The Ignorance of the Jahiliyya
This is an excellent Youtube talk by Ahmad al-Jallad on the evidence from the rock inscriptions and graffiti from the Arabian Peninsula. Also check out his excellent book…
Tag: Languages
Podcast on Gulf Almanac Lore
My podcast with Ahmed AlMaazmi and Tamara Fernando is posted online on the New Books Network.
IAS Talk on Arabs before Islam
For more information and to register, click here.
Gulf Arabic Online
NYU/Abu Dhabi has created a website devoted to the dialects of the Arab Gulf. Check it out here.
Tower of Babel, Saudi Style
the official website is https://www.neom.com/en-us Long before Abraham/Ibrahim left Ur of the Chaldees for the promised land and became the ancestral icon of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, there…
Source for Arabic pdfs
Here is a very useful source for downloading pdfs of Arabic texts on a wide range of subjects. Check it out here: https://ebook.univeyes.com/disciplines
Tim MacIntosh Smith
Read the article about Tim, whose writing on Yemen is terrific.
Researching Islamic Manuscripts
Mahmoud Zaki has assembled a major resource on sources for the study of Islamic manuscripts, including links to major digital collections and publications. It can be accessed here.…
H-Egypt Network
There is a new resource regarding the study of Egypt from the start of the Islamic era until the present at H-Egypt.
Al-Jallad on Pre-Islamic Arabian Inscriptions
One of the foremost scholars of the pre-Islamic languages and inscriptions of the Arabian Peninsula is Dr. Ahmad al-Jallad. Here is a Youtube video of a lecture he…
Google Fail: Making Asses of Himyarites
Google’s attempt to translate can be charming at times and completely wrong as well. Here is how Google translated a post on Facebook about an old article regarding…
Maraqten on the Qur’an in light of Pre-Islamic Inscriptions
Dr. Muhammad Maraqten, the distinguished archaeologist and specialist on ancient pre-Islamic languages of the Arabian Peninsula, delivered a lecture almost a year ago on our knowledge of the…
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.
Functional multilingualism and the use of standard languages, by Bo Utas
With a description of the complex linguistic situation that characterized my father’s native village in the Ukraine as a starting point, I will try to demonstrate the multifarious…
Arabic Dictionaries Online
In 1981, while visiting Egypt for a consulting assignment with USAID, I purchased the old Cairo edition of the massive dictionary Tāj al-‘Arūs of Murtaḍā al-Zabīdī (d. 1790).…
Pierre Cachia 1921-2017
Pierre Cachia 1921-2017 Pierre Cachia slipped away peacefully on 1st April, a few days shy of his 96 th birthday, surrounded by his children and grandchildren. With the…
Onomasticon Arabicum
Onomasticon Arabicum (OA) is a long-living database project. This new online-version informs on more than 15000 scholars and celebrities from the first Muslim millenary. Its entries in Arabic…
Arabic Writing before Islam
In most world history survey courses, Arabia is introduced for the first time only as backstory to the rise of Islam. We’re told that there was a tradition…
Advanced Course in Arabic Manuscript Studies
Scholars, Scribes, and Readers: An Advanced Course in Arabic Manuscript Studies6-10 June 2016, Cambridge University Library, Cambridge, UK The Islamic Manuscript Association, in cooperation with Camb…
MenaLib Site
MENALib is a major resource for find e-texts, manuscripts, etc.
Mountains of Central Asia Digital Dataset
This Mountains of Central Asia Digital Dataset (MCADD) consists of a collection of books, journals and maps related broadly to the Himalayas and its outlying attached ranges including…