Libya in the 1950s
Category Archives: Environment
Aden in the mid-19th Century
James Vaughn, a physician stationed in British-controlled Aden in the mid-19th century, published an article in 1853 in the British Pharmaceutical Journal and Transactions (12:226-229,385-388), which is available online. After discussing several medicinal and local exports, such as incense, dragon’s blood, and local dye plants from Yemen and from Somalia, he admonishes his colleagues back in England to do serious study of the botanical wealth of Yemen. I attach his comments below as they are still relevant a century and a half later…
With Pierre Loti in Persia
My friend, the historian G. Rex Smith, has recently translated into English a marvelous travel diary by the French military official and traveller Pierre Loti (1850-1923). It is also available on Amazon as a Kindle Book. This day-by-day diary details Loti’s trip along the caravan trail of 1900 from the coast at Bushire to Shiraz and his ultimate goal of Isfahan in order to visit the area during the season of roses. One might expect such an account to be dry, but Loti comments on what he saw, including the people, along the way and one gets a first-hand sense of what it was like to travel a treacherous route that was at times over pure desert and at other times up or down seemingly impenetrable mountain heights. There is also a brief account of his stop at Muscat on the way to Persia. Smith, with the aid of his son, has done an admirable job in reflecting the flavor of the original French and includes 24 photographs taken by Loti. This is a book well worth reading, whether you are interested in Persia at the time or not.
The original French version is available as a pdf here. Archive.org has quite a few of his works.
For information about Loti online, check out https://biography.yourdictionary.com/pierre-loti and https://museeprotestant.org/en/notice/pierre-loti-1850-1923-2/.
Six Coffees
Check out this article on six different kinds of coffee in the Middle East on Middle East Eye.
al-Qazwini Manuscript
Amish Camels
The image above, a drawing from the 1850s, epitomizes how the camel has been imagined for everyone in America, the West and just about everywhere outside the area where camels were important domestic animals. A turbaned man astride a galloping camel: Orientalism has ruled the day. And when Westerners visited the Middle East, riding a camel became a touristic must-do, as in the image below:
Camels (the one-humped kind) do exist outside the Middle East, including the Old West of the United States and Australia. But take a look at the next picture of two warning signs. One is from Qatar, where camels sometimes cross a rural road, and the other is from the Amish country in Ohio. The Amish are a group who came to America to escape persecution in Europe and maintain an old lifestyle without electricity or automobiles. I used to visit the Amish parts of central Ohio when I was a child and it was always a game to see who could spot the first Amish buggy. So, I would have been quite shocked to see a camel warning in Ohio.
But today it may be necessary, since the Amish are now raising camels for milk, an idea sparked by a Saudi that led to a company, Desert Farms, being formed in 2015. The prices are a bit out of reach at $18 for 16 ounces of fresh camel milk or $72 for 200 grams of powdered camel milk. But as the site exclaims, camel milk is halal and even if not really kosher, it can be at times.
So if you can afford it or find it (and good luck at that), drink up.
Lithographic Camels
I am a fan of 19th century lithographs of images about the Middle East. One of the books with a plethora of such images is Story of the Bible Animals by the Rev. J. G. Wood, published in 1888 and available on archive.org. In the 700 pages of this book, the largest space (pp. 248-290) is devoted to the camel, drawing on traveler accounts. It is a fun read, full of all the Orientalist prejudices you might image. For example:
“As to the movement of the animal, it is at first as unpleasant as can be conceived, and has been described by several travellers, some of whose accounts will be here given. One well-known traveller declares that any person desiring to practice Camel-riding can readily do so by taking a music-stool, screwing it up as high as possible, putting it into a cart without springs, sitting on the top of it cross-legged, and having the cart driven at full speed transversely over a newly ploughed field.”
Arabic Dictionaries Online
In 1981, while visiting Egypt for a consulting assignment with USAID, I purchased the old Cairo edition of the massive dictionary TÄj al-‘ArÅ«s of Murtaá¸Ä al-ZabÄ«dÄ« (d. 1790). This was in about 10 large and heavy volumes. For it and a few other books I bought a cheap suitcase and paid the porter who carried it from the taxi to the airline desk a large baksheesh. When I arrived back in New York, as I was entering the door of our home, the suitcase burst open and TÄj al-‘ArÅ«s was spread on the floor.
That was some 35 years ago, but now I have pdf files of the entire modern Kuwaiti edition courtesy of archive.org. While a scholar of Arabic used to either buy the physical book (I purchased a set of LisÄn al-‘Arab in Baghdad in 1979) or be based near a major library (I had the advantage of the Oriental Room of the New York Public Library), now all it takes is a click of a mouse and many megabytes of space to build up a library of Arabic dictionaries.
