Search results for ""gingko""

Through a close analysis of the writings of four Lebanese theologians, the author outlines the challenges facing those in Arab Christian communities who seek to foster an accommodation and understanding between Christians and Muslims in the Arab world. The author examines the current position of the Arab Christian communities in the face of rising Islamic fundamentalism in the Arab world, with particular reference to the weakened position of those communities in Lebanon in the aftermath of that country's civil war between 1975 and 1990. The author goes on to call for a re-evaluation by Arab Christians of their attitude towards Arab Muslims and their faith, and for an engagement between the faiths based on mutual recognition of the shared traditions of Christianity and Islam and an understanding of the need for the faiths to act together in solidarity to address the socio-political and sociocultural challenges in the Arab world today. The author concludes by indicating the basis on which a shared spiritual quest for moral and political commitment can be realised.

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Current developments in Iran are forcing a fundamentalreassessment of the relationship between Islam and democracyand the processes of democratization in the Muslim world.While some scholars have argued that 'Islam' and 'democracy'are essentially incompatible, others have sought to portraythe advent of political Islam as a transitional phenomenonto be overcome before democratization can take root. Ansari,in tracing the historical roots of political development inIran, argues that what is in fact taking place is an intellectualsynthesis of ideas drawing from both Western and traditionalIranian norms. The author analyzes the origins and dynamicof this development, and discusses the possible consequencesfor Iran and the region, as well as Iran's relationship with thewider world. This new edition includes political developmentsin Iran since 2016. It looks at the increasing polarity of viewsand the changing nature of 'reformism' in light of successivesetbacks and growing international tensions.

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This authoritative work sheds light on the religious world of the Kalasha people of the Birir valley of the Pakistani districtof Chitral, focusing on their winter feasts which culminate in a great winter solstice festival. The Kalasha representthe last example of the pre-Islamic cultures of the Hindu Kush/Karakorum, but are also the only observable example,worldwide, of an archaic Indo-European religion. Cacopardo addresses the historical and cultural context of the area and,referencing an array of relevant literature, offers comparisons with the Indian world and the religious folklore of Europe.Interdisciplinary and based on extensive field research, Pagan Christmas is the first extended ethnographic study devotedto this little known Kalasha community and represents a standard international reference source on the anthropology,ethnography and history of religions of Pakistan and Central South Asia.Augusto S. Cacopardo has conducted anthropological research in Pakistan under the aegis of the Istituto Italianoper l'Africa e l'Oriente and is Professor of Ethnography at the University of Florence.His publications include themonograph Gates of Peristan: History, Religion and Society in the Hindu Kush (2001), co-authored with his brother Alberto M. Cacopardo.

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Collected articles on Iranian art from the Qajar dynasty. The thirteen articles in this volume were originally given as presentations at the symposium of the same name organized in June 2018 by the Musee du Louvre and the Musee du Louvre-Lens in conjunction with the exhibition The Empire of Roses: Masterpieces of 19th Century Persian Art. The exhibition explored the art of Iran in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, while the nation was under the rule of the Qajar dynasty. The symposium set out to present research on previously unknown and unpublished objects from this rich period of art history. This volume, published with the Louvre Museum in France, is divided into four sections. The first, "Transitions and Transmissions," is dedicated to the arts of painting, illumination, and lithography. The focus of the second section, entitled "The Image Revealed," also considers works on paper, looking at new themes and techniques. "The Material World" examines the use of materials such as textiles, carpets, and armor. The articles in the final section discuss the history of two groups of artifacts acquired by their respective museums.

