Tabsir Redux: Astrolabes and Angels, Epigrams and Enigmas

Art, Islamic Sciences

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE DE REGIO MONTE CODE, CARDINAL BESSARION’S AGENDA, AND PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA’S ENIGMA

[The noted historian of Islamic science, David A. King, recently retired from his position as Professor of the History of Science at Frankfurt University, has published a new book on two of the most remarkable objects surviving from the Renaissance, one an astrolabe and the other a painting. The connection between the two is described in detail in his new book Astrolabes and Angels, Epigrams and Enigmas – From Regiomontanus’ Acrostic for Cardinal Bessarion to Piero della Francesca’s Flagellation of Christ, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2007. An associated website is http://web.uni-frankfurt.de/fb13/ign/Code.htm.]

Only recently have we achieved a better understanding of two monuments to the intellectual genius of the Renaissance, both of which have caused scholars a lot of trouble over several decades. As it happens, the two are intimately related.


The back of the astrolabe made by Regiomontanus for Cardinal Bessarion, with an inscription or epigram and the image of an angel.

One is an astrolabe, presented to the ageing Greek Cardinal Bessarion in Rome, 1462, by his new protégé, the young German astronomer Regiomontanus. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: Astrolabes and Angels, Epigrams and Enigmas →

No food for thought

Development, Environment, Somalia


Politics trumps virtually every other kind of news until a natural disaster breaks through. For those of us watching the daily reports of protests in the Middle East and North Africa, it is easy to be absorbed by the sheer amount of coverage and websites available. This morning I noticed two “front page” stories that stopped me in my tracks, one in the New York Times and the other a special report on the website of al Jazeera. Freedom from dictatorial rule is a dream shared across a spectrum of people, and not only in this part of the world, but there is no ultimate freedom from Nature.

Drought is as much a killer as any ruthless dictator, which is not to diminish the negative impact of even the worst of the lot. But Saddam met his fate, as will Qaddafi. With all our technological savy, however, Nature still calls the shots, whether it is a tsunami, hurricane or prolonged drought. There is a cruel irony that some places have far too much water, especially at the wrong time, and others have no water all. No place is more miserable both politically and from drought than Somalia, a land that has been racked with civil war creating one of the worst humanitarian crises around (and there are quite a few). The camp of Daabab just across the Kenyan border already has hundreds of thousands fleeing the turmoil in Somalia. The UN estimates that 10 million people in the Horn of Africa are suffering directly from this crisis. Picture what this number means. If these people were lined up so that each one took only one foot of space the line would stretch over 630 miles. This means that if a bread line started in Boston and stretched south to Washington, D.C. it would still have almost two hundred more miles to go before it would end. A car driving the distance would take at least ten hours. And this is just for the crisis in the Horn.

What if the money spent on military weapons per year were actually spent on food aid and development assistance to people who are in danger of dying? The drones sent to destroy suspected terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan (and now in Yemen) cost about 4.5 million each. The U.S. just gave Kenya an extra 5 million dollars in aid to help cope with the influx of refugees, about one drone’s worth. As Mark Twain said in a speech in 1881, war is “a wanton waste of projectiles.”

Daniel Martin Varisco

Yusuf al-Qaradawi: Fatwa on Islam and Democracy

"Arab Spring", Islamic Law, Islamic Texts, Qatar

by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Islamopedia, June 27, 2011

The Islamic state is a civil one, like other governments in the modern world and the only difference is that it makes Islamic Shari’a its reference. We would like to highlight, in this chapter, that the Islamic state is based on the Shura Council, allegiance, free choice of the nation to its ruler, advice to him, accountability of him, obedience to him, break of his allegiance if he commands sin, and the nation’s right to dismiss him if he insists on straying and deviation. This approach makes the essence of the Islamic state close to the democratic one.

By democracy we mean political democracy. As economic democracy is concerned, it means capitalism and it has its advantages and disadvantages, so we have been conservative about it while the social democracy means liberalism holding the absolute freedom, and we have been conservative about it too. Capitalism (of Qaron, a king of the past) is unacceptable to us since it is based on an idea of wealth refused by the Holy Quran. As Qaron said about his wealth, “I have been given it according to my knowledge”(stories: 78). Or as people said to Prophet Shoaib, “Does your prayer command us to leave what our fathers worshiped or that we do in our money what we want (Hud: 87).