For those who are looking for Arabic dictionaries available online or in pdf format, here is a list. Others are welcome to suggest sources they know.
Online Arabic Dictionaries
• The first place to go for classical Arabic is al-BÄḥith al-‘ArabÄ« (http://www.baheth.info/), which is searchable by word in Arabic for the following dictionaries:
LisÄn al-‘Arab of Ibn Manẓūr (d. 1311 CE); MaqÄyyis al-lugha of Aḥmad ibn FÄris (d. 1004) ; al-SiḥÄḥ fÄ« al-lugha of IsmÄ‘īl ibn ḤammÄd al-JawharÄ« (d. 1003); al-QÄmÅ«s al-muḥīṠof al-FÄ«rÅ«zÄbÄdÄ« (d. 1329); and, al-‘UbÄb al-zÄkhir of al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-á¹¢aghÄnÄ« (d. 1252).
• The Arabic website al-Ma‘ÄnÄ« (http://www.almaany.com/) is an excellent source for Arabic definitions of Arabic terms.
• For Arabic to English, the original text of Edward Lane’s (1863) An Arabic-English Lexicon is available as an online pdf at http://www.tyndalearchive.com/TABS/Lane/. It is also available as a download at archive.org and at http://www.studyquran.co.uk/LLhome.htm
Arabic Dictionaries in PDF
• Al-FayrÅ«zÄbÄdī’s al-QÄmÅ«s al-muḥīṠis at https://archive.org/details/QamusMuhit
• Ibn Manẓūr’s LisÄn al-‘Arab is at https://archive.org/details/lisan.al.arab
• Al-á¹¢aghÄnī’s al-Takmila wa-al-dhayl is at https://archive.org/details/TKMLH
• Al-ZabÄ«dī’s massive TÄj al-‘arÅ«s (Kuwaiti version) is at https://archive.org/details/taga07
• see also Dozy, R. (1881) Supplement aux Dictionnaires Arabes. Leiden Brill. at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6254645z
Arabic/English, English/Arabic, etc.
• Baretto, Joseph (1804) A Dictionary of the Persian and Arabic Languages. Calcutta : S. Greenway, India Gazette Press. Vol. 2 at https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofpers02barriala
• Johnson, Francis (1852) A Dictionary, Persian, Arabic and English. London: W.H. Allen. at https://archive.org/details/b22651366
• Penrice, John (1873) A Dictionary and Glossary of the Kor-ân. London: Henry S. King. at https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_QYwq3ylpv6kC
• Richardson, John (1810) A Vocabulary, Persian, Arabic, and English; abridged from the quarto edition of Richardson’s dictionary is at https://archive.org/details/vocabularypersia00richiala
• Steingass, Francis Joseph (1882) English-Arabic Dictionary: For the Use of Both Travellers and Students. London: W. H. Allen and Co. at https://archive.org/details/englisharabicdi00steigoog
• Steingass, Francis Joseph (1884) The Student’s Arabic-English Dictionary. London: Crosby, Lockwood and Son at https://archive.org/details/cu31924026873194
• Wehr, Hans (1960) Arabic-English Dictionary is available as a pdf at https://archive.org/details/Arabic-englsihDictionary
• Wortabet, William Thomson Arabic-English Dictionary is available as a pdf at https://archive.org/details/WortabetsArabic-englishDictionary
Arabic Dialect Dictionaries
• Ben Sedirah, Belkassam (1910) Petit dictionnaire arabe-français de la langue parlée en Algérie, contenant les mots et les formules employés dans les lettres et les actes judiciaires. Alger: Jourdan. at https://archive.org/details/petitdictionnair00abaluoft
• Biberstein-Kazimirski, Albert de (1860) Dictionnaire arabe-francais contenant toutes les racines de la langue arabe : leurs dérivés, tant dans l’idiome vulgaire que dans l’idiome littéral, ainsi que les dialectes d’Alger et de Maroc. Paris: Maisonneuve: Éditeurs pour les langues orientales, Européenes et comparées. at https://archive.org/details/dictionnairearab02bibeuoft
• Cameron, Donald Andreas (1892) An Arabic-English vocabulary for the use of English students of modern Egyptian Arabic. London: Bernard Quaritch. at https://archive.org/details/arabicenglishvoc00cameuoft
• Crow, Francis Edward (1901) Arabic manual. A colloquial handbook in the Syrian dialect, for the use of visitors to Syria and Palestine, containing a simplified grammar, a comprehensive English and Arabic vocabulary and dialogues. London: Luzac and co.