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Collected essays honoring the work of British professors Carole and Robert Hillenbrand. Carole and Robert Hillenbrand are legendary British professors, both of whom have made immense contributions to the fields of Islamic history and art history, and they are highly respected and beloved by the academic community. For these two volumes, editors Melanie Gibson and Ali Ansari have gathered an eclectic mix of scholarly contributions by colleagues and by some of their most recent students who now occupy positions in universities worldwide. The eleven articles in the volume dedicated to Carole Hillenbrand include research on a range of topics, including the elusive Fatimid caliph al-Zafir, a crusader raid on Mecca, and the Persian bureaucrat Mirza Saleh Shirazi's history of England. In Robert Hillenbrand's volume, the thirteen articles include studies of a rare eighth-century metal dish with Nilotic scenes, Chinese Qur'ans, the process of image-making in both theory and practice, and a shrine in Mosul destroyed by ISIS.

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Carole and Robert Hillenbrand are acclaimed academics who have made immense contributions to the fields of Islamic history and art history. The respect and affection of the academic community towards them is legendary. For these two volumes, editors Ali Ansari and Melanie Gibson have gathered a wide-ranging selection of scholarly essays by some of their longstanding colleagues as well as by recent students who now occupy academic positions across the world. The volume dedicated to Carole Hillenbrand includes eleven articles on subjects which include the elusive Fatimid caliph al-Zafr, a Crusader raid on Mecca, and the Persian bureaucrat Mirza Saleh Shirazi’s History of England.

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Part visual history, part memoir, You Can Crush the Flowers is the celebrated Egyptian-Lebanese artist Bahia Shehab's chronicle of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and its aftermath, as it manifested itself not only in the art on the streets of Cairo but also through the wider visual culture that emerged during the Revolution. Marking the ten year anniversary of the revolution, the book tells the stories that inspired both her own artwork and those of her fellow-revolutionaries. It narrates the events of the revolution as they unfolded, describing on one hand the tactics deployed by the regime to drive protesters from the street, from the use of tear gas and snipers to employing brute force, intimidation techniques and virginity tests, and on the other hand the retaliation by the protesters online and on the street in marches, chants, street art and memes. Throughout this powerful and moving account, and using a vast array of over 250 images, Bahia Shehab responds to what she has witnessed as both artist and activist. The result bears witness to the brutality of the regime and pays tribute to the protestors who bravely defied it.

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The aim of this volume is to adopt an original analytical approach in explaining various dynamics at work behind the Arab Spring, through giving voice to local dynamics and legacies rather than concentrating on debates about paradigms. It highlights micro-perspectives of change and resistance as well of contentious politics that are often marginalised and left unexplored in favour of macro-analyses. First, the story of the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Morocco and Algeria is told through diverse and novel perspectives, looking at factors that have not yet been sufficiently underlined, but carry explanatory power for what has occurred. Second, rather than focusing on macro-comparative regional trends - however useful they might be - the contributors to the book focus on the particularities of each country, highlighting distinctive micro-dynamics of change and continuity. The essays collected here are contributions from renowned writers and researchers from the Middle East and North Africa, along with Western experts, thus allowing the formation of a sophisticated dialogic exchange.

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Naguib Mahfouz, the Arab world’s only Nobel literature laureate, is best known internationally for his short stories and novels, including The Cairo Trilogy. But in Egypt he was equally familiar to newspaper readers for the column he wrote for many years in the leading daily Al-Ahram, in which he reflected on issues of the day from domestic and international events, politics, and economics to historic anniversaries, inspirational personalities, and questions of cultural freedom. This volume brings together the 285 articles he wrote between January 1989 and the near-fatal knife attack in October 1994. In carefully crafted short texts, his social conscience is revealed as he highlights political shortcomings, economic injustice, and corruption in Egypt and the wider Arab world. His philosophical sensitivity comes to the fore as he contemplates the meaning of a historic events, contributions of an influential people, and what is required to lead a good life. The collapse of the Soviet Union, the Oslo peace accords, the spread of terrorism, the Cairo earthquake, the passing of Louis Awad, Yusuf Idris, Yahya Hakki, the third term of Hosni Mubarak, climate change, and more come under Naguib Mahfouz’s fine scrutiny. For any fan of Mahfouz’s fiction, this collection opens a window on a different side of his intellect, and it offers insights from one of the region’s greatest modern minds.