According to Islamic thought, human being are heirs to the wealth of God. The Quran said: spend of that He made you heirs in it (Iron: 7). The true owner of the wealth is Allah while the rich man is trustee of this wealth and agent of the real owner. So ownership is bound with some duties and obligations as it is constrained in consumption, investment, distribution and circulation. Also, the giving of alms (Zakat) is imposed on the wealthy as one of the pillars of Islam. And usury, monopoly, fraud, injustice, extravagance, luxury, treasuring and other transactions are prohibited to the owners. With these admonitions and law, we could dull the dangerous nail of the capitalism, so as to achieve social justice, care for vulnerable groups in society such as orphans, the needy and the wayfarers, and work on a better distribution of the wealth “in order not to be the circulated among the rich of you” (al-Hashr: 7). Continue reading Yusuf al-Qaradawi: Fatwa on Islam and Democracy →

Tabsir Redux: The Land and the Book #1: Looking for an Omnibus?

Bible and Holy Land, Islam and Christianity, Lithographs, Palestine, Travel


Jaffa from Thomson’s “The Land and the Book”

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.

Here is one of the forgotten books of a couple generations back. Easily dismissed as an Orientalist book, in the sense propounded and confounded by Edward Said, it is nevertheless a very good read. With this post I begin a series to sample the anecdotes and local color presented by Rev. Thomson. The times have indeed changed, but such textual forays into the night reading of a previous generation of Americans are well worth the effort. Let’s begin with the author’s own invitation. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: The Land and the Book #1: Looking for an Omnibus? →

Tabsir Redux: The Cynical Dairy Farmer’s Guide to the New Middle East

"Arab Spring", Arab-Israeli Conflict, Bahrain, Egypt, Humor and Satire, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Yemen


BY Karim Sadjapour, Foreign Policy, June 15, 2011

How a couple of cows explain a changing region: equal opportunity offender edition.

In the early years of the Cold War, in an effort to simplify — and parody — various political ideologies and philosophies, irreverent wits, in the spirit of George Orwell, went back to the farm. No one really knows how the two-cow joke known as “Parable of the Isms” came about, but most students of Political Science 101 have likely come across some variation of the following definitions:

Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes one of them and gives it to your neighbor.

Communism: You have two cows. The government takes them both and provides you with milk.

Nazism: You have two cows. The government shoots you and takes the cows.

Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

Over the years, the parables gradually expanded, using the two-cow joke to explain everything from French unions (You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.) to the Republican Party (You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So what?). While in its original iteration the cows were a metaphor for currency, capital, and property, they later began to take on different meanings.

Today, the Middle East has replaced the Cold War as America’s primary foreign-policy preoccupation. As opposed to the seemingly ideologically homogenous communist bloc, however, the 22 diverse countries that compose the modern Middle East are still confusing to most Americans. Why can’t the Israeli and Palestinians stop fighting already? What’s the difference between Libya and Lebanon again?

Herewith then is a satirical effort to simplify the essence of Middle Eastern governments so that, in the immortal words of George W. Bush, “the boys in Lubbock” can read it. And, rather than symbolizing property, the cows here symbolize people, which — funny enough — is how most Middle Eastern regimes have traditionally viewed their populations.

Saudi Arabia
You have two cows with endless reserves of milk. Gorge them with grass, prevent them from interacting with bulls, and import South Asians to milk them.

Iran
You have two cows. You interrogate them until they concede they are Zionist agents. You send their milk to southern Lebanon and Gaza, or render it into highly enriched cream. International sanctions prevent your milk from being bought on the open market.

Syria
You have five cows, one of whom is an Alawite. Feed the Alawite cow well; beat the non-Alawite cows. Use the milk to finance your wife’s shopping sprees in London.

Lebanon
You have two cows. Syria claims ownership over them. You take them abroad and start successful cattle farms in Africa, Australia, and Latin America. You send the proceeds back home so your relatives can afford cosmetic surgery and Mercedes-Benzes.

Hezbollah
You have no cows. During breaks from milking on the teat of the Iranian cow you call for Israel’s annihilation. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: The Cynical Dairy Farmer’s Guide to the New Middle East →

الأزهر والزنداني والدولة المدنية

"Arab Spring", Islamic Law, Journalism and Media, Yemen


محمدعبدالملك المتوكل

د.محمدعبدالملك المتوكل, المصدر أونلاين

بتاريخ 21/6/2011م نشرت جريدة الأهرام وثيقة الأزهر بشأن مستقبل مصر وبتاريخ 9 يوليو2011م نشرت جريدة الشارع هجوماً للشيخ الزنداني على الداعين للدولة المدنية والشرعية الثورية مطالباً لهم مراجعة دينهم، ومن المفيد للقارئ أن يعلم أن الأزهر بعلمائه والشيخ الزنداني بجامعته كلهم ينتمون إلى مذهب أهل السنة والجماعة ولكن، وللناس فيما يعشقون مذاهب.