at https://archive.org/details/arabicmanualcoll00crow
• Hinds, Martin and el-Said Badawi (1986) A Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic is available as a pdf at https://archive.org/details/ADictionaryOfEgyptianArabicArabicEnglish
• Landberg, Carlo (1901) Études sur les dialectes de l’Arabie méridionale. I: Ḥaá¸ramoÅ«t. Leiden: Brill. at https://archive.org/details/tudessurlesdial00unkngoog
• Landberg, Carlo (1909) Études sur les dialectes de l’Arabie méridionale. Datina. Leiden: Brill. https://archive.org/details/p2tudessurlesdia02landuoft
• Nishio, Tetsuo (1992) A Basic Vocabulary of the Bedouin Arabic Dialect of the JbÄli tribe (Southern Sinai). Tokyo : Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa. https://archive.org/details/basicvocabularyo00nish
• Rhodokanakis, Nikolaus (1908) Der vulgärarabische Dialekt im Dofâr (Zfâr). Vienna: Alfred Hölder. at https://archive.org/details/dervulgrarabis10rhod
Arabic Thesaurus
• Ibn Qutayba Adab al-kÄtib. Beirut: Mu’assisa al-RisÄla. at https://archive.org/details/tanmawia.com_15789
• Ibn SÄ«da, Al-MukhaṣṣÄá¹£. Beirut: DÄr al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya. at https://archive.org/details/mukhsasmukhsas
• KhuwÄrizmÄ«, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad (1866-1903) Liber Mafâtîh al-olûm: explicans vocabula technica scientiarum tam Arabum quam peregrinorum. Edited by G. Voten. Lugduni Batavorum: Brill. [in Arabic] at https://archive.org/details/b29006247
Specialized Arabic Terms
•Al-DamÄ«rÄ« (1908) Ad-Damîrî’s Ḥayât al-ḤayawÄn (A Zoological Lexicon). Translated by A. S. G. Jayakar. London: Luzac. Vol. 2, Part 1. at https://archive.org/details/addamrsaytalaya00damgoog
• Al-DamÄ«rÄ« ḤayÄt al-ḥayawÄn ms. at https://al-mostafa.info/data/arabic/depot/gap.php?file=m013645.pdf
• Fleury, V and Muammad Souhlal (1915) L’arabe pratique et commercial à l’usage des établissements d’instruction et des commerçants, lecture, écriture, grammaire, syntaxe, exercices d’application, conversation, lexiques, dictionnaire commercial. Alger: Jourdan.
at https://archive.org/details/larabepratiqueet00fleuuoft
• Dozy, Renard (1845) Dictionnaire Détaillé des noms des vêtements chez les Arabes. Amsterdam: Jean Müller. at https://archive.org/details/dictionnairedt00dozyuoft
• Fonahn, A. (1922) Arabic and Latin Anatomical Terminology. Kristiania: Jacob Dybwad. at https://archive.org/details/arabiclatinanat00fona
• IbrÄhÄ«m, Rajab (2002) al-Mu‘jam al-‘ArabÄ« li-asmÄ’ al-malÄbis. Cairo: DÄr al-MufÄq. at https://archive.org/stream/FP56847/56847#page/n0/mode/2up
• Mu‘jam muá¹£á¹laḥÄt al-‘ulÅ«m al-shar‘īyya. Saudi Arabia, 2017. Vol. 1 at https://archive.org/details/momsolshPDF
• Siddiqi, Abdussattar (1919) Studien über die Persischen Fremdwörter im klassischen Arabisch. Göttingen, Vandenhoeck. at https://archive.org/details/studienberdiep00sidd
• YÄqÅ«t, Mu‘jam al-buldan. at https://www.4shared.com
Exploring Arabic Texts:
There are many more sources available at archive.org if you put “Arabic language†in the search bar. Important sources for links to pdfs of Arabic language texts include the following:
• Arabic Collections Online (NYU Aby Dhabi): http://dlib.nyu.edu/aco/
• 4shared.com: https://www.4shared.com/
• Al-Madinah Inernational University Digital Library: http://dlibrary.mediu.edu
• al-Maktaba al-ShÄmila: http://shamela.ws/
• Mawqa‘ al-á¸Ä«yÄ‘: http://www.aldhiaa.com/arabic/book.php?sort=all
• al-Mostafa: https://www.al-mostafa.com/
• Waqfeya: http://waqfeya.com/category.php?cid=6
• See the list of sites at https://digitalorientalist.com/2015/01/16/full-text-online-arabic-sources-a-preliminary-list/