Muslim Women Hadith Scholars
The image of an Islamic scholar engaged in memorization, collection or engagement with the many traditions (hadith, singular) of the Prophet Muhammad is invariably that of a male.…
Author: tabsir
More Maps of the Middle East
More and more maps of Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula are appearing in digital resources on the Internet. One of these is the David Rumsey Map Collection, housed…
Coloring Persia
In 1928 my mother, who was 6 years old at the time, received a coloring book from a neighbour. It was called “Big Circus Painting and Crayoning Book”…
Handbook of Sufi Studies
Brill has recently published a Handbook of Sufi Studies. One of the editors, Alexander Knysh, discusses the new volume here.
Joseph Osgood in Aden: 2
Joseph Osgood was a Black American sailor who visited the Yemeni port of Aden about a dozen years before the start of the American Civil War. He offers…
Joseph Osgood in Aden: 1
Joseph Osgood was a Black American sailor who visited the Yemeni port of Aden about a dozen years before the start of the American Civil War. He offers…
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…
Cairo in 1920
This is an interesting Youtube video posted by Mostafa Khalifa. It has the voice of Munira al-Mahdiya with footage taken in Cairo and Alexandria in 1920.
Visual Letter Art
An Egyptian graphic designer named Mahmoud Tammam has created some fascinating word images in Arabic. Check out a discussion of his work here and here.
Thesiger of Arabia
Anyone who knows anything about Arabia has no doubt heard of Lawrence of Arabia, even if only via Peter O’toole’s dazzling Hollywood version. But there is also Thesiger…
Baba ‘Aris (1950)
Youtube has quite a few old Egyptian films with music, dancing, the colorful Egyptian dialect and some very strange plots. Baba ‘Aris is well worth watching… For details…
Nai Barghouti – “About a human” by Mahmoud Darwish
A beautiful song by Mahmoud Darwish, sung by the Palestinian Nai Barghouti.
Marvels and Wonders: Al-Qazwini and Beyond
There is a fascinating talk on Youtube by Travis Zadeh on marvels and wonders in Islamic texts, especially the many versions of al-Qazwini.
The Crisis in Yemen
My commentary published in Juan Cole’s Informed Comment.
Old “Arab” Postcards
If you would like to look at (or buy) old postcards and images from and about the Arab world, including North Africa, this site of cardcow.com is worth…
Egyptian agriculture in 1920
reaping There is an early 1920 video on Youtube with views of agriculture, bread making, spinning and weaving in Egypt at the time. No details are provided on…
Stories by Samer El-Kanshawi
check out Samer’s Arabic stories here…
The Al-Khalidi Library in Jerusalem
There is a recent article in the Arab News on the Al-Khalidi library in Jerusalem. You can also visit the website of the library here. I attach the…
Of mice and manuscripts
For anyone who works on Arabic manuscripts or would like to know how that is done, this new website at Leiden University is a welcome introduction. Check it…
Library Research: A Lament but not an Obituary
I arrived a little early to the Great Mosque of San‘a’ in Yemen to continue my research in the small upstairs room which was the “Western Library.” I…
Tabsir is back
In September 2005 I started the blog Tabsir (“Insight”) with several other colleagues to provide information on the Middle East as a supplement to the news and to…
Geocolonialism and the War in Yemen
In April Secretary-General António Guterres called the situation in Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. After more than three years of a lopsided war between a Western-supported Saudi/Emirat…
David King on Islamic Astronomy
The historian of Islamic astronomy and mathematics, Dr. David King, recently gave a fascinating lecture at the Furqan Foundation in London. Here is the Youtube video of the…
Blogging on MENA TIDNINGEN
Dear Friends of Tabsir, If you wonder why I hardly post on Tabsir these days, it is because I blog mainly on the Swedish website MENA Tidningen. Check…