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Medieval metalwork is one of the artistic highlights of the Iranian world, as well as of the Departement des Arts de l'Islam at the Louvre in Paris, which holds more than one hundred and fifty objects from this period. A new approach to the study of a historic collection, Precious Material: The Arts of Metal in the Medieval Iranian World is a comprehensive overview of the production of metalin medieval Iran. Although this is one of the most important collections in the world, the objects, some well-known but many more unpublished, have never been studied or published as an ensemble. This volume includes a presentation of the collection through the lens of its centers of manufacture, a full technical analysis, as well as the functions and contexts in which the pieces were used. Each object is fully described and illustrated in color with close-up or X-ray images, and many inscriptions have been translated and are included in the catalog entries

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Set against the backdrop of Iran s struggle against the rising powers of Russia and Britain, the memoirs of Mirza Riza Khan Arfa -ed-Dowleh otherwise known as Prince Arfa (1853 1902) are packed with picaresque adventures as the prince tells the story of his rise from humble provincial beginnings to the heights of the Iranian state. With this translation, his incredible story is brought to life for the first time in English. Prince Arfa writes with arresting wit about the deadly intrigues of the Qajar court. Lamentingly, but resolutely, he chronicles the decline of Iran from a once great empire to an almost bankrupt, lawless state, in which social unrest is channelled and exploited by the clergy. He describes the complex interactions between Iran and Europe, including an account of Naser-od-Din Shah s profligate visits to Britain and France; the splendor and eccentricities of the doomed Tsar Nicholas II s court; the Tsar s omen-laden coronation; and his own favor with the Tsarina, who would grant him concessions on matters of vital importance to his country. The result is a memoir of extraordinary political intrigue. "

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This boxset consists of a collection of newspaper articles and earlier essays, presented in four volumes. Each volume is introduced by Professor Rasheed El-Enany (University of Exeter).

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The images released by Islamic State of militants smashing statues at ancient sites were a horrifying aspect of their advance across Northern Iraq and Syria during 2015-16. Their leaders justified this iconoclasm (destruction of images) by arguing that such actions were divinely decreed in Islam, a notion that has remained fixed in the public consciousness. The Image Debate: Figural Representation in Islam and Across the World is a collection of thirteen essays which examine the controversy surrounding the use of images in Islamic and other religious cultures and seek to redress some of the misunderstandings that have arisen. Written by leading academics from the United States, Australia, Turkey, Israel and the United Kingdom, the book has a foreword by Stefano Carboni, Director of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, followed by an introduction by the editor Christiane Gruber, who sets the subject in context with a detailed examination of the debates over idols and the production of figural images in Islamic traditions. Twelve further articles are divided into three sections: the first deals with pre-modern Islam: Mika Natif looks at tensions between the Hadith prohibition on images and the praxis of image-making under the Umayyad dynasty and argues that the Umayyad rulers used imagery to establish their political and religious authority; Finbarr Barry Flood examines the practice of epigraphic erasure, i.e., the removal of names of rulers and patrons from historical inscriptions from the medieval Islamic world; and Oya Pancaroglu focuses on the figural conventions of an illustrated manuscript of Varqa and Gulshah, a medieval Persian romance composed in the masnavi (rhyming couplet) form by the 11th-century poet `Ayyuqi. The second section addresses the situation outside Islam: Alicia Walker surveys attitudes toward the production and veneration of religious images in Byzantium from the earliest years of the Christian Roman Empire (early 4th century) to the aftermath of the Iconoclast controversy (late 9th century); Steven Fine explores the history of Jewish engagement with `art' from Roman antiquity through the high middle ages through a detailed exploration of the 3rd-century Dura Europos synagogue and its wall paintings; Michael Shenkar examines evidence for the employment of figural images in the cultic practices of some of the major ancient Iranian cultural and political entities, offering a broad perspective on perceptions of images in ancient Iranian worship; and Robert DeCaroli delves into the question of why no image of the Buddha was made during the first five hundred years of Buddhism. The third section brings the reader back to Islamic lands with five articles examining aspects of the issue in the modern and contemporary periods: Yousuf Saaed investigates South Asian mass-produced images, especially posters that include illustrations of local Sufi shrines, portraits of saints and Shi`i iconography; James Bennett explores the visual depiction of Javanese shadow puppets (wayang kulit), including the sage Begawan Abiyasa, whose narratives convey key elements of Sufi mystical philosophy; Allen and Mary Roberts consider images of Cheikh Amadu Bamba, the founding Sufi saint of the Senegalese Mouride order; Rose Issa addresses how the term `Islamic' relates to contemporary art, how artists manage to create work in countries in constant turmoil and to what extent such works reflect their conceptual, aesthetic, and socio-political concerns; and finally Shiva Balaghi traces the use of the figure, along its symbolic shadows and silhouettes, in works by notable Iranian artists living in Iran and in diaspora.

