Demise of IsIAO

Archaeology and Antiquities, Iran, Orientalism, Scholars

[Note: IsIAO teaches and researches most Oriental languages and cultures. More information on the situation is available here.]
Dear colleagues and friends,

I have been informed of the shocking news that a decree has been passed by the Italian Council of Ministers to shut down the famous Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente (IsIAO). It is inconceivable that such an extraordinary institution which has been active during the past 100 years in promoting a knowledge of Iran, India, Afghanistan, the Far East, and recently also Africa with amazing success should be abolished.

Professor Giuseppe Tucci and his successor Professor Gherardo Gnoli have done wonders in spreading the knowledge of Iranian lands, their archaeology, their history and their culture. To deprive the Iranian Studies from the services and contributions of this marvelous institution is a severe blow to the promotion of the knowledge of Iran on the international scene.

Professor Tosi has sent an email requesting all supporters of Iranian studies to sign a letter written to the President of the Italian Republic to support the continuation of IsIAO. Please by all means add your signature to this letter and encourage your friends and colleagues to do so as well.

To add your signature visit http://iranica.c.topica.com/maalZ1nabItGzaE1MJ2b/ and please do this as soon as possible, hopefully before the end of the week. Thanks.

With best wishes,

Ehsan Yarshate, Encyclopaedia Iranica

Obama’s other Muslim problem

Election 2008, Indonesia, Islamophobia


In Kenya on Sunday [August 27, 2006], US Senator Barack Obama on a visit to his late father’s homeland, is pictured with a camel at an animal market in Wajir, an area hit by a severe drought.

By Mark Levine, ALJAZEERA, June 25, 2008

As soon as Barack Obama rose to the top of the field of Democratic presidential contenders, he developed a “Muslim problem” based on false accusations that he is, or once was, a Muslim.

There is little doubt that these accusations will be raised again, however unfairly, when Obama squares off against John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, in November’s election.

But if we were to assume that Obama overcomes this and other obstacles to win his historic bid for the White House, a far more serious Muslim problem awaits “President” Obama: A majority of the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims have an utter lack of trust in the US.

Senator Obama’s experience of living in a Muslim country (Indonesia, where he attended school during his childhood), along with his relative youthfulness and message of hope, have the potential to heal this rift, however.

He has the merits which can energise young Muslims in the same way he has inspired millions of young Americans. Continue reading Obama’s other Muslim problem →

Iranian Revolutionaries, 1906

Iran, Photography, Shi'a

“Crowd of Persian Revolutionists, Who, fearing the vengeance of the royal troops, took refuge int he British Legation in Teheran in 1906, and insisted on remaining there until the Shah gave them a parliament.”

Revolution is no stranger to modern Iran. In the May, 1908 issue of The National Geographic Magazine, published just a century ago, there was an article by W. P. Cresson entitled “Persia: The Awakening East.” Here is an excerpt from Cresson’s account of the newly formed parliament:

The strong nationalistic spirit that marks the new era in Persian affairs is one of the most interesting features of the present movement in Persia. It is not among the frock-coated European dandies of the court that we must look for the men who are now taking the leading part in the new agitation for reform. Many of the constitutionalistic leaders wear the flowing robes and white turban of the Mohammedan priesthood. Recently the Liberal Parliament by an overwhelming majority voted to suppress the publication of a Teheran newspaper which had dared to propose the substitution of a new civil code modeled on European lines for the old common law based on the precepts of the Koran. One of the chief causes of popular complaint against the leaders of the Court party is their subserviency to foreign influences and their unpatriotic policy of importing foreign officials into Persia, notably in the case of the customs administration. Continue reading Iranian Revolutionaries, 1906 →

Identity and Religion in Palestine

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Books You Should Read, Palestine

Identity and Religion in Palestine: The Struggle between Islamism and Secularism in the Occupied Territories by Loren Lybarger (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007)

This remarkable book examines how the Islamist movement and its competition with secular-nationalist factions have transformed the identities of ordinary Palestinians since the first Palestinian uprising, or intifada, of the late 1980s. Drawing upon his years living in the region and more than eighty in-depth interviews, Loren Lybarger offers a riveting account of how activists within a society divided by religion, politics, class, age, and region have forged new identities in response to shifting conditions of occupation, peace negotiations, and the fragmentation of Palestinian life. Continue reading Identity and Religion in Palestine →

Dancing with Snakes

Ali Abdullah Salih, Terrorism Issue, Yemen

For Yemen’s Leader, a Balancing Act Gets Harder

By ROBERT F. WORTH, The New York Times, Saturday, June 21, 2008.
SANA, Yemen

PRESIDENT Ali Abdullah Saleh’s face is everywhere in Yemen. He stares out from billboards, shop windows and living room walls, always with the same proud expression: eyes glinting, chest thrust out as if to confront a challenger. After 30 years in power, Mr. Saleh has become almost synonymous with the state in this arid, desperately poor corner of southern Arabia.

But lately the president, 66, known for his wicked sense of humor, has been uncharacteristically dour. A war with northern Shiite rebels has spread to the outskirts of the capital. Terrorist attacks have led embassies and foreign companies to evacuate their employees. With an insurrection rising in the south as well, the turmoil has renewed fears that this conservative Muslim country of 23 million, a longtime haven for jihadists, could collapse into another Afghanistan.

Mr. Saleh, his gruff voice tinged with anger, dismissed the rebels as “racists” who want to return to Yemen’s ancient system of religious rule. They have won popular support by associating his government with the United States, he said during an hourlong interview inside the sprawling, high-walled presidential palace compound. Continue reading Dancing with Snakes →

Introducing “Reading Orientalism”

Books You Should Read, Humor and Satire, Islamophobia, Orientalism, Orientalist Art, Teaching Resources


The Snake Charmer, Etienne Dinet, 1889


Last November I published Reading Orientalism: Said and the Unsaid with the University of Washington Press. The issues surrounding “Orientalism” and the legacy of Edward Said’s corpus are ongoing, but much of the debate still centers on personalities rather than pragmatic assessment of the complex intertwining of ethnocentrism, racism and sexism that extends far beyond anything imagined as an “Orient” or a “West.” Here is part of the introductory note to my book.

To the Reader

As an intellectual, I feel challenged by the theoretical incoherence; I feel driven to strive for an answer that, if it has not yet attained universal validity, will at least have transcended the evident limitations of the dichotomized past. Wilfred Cantwell Smith

And is it not further tribute to his triumph to see more clearly what he was battling? Maria Rosa Menocal

You have before you two books about one book.

The one book is Edward Said’s Orientalism, a copy of which should preferably be read before and after you tackle my critical engagement with this powerful text and the ongoing debate over it. More than a quarter century after its first publication, Orientalism remains a milestone in critical theory. Yet, as the years go by, it survives more as an essential source to cite rather than a polemical text in need of thorough and open-minded reading. I offer a commentary, not a new sacred text. Continue reading Introducing “Reading Orientalism” →

Picturing Damascus

Architecture, Film and Video, Photography, Syria

Visual archives abound on the Middle East and a growing number of these now appear on the Internet. One of these is mideastimages.com, which hosts a variety of historic photographs focusing on the cities of Aleppo, Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus, Istanbul, Jerusalem and Palmyra. Here is a postcard mailed from the Thomas Gate post office in Damascus during the Ottoman period. It depicts the Flower of Damascus Theatre, owned by Habib Shamas, in the Marje Square. In 1912 this theatre hosted the first movie played in Damascus. The theatre was converted to a Cinema in 1918. (Source: DAMASCUS BY Dr. K. SHIHABI 1986)