Podcast on Gulf Almanac Lore
My podcast with Ahmed AlMaazmi and Tamara Fernando is posted online on the New Books Network.
Tag: Saudi Arabia
Book Launch on Almanac Lore of the Arab gulf
I will be giving a book launch on my recent book on Gulf almanac lore via Zoom for the Qatar National Library on February 22, 2023. Details about…
Gulf Arabic Online
NYU/Abu Dhabi has created a website devoted to the dialects of the Arab Gulf. Check it out here.
New CyberOrient Issue
The latest issue of CyberOrient is now available online: Joel W. Abdelmoez >> Good Tidings for Saudi Women? Techno-Orientalism, Gender, and Saudi Politics in Global Media Dis…
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…
Biden’s trip to Middle East
There is an excellent analysis in Time Magazine of how President Biden’s trip to the Middle East could help with resolving the protracted war on Yemen. You can…
Seasonal Knowledge and Arab Gulf Almanacs
I am pleased to announce the publication of my new book: Seasonal Knowledge and the Almanac Tradition of the Arab Gulf. Details about the book, including a free…
Wahhabis in the Dustbin?
This is a fascinating analysis by Hassan Hassan of the Saudi royal family trying to rewrite its past. It is available on the New/Lines website. Here is the…
Bulldozing Islamic Jeddah
mid-19th century view of Jeddah from Richard Burton’s travelogue The current de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, MBS, has promoted a major development scheme entitled Vision 2030. This…
Democracy Denied in the Middle East
An excellent analysis of U.S. policy in the Middle East by Juan Cole.
Yemen Military in the early 19th century
The Library of Congress has an online print of an engraving by Andrea Bernieri. It does not appear to be based on an actual observation by the artist.…
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…
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…
Good Tidings for Saudi Women?
Absher, which means “good tidings”, is a smartphone app that was released by the Saudi Ministry of Interior in 2015, available both in the Apple App Store and…
Saudi Arabia, Humanitarian Aid and Knowledge Production: What do we really know? #MUHUM
Saudi Arabia has one of the largest humanitarian aid budgets in the world. It counts as an ‘emerging’ donor of substantial influence in one of the world’s most…
Review of 2018, Part 4 (October–December): Nationalism, Deglobalization, plus the US exit from Syria
OCTOBER Where US–Canada relations were concerned, as well as Trump’s trade strategy, NAFTA was the leading event opening the month of October. The US–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) On Monday,…
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…
Women in the Middle East Take a Stand
The 2016 edition of the Arab Human Development Report by the UNDP highlighted the challenges of reporting on young women in the region. The report’s authors encountered objections…
How to Make Extremism Mainstream and Fake a Debate about Islamophobia
Is there a genuine debate taking place about Islamophobia? When and why did the “concern” about Islamophobia reach the highest levels of government in North America and western…
Trump Echoes Bush in Middle East Visit
President Introduces New Term into Counterterrorism Lexicon President Trump embarked on his first international trip since moving into the White House after a special counsel was appointed to…
Donald Trump and Empire: An Assessment
“There is something unseemly about a nation conducting a foreign policy that involves it in the affairs of most of the nations of the world while its own…
Reforming Saudi Arabia?
Mystique of Monarchy Post-War Watch – April 19, 2016 https://postwarwatch.com/2016/04/19/mystique-of-monarchy/ MADAWI AL-RASHEED — Limited social and political reforms in Saudi Arabia only prolong t…
The Voice of which America?
Commentary on MENA Tidningen.
Ten Ways on How Not To Think About the Iran/Saudi Conflict
by Omid Safi (@ostadjaan), On Being columnist, January 7, 2016 In the last few days, virtually every news outlet has featured a series of stories on the rising…