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Well beyond the Arab world, El Saadawi's fiction and non-fiction work, from Woman at Point Zero to The Fall of the Imam to her prison memoirs, have earned her a reputation as a refreshing voice of feminism in the Arab World. This series of essays form a selection of El Saadawi's most recent musings, memories and reflections, considering the role of women in Egyptian and wider Islamic society, the inextricability of imperialism from the patriarchy, the meeting point of East and West, and the image and body politic of the woman in the intersections of those cultures. These musings leave no stone unturned and no view unchallenged, and offer the interested reader new insight into El Saadawi's thoughts and reflections.

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The Benaki Museum of Islamic Art in Athens has a substantial collection of Iznik ceramics (tableware, tiles and sherds). Although well-known to those who visit the museum, this collection has never been fully published. John Carswell first studied the objects in the 1980s and started cataloguing them with a view to publication. The project was revived and guided to fruition by the curator of the museum, Mina Moraitou. She has contributed a chapter on Antonis Benakis and the formation of the Iznik collection as well as working on the catalogue which includes 111 objects, 83 tiles and 143 sherds. All the objects are illustrated in colour, some with line drawings.

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Twenty chapters, authored by leading scholars from around the world, explore the astonishing variety of building styles and traditions that have evolved over millennia in a region of diverse terrains, extreme climates and distinctive local histories. Generations of highly-skilled masons, carpenters and craftspeople have deftly employed the materials-to-hand and indigenous technologies to create urban architectural assemblages, gardens and rural landscapes that dialogue harmoniously with the natural contours and geological conditions of southern Arabia. A sharp escalation in military action and violence in the country since the 1990s has had a devastating impact on the region's rich cultural heritage. In bringing together the astute observations and reflections of an international and interdisciplinary group of acclaimed scholars, the principal aim of this book is to raise awareness among the general public and policy makers of Yemen's long history of cultural creativity, and of the very urgent need for international collaboration to protect it and its people from the destructive forces that have beset the region.Following the editor's introduction, the book is divided into three parts. Part One introduces readers to the astonishing variety of architecture and building traditions across the country, from the Red Sea coast, eastward into the mountainous highlands, to the edge of the Sahara desert, and southward into the deep, dramatic wadis of the Hadhramaut. Part Two is dedicated to exploring the issues and the challenges of conserving and preserving Yemen's rich architectural heritage. Part Three offers vivid personal insights - both historical and contemporary - into the making of place and the construction of identities.

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An illustrated reference book for students and scholars of Persian art, poetry, and literature. With this book, Barbara Brend provides thorough consideration of two celebrated Persian manuscripts housed in the British Library. These two copies of the Khamsah (Quintet) a set of five narrative poems by twelfth-century poet Nizami, a master of allegorical poetry in Persian literature, were produced in Herat in the fifteenth century, one of the greatest periods of Persian painting. Although well known, the manuscripts have