The Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver has published its second Occasional Paper, “Religion and the State in Islam: From Medieval Caliphate to the Muslim Brotherhood.” Adapted from a lecture given by Richard Bulliet, Columbia University Professor of History, when he visited DU in February, the paper seeks to contextualize ongoing political changes in the Muslim world by providing a more nuanced reading of Islamic history. To read the pdf online, click here.
Area: 63,800 sq. mi
Population: 4,490,000
Government: Absolute Despotism
Scenes: Merchants Buying Carpets
previous post I began a series on coffee advertising cards with Middle Eastern themes. One of the most colorful collections is that provided by the Arbuckle Coffee Company. In my great, great aunt’s album there were several Middle Eastern and North African nations represented, but from a different series than in the Arbuckle’s 1889 series. The 1889 version of Turkey is shown above, but my aunt’s version of Turkey is decidedly more imaginative:
Continue reading Tabsir Redux: Mocha Musings #3: Turkey and Persia
IRIN’s film, A Life on Hold, tells the story of Qasim and his family, who for the past three years have been living in a camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) in northwestern Yemen.
Years of conflict in the region between the Houthi tribe and government forces has led to the displacement of more than 300,000 civilians, who have to cope with a decline in health and educational services. Malnutrition is common in the IDPs camps, as well as in the apartments, mosques and schools where many have found shelter.
Authorities have tried to encourage the displaced to go back to their homes, but renewed clashes in 2012 actually increased the IDP numbers in the north. Extensive damage to houses and infrastructure, continuing insecurity, fear of reprisals and the lack of livelihood opportunities and basic services all serve as deterrents to return.
For more information on the situation in Yemen, please visit:
The trendy 19th century Protestant philosophical theologian Søren Kiergekaard published a Danish book in 1843 entitled Either/Or. His faith-based binary is not the the standard good vs evil, God vs. Satan model that had long been enshrined in Christianity, but rather a dialogue between an aesthetic hedonist and a duty-bound ethicist. His point, or at least one of them, is that by rigidly following either life trajectory one can simply go too far and not realize one’s true self. He was aware of the binary bind that haunts many, if not most, religions and worldviews. In politics the mantra would be “my country, love it or leave it,” or more crudely, “my way or the highway.” In economics, capitalism vs communism. In all cases binaries bind us to intolerance and the hubris that I am right and you are wrong.
At least the Manicheans dared to assert the obvious that good and evil, like light and darkness, are locked in an eternal duel rather than an ultimate triumph of good. But this was deemed a heresy. The simple solution, what might be called the Salafi fix in Islam, is the fixation on a single standard of truth. Even if one takes the Quran as the literal word of Allah, it must still be interpreted. The history of Islamic exegesis demonstrates that very little is obvious in a text that was not originally written down as it was received in a linguistic idiom now fourteen centuries past. Yet, like the Bible thumpers in American Fundamentalism, there are always those who think they have the right interpretation and that alone must be followed. Continue reading Bipolar Religion
In the 1889 series depicting the nations of the world, Egypt also appears:
Area: 11,000 sq. mi
Population: 6,806,381
Government: Turkish Vice Royalty
Scenes: Date Palm; The Obelisk of Luxor; Cotton Barges on the Nile
عبدالملك الØوثي يؤم بعشرات الآلا٠ÙÙŠ صعدة شمال اليمن ÙÙŠ صلاة الجنازة على شقيقه “Øسين”
شيع عشرات الآلا٠ÙÙŠ Ù…ØاÙظة صعدة شمال اليمن، اليوم الأربعاء، جثمان الزعيم الروØÙŠ لجماعة الØوثيين Øسين بدرالدين الØوثي بعد تسع سنوات من مقتله على يد قوات الجيش.
وتواÙد الآلا٠من أنصار الØوثيين من مدن يمنية إلى صعدة Øيث تتركز قوة جماعة الØوثيين، للمشاركة ÙÙŠ تشييع الØوثي، وشدد مسلØÙˆ الجماعة من إجراءات الأمن وعززت نقاط تÙتيش التي ينصبونها ÙÙŠ أرجاء المØاÙظة.
ÙˆØسين الØوثي المولود ÙÙŠ 1965 قتل ÙÙŠ عام 2004 خلال الØرب التي اندلعت بين الجيش وجماعته، إبان Øكم نظام الرئيس السابق علي عبدالله ØµØ§Ù„Ø Ø§Ù„Ø°ÙŠ أطاØت به انتÙاضة شعبية انطلقت قبل عامين.
وبدأت مراسم التشييع بأداء صلاتي الظهر والعصر وراء الدكتور المرتضى المØطوري وهو Ø£Øد أبرز منظري المذهب الزيدي ÙÙŠ صنعاء.
وصعد شقيقه الأصغر عبدالملك الØوثي وهو القائد الØالي للجماعة، على منصة Ù…Øاطة بالØراس، يدعو Ùيه الموجودين ÙÙŠ ساØØ© كبرى بالمدينة إلى أداء صلاة الجنازة وبدء مراسيم التشييع.
Arbuckles’ Ariosa (air-ee-o-sa) Coffee packages bore a yellow label with the name ARBUCKLES’ in large red letters across the front, beneath which flew a Flying Angel trademark over the words ARIOSA COFFEE in black letters. Shipped all over the country in sturdy wooden crates, one hundred packages to a crate, ARBUCKLES’ ARIOSA COFFEE became so dominant, particularly in the west, that many Cowboys were not aware there was any other kind. Keen marketing minds, the Arbuckle Brothers printed signature coupons on the bags of coffee redeemable for all manner of notions including handkerchiefs, razors, scissors, and wedding rings. To sweeten the deal, each package of ARBUCKLES’ contained a stick of peppermint candy. Due to the demands on chuck wagon cooks to keep a ready supply of hot ARBUCKLES’ on hand around the campfire, the peppermint stick became a means by which the steady coffee supply was ground. Upon hearing the cook’s call, “Who wants the candy?” some of the toughest Cowboys on the trail were known to vie for the opportunity of manning the coffee grinder in exchange for satisfying a sweet tooth.
While sorting through a bevy of late 19th century advertising cards and magazine illustrations collected by my great, great aunt in several yellowing albums, I came across several for the Middle East that were published for Arbuckle’s coffee. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: Mocha Musings #1: Mecca and Arabia
From the left: Becky Memran (formerly Rouvio), with Farid al-Atrash, and her sister Léonie. Alexandria, sometime in the mid-late thirties
The current antagonism on all sides over the Israel/Palestine dilemma belies the fact that relations between individual Arabs and Jews were not always hijacked by politics. One of the most revered singers in the Arab World is Farid al-Atrash, a singer and composer who was born in Syria to a father who fought the French. The family migrated when he was young to Egypt, where they were granted citizenship. A recent article by Tamar Kaplansky includes a picture of the young Farid with her grandmother, who was Jewish, in Alexandria.
For those interested in the music of Farid al-Atrash, Youtube archives a number of clips from his movies and albums here and here and here and on many more sites.