Otto-mania

Calligraphy, Languages, Ottoman Empire, Turkey

Turkey in the Ergogan era is undergoing an interesting change. Now it seems the course is less about economically reinvading Europe than going on a kind of Ottoman-matic pilot course. A committee has recently announced a call to have mandatory teaching of Ottoman in Turkish high schools. “According to the proposal, Ottoman Turkish should be compulsory because people in Turkey are not able to read documents from Ottoman times, including the epitaphs of their forefathers. The proposal argues that Ottoman Turkish is necessary to keep Turkish people’s ties with their past strong,” notes a Turkish paper. As a student of history in the region, I am delighted that there should be such an interest in promoting the study of Turkey’s Ottoman past. But given that Ataturk must be rolling over in his mausoleum, one wonders about the political symbolism in such a revival.

President Erdogan has come under considerable criticism at home and abroad for his support of the Muslim Brotherhood, a more conservative brand of Islam than many Turks favor, and his apparent failure to stem the tide of Western and Arabic recruits for the ISIS/ISIL/IS caliphate in the making (and unmaking) to his south. Now that there is a new Ak Saray (White Palace) for President Erdogan with 1,000 rooms on 150,000 sq. m of former forested land and at a cost now nearing $615 million, the idea of reviving the Ottoman caliphate is clearly waiting in the wings (and that saray has a lot of wings). The Middle East still has its kings, sultans and emirs, even if most of the dictators have bit the dust. So can Ak Saray blend with the Topkapi to form a new re-Ottomanized Turkey? Continue reading Otto-mania →

Heroic Teachers in Peshawer

Ethics, Pakistan, Taliban, Terrorism Issue

[This story of incredible bravery needs to be widely distributed. As we try to make sense of such a senseless cowardly act, it is well to remember such bravery by these incredible women]

Pakistanis for Gender Equality, December 18, 2014

As the nation mourns the Peshawar school attack, let us also commend the exemplary bravery shown by these women (amongst others) who gave their lives in the hopes of protecting Pakistan’s tomorrow. Who says women are weak? Can our leaders show this kind of resolve to save this country from the TTP barbarians? Let us not let their sacrifices be in vain.

1) Tahira Qazi. Her personal assistant says she had the opportunity to escape the school but instead chose to stay with the students. As the militants fired shots, she rushed from classroom to classroom, shouting at those inside to lock themselves in. She consoled, protected, and ushered many students to safety. She even phoned parents to come and collect their children. One source says, “the honourable principal was asked by the terrorists ‘where are the students and why are you hiding them?’ She replied: ‘Talk to me, I am their mother.’ The terrorists replied ‘Ok, you die first, in a miserable way.’ She was burnt and bullets were fired in her head directly.” Continue reading Heroic Teachers in Peshawer →

Slavery in the Ottoman Era

Ethics, Islamic Economics, Miniatures, Ottoman Empire, Turkey

Check out the new podcast by Nur Sobers-Khan on the Ottoman History Podcast Site. Here is a description of the podcast:

The legal and social environments surrounding slavery and manumission during the early modern period varied from place to place and profession to profession. In this episode, Nur Sobers-Khan presents her exciting research on the lives of a particular population of slaves in Ottoman Galata during the late eighteenth century, how they were classified and documented under Ottoman law, and the terms by which they were able to achieve their freedom.

Terrorist Plumbers and Texas

CyberOrient, Humor and Satire, Osama Bin Laden, Terrorism Issue

So here is the story. A plumber in Texas (some of the least rosy redneck territory out there where they gulp down tequila or whiskey with their tea partying) sells his old Ford truck and forgets to remove his logo. The auction house sends it along the chain of used cars and trucks, not knowing where it might end up. This is the automotive counterpart of banking derivatives and we know how great that was. Then one day there is a tweet from the Ansar al-Jil terrorist faction in Syria showing a new use for the old leaky-faucet-repair truck: a large gun mounted and firing (probably at nothing in particular and not hitting anything, but it makes a great propaganda shot). And there is the Texan Mark-1 plumbing logo for all to see in the twittering world and beyond. Forget the Alamo, this is really bad news.

This being Texas, the phones start ringing back at the plumbing office and this is a leak that is about as bad as any sewer overflow you can imagine in this redneck part of the woods… Damn terrorists no doubt causing true-blooded Americans’ pipes to get clogged. Terrorists in your bathroom no less… Continue reading Terrorist Plumbers and Texas →

Everyday Islam

"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, Contemporary Art, Ethics, Food and Drink, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Iraq War

by Kathryn Zyskowski, Cultural Anthropology

Click here to read the five articles and interviews with the authors.

This collection gathers together five articles previously published in Cultural Anthropology, by Naveeda Khan, Hayder Al-Mohammad, Carolyn Rouse and Janet Hoskins, Kenneth George, and Arzoo Osanloo. The collection also includes interviews with the authors, who reflect on their work, as well a commentary on the whole collection from Charles Hirschkind. The articles engage with everyday aspects of living, negotiating, and constructing the world among contemporary Muslims. Moving beyond a focus on the aesthetics of dress, gender relations, or the text in Islam, the collection crosses national boundaries and thematic areas, touching on the immense diversity of nations, peoples, languages, and ideas that fall under the category of Islam. A broad array of ethnographic material is included in the collection: gathering to eat soul food in Los Angeles, navigating a kidnapping in post-invasion Iraq, a child’s relationship to a jinn (spirit/ghost) during sectarian violence in Karachi, discourses around justice in media and conversation surrounding a young man’s death sentence in Iran, and debates about the production of Islamic art in Indonesia.
Continue reading Everyday Islam →

Obama: Beast, Antichrist or Mahdi

Apocalypse Watch, Islam and Christianity, Islamophobia, Islamophobia 101, Obama Administration, YouTube Watch

Is it hard to image what President Obama has not been called. The tea party partisans say he is not an American; many Republicans think he is a Muslim (or Arab as though there is any difference). And he has let Muslim Brothers take over the government. He is obviously a socialist, if not a communist. And then there is what the Bible has to say about this American president (not to mention several others before him and quite a few defunct world leaders). So some prophecy sites on Youtube say he is the Beast of Revelation. After all, the secret service calls his presidential limousine “the beast.” Or the Antichrist. If he had a sex change operation, he would no doubt be a candidate for the “Whore of Babylon.” But then where would that leave Hilary Clinton? And now that we know that Michelle Obama is a man, it is really hard to find a revelation role for her or him.

Continue reading Obama: Beast, Antichrist or Mahdi →

Film on Patricia Crone

Film and Video, Islamic History, Scholars

One of the most original and intriguing scholars of the Islamic era in recent times is Patricia Crone, who has been at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton since 1997 and is now emeriti. Her, co-authored with Michael Cook, Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World (1977) brought in a fresh and controversial angle to what had been a rather staid academic subject. She is currently battling cancer and a film is being made about this battle by her sister, a professional documentary maker. To find out more about this film, and how can you support it, click here.