حدد بيان الأزهر أحد عشر مبدأ نذكر منها خمسة مبادئ أساسية تتعلق بنظام الحكم.
الأول: تأسيس الدولة الوطنية الدستورية الديمقراطية الحديثة التي تعتمد على دستور ترتضيه الأمة يفصل بين سلطات الدولة ومؤسساتها القانونية الحاكمة ويحدد إطار الحكم ويضمن الحقوق والواجبات لكل أفرادها على قدم المساواة بحيث تكون سلطة التشريع فيها لنواب الشعب. وينسجم ذلك مع المفهوم الإسلامي الصحيح، فالإسلام لم يعرف لا في تشريعاته ولا حضارته ولا تأريخه ما يعرف في الثقافات الأخرى بالدولة الدينية الكهنوتية التي تسلطت على الناس.. بل ترك للناس إدارة مجتمعاتهم واختيار الآليات والمؤسسات المحققة لمصالحهم مع اشتراط أن تكون المبادئ الكلية للشريعة الإسلامية هي المصدر الأساسي للتشريع وبما يضمن لأتباع الديانات السماوية الأخرى الاحتكام إلى شرائعهم الدينية في قضايا الأحوال الشخصية.
Continue reading الأزهر والزنداني والدولة المدنية →

The Voting Gap

Ethics, Gender and Sexuality


Women in Jordan (top); women in Lichtenstein (bottom): Which country first allowed women to vote?

In every region, there are laws that discriminate against women, in relation to property, the family, employment and citizenship. Too often, justice institutions, including the police and the courts, deny women justice.
Progress of the World’s Women, UN Report

Much attention is paid to the disparate gender roles in Islamic countries, from blanket veiling of women to not being allowed to drive cars. Yes, there are cultural elements in a number of Muslim-majority countries that treat women unequally. But gender inequality is not specific to Islam or any single nation. The sad truth is that in 2011 the species of Homo sapiens has not yet evolved a universal sense of the equal worth of males and females. Theories abound as to why males tend to dominate and it would be premature to believe that males have always been on top in social interaction. I do not defend cultural practices, dressed in religious rhetoric, that discriminate against women (nor would I if they discriminated against men, which is so rare it seems absurd to mention it). But it is useful to remind ourselves in the secular West of the Gospel advice that we should not be so intent on dissing the mote in someone else’s eye when there is a beam in our own (I see no problem in reversing the mote and beam for the moral).

Take voting, for example. Exactly a century ago only two countries in the world allowed women to vote. Today, that right is almost universal. It is not yet a century since women received the right to vote in the United States. Continue reading The Voting Gap →

كيف استقبل شباب الثورة بصنعاء ظهور صالح؟!

"Arab Spring", Ali Abdullah Salih, Sanaa, Yemen


  • الصورة لمتظاهرين في ساحة التغيير بصنعاء في 4 يوليو الجاري (AP).

    لمصدر أونلاين ـ صلاح القاعدي

    تباينت ردود الفعل لدى شباب الثورة في ساحة التغيير بصنعاء من الظهور العلني للرئيس صالح من خلال خطابه المسجل الذي بث يوم الخميس الفائت، وتوزعت بين حالة من الاحتقان والسخط على القوى المحلية والدولية لتأثيرها على مسار الثورة، وأخرى ساخرة.

    الشباب الذين استولى عليهم السخط والغضب نتيجة شعور سيطر عليهم، بسبب تفويتهم الفرص المتاحة لحسم الثورة، التي كان أبرزها فرصة رحيل صالح إلى السعودية. ومع ذلك خرج الشباب في مسيرات تجوب ساحة التغيير مرددين هتافات ضد قوى يعتقدون أنها سبباً حقيقياً في تأجيل حسم الثورة وومن بينها أحزاب اللقاء المشترك ودولتي السعودية والولايات المتحدة الأمريكية.

    وتنامت حالة العداء تجاه السعودية والولايات المتحدة في أوساط شباب الثورة في اليمن خلال الآونة الأخيرة بسبب دور الأخيرتين البارز في حل المشكلة اليمنية، وسط اتهامات لهما بالتواطؤ مع نظام صالح والسعي لإجهاض الثورة السلمية المطالبة بإنهاء حكم صالح المستمر منذ نحو 33 عاماً.

    الاختلاف في الآراء ووجهات النظر كان سيد الموقف حول انعكاسات خطاب صالح، ويرى الشاب سليمان الراشدي ان اتضاح حالة صالح الصحية بعد أسابيع من التضارب، سيسهل في الإقدام على الخطوات القادمة وتحقيق بقية الأهداف التي قامت من أجلها الثورة.

    لكن كثيراً من شباب الثورة جعلوا من ظهور صالح مادة لصياغة النكتة التي تتميز بسرعة انتشارها على قطاع واسع من اليمن بمختلف الوسائل المتاحة.
    Continue reading كيف استقبل شباب الثورة بصنعاء ظهور صالح؟! →