ milk, is in talks to expand into new Arab markets, Europe, Japan and the United States, its general manager said Tuesday.
Martin Van Almsick said the United Arab Emirates company planned to enter Saudi Arabia first, followed by Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United States within the next few months.
Al Nassma is also in talks with British department store Harrods and San Francisco’s Chocolate Covered to sell its products.
Founded and owned by Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, Al Nassma was formally established in October last year and aims to produce 100 tons of premium camels’ milk chocolate a year. Continue reading Walk a Mile for a Chocolate Bar?
Webshaykh’s note: In the process of researching the medical aspects of the chewing of qât (Catha edulis) leaves in Yemen, I consulted an important study published almost forty years by the distinguished historian Orientalist (in the best sense — and there is a best sense — of the word) Franz Rosenthal. This was his The Herb: Hashish versus Medieval Muslim Society (Leiden: Brill, 1971). Appearing at a time when hashish had become a household word in America, Rosenthal sorts through legal, medical and literary sources to provide a historical overview of the issues surrounding the use of hashish, the plant known as qinnab in Arabic (Cannabis sp). This is a valuable resource, but also worth a good read to get a sense of how an addictive socially popular drug was viewed for almost the last full millennium. Fortunately for those of us who cannot afford massive libraries, this book is available as a Google Book online. I quote from the conclusion.]
Hashish, the Individual, and Society
In conclusion we must state again that our knowledge is very limited. The gaps are tremendous. The nature of the information we do have is not easily assessed. Its applicability to the realities prevailing over the immense extension in time and space of medieval Islam is often suspect. Partisanship pro or con, coupled with a seemingly widespread ignorance of hard facts, obscures everything. Statistics naturally are non-existent.
Our sources give the impression of a westward march of hashish that had its serious beginnings int he twelfth century and gathered speed during the thirteenth century. Continue reading Hashish in the Muslim World
The Desert Horned Viper lurks in sand, only eyes, nostrils and horns above the surface.
Webshaykh’s Note: Cyberspace harbors a host of apocalyptic websites that relate current events in the Middle East to biblical prophecy. From the site Heaven Awaits it would seem that even Iraqi snakes are suspected of being terrorists… after all these snakes have horns. The following commentary stems from a news item in The Independent.
Snakes preparing the way for demons?
from Heaven Awaits website
The Desert Horned Viper lurks in sand, only eyes, nostrils and horns above the surface. Interesting ….that it has “horns.â€
The Bible predicts that the Euphrates River will dry up, and demons will come out. See the latest headlines from Iraq. Continue reading Even Iraqi Snakes are Terrorists
Transhumance in Tarkumia: An Exploration of Aspects of Palestinian Summer Identity This Week in Palestine
“Exploration is not so much a covering of surface distance as a study in depth: a fleeting episode, a fragment of landscape or a remark overheard may provide the only means of understanding and interpreting areas which would otherwise remain barren of meaning.†Claude Levi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques (1955)
The three-month summer vacation from schools liberates Palestinian families from the constraint of the temporal rhythm of school and from the constriction of space. The students are free, but the parents are equally liberated. This temporal space provides ample opportunities for exploration of self, of other, of place, and of time by means of travel. Travel is usually thought of as a displacement in space. This is an inadequate conception. A journey occurs simultaneously in space, in time, and in the social hierarchy. Each impression can be defined only by being jointly related to these three axes, and since space is itself three-dimensional, five axes are necessary if we are to have an adequate representation of any journey.
Travel is a form of exploration, a spark to the imagination, a quest, commerce, escape, and a means of self-discovery. Continue reading Transhumance in Tarkumia
Selling qât in Yemen. Photo by Pascal Maréchaux
Much has been written, pro and con, about the chewing of qât leaves in Yemen. In addition to the economic and social problems over qat, there is a historical puzzle. When and how did the plant Catha edulis come from Ethiopia, its botanical origin, to Yemen? Yemeni legend and folkore suggest that the stimulant qualities of qat leaves were first discovered by a goatherd who noticed the effect on goats who browsed on the plant. A variant of this goat legend, told to me in 1979 by a poet from Husn al-‘Arus, suggests that an Ethiopian came along to explain to the goatherd what was happening. The goat is one of the few animals that can be seen occasionally eating qât leaves, but the story is surely apocryphal. Sometimes it is told for the origin of coffee, another stimulant brought from East Africa. Continue reading Tracing the History of Qat
“Kill the pigs.” After all, they are a bunch of swine. Were this the rallying cry of a terrorist group or the mantra of war-torn propaganda, such a phrase would not be a surprise. But beyond the barricades in the pigpen, there is a new strain in the refrain. It’s bad enough that the pig has been a symbolic target for censure by the orthodox in Judaism and Islam (Christians were saved by St. Peter’s dream), but now it is subject to literal swinocide. That is what is happening in Egypt, a country where pig bones are as much a part of the rich archaeological record as mummies. Here is the AP story, written by Maamoun Youssef:
CAIRO – Egypt began slaughtering the roughly 300,000 pigs in the country Wednesday as a precaution against swine flu even though no cases have been reported here, infuriating farmers who blocked streets and stoned vehicles of Health Ministry workers who came to carry out the government’s order. Continue reading Kill the Pigs
This is the third in a series on the illustrations in Rev. John George Wood’s Story of the Bible Animals. What do you get if you strain at a gnat? Read on…
Gnats
It has already been stated that only one species of fly is mentioned by name in the Scriptures. this is the Gnat, the name of which occurs in the familiar passage, “Ye blind guides, which strain at a ghat and swallow a camel†(Matt. xxiii. 24).
I may again mention here that the words “strain at†ought to have been printed “strain out,†the substitution of one for the other being only a typographical error. The allusion is made to a certain custom which is explained by reference to the preceding article on the fly. In order to avoid taking flies and other insects into the mouth, while drinking, a piece of thin linen stuff was placed over the cup, so that if any insects, as was usually the case, had got into the liquid, they would be “strained out†by the linen. Continue reading Lithographica Arabica 6: Rev. Wood’s Bible Animals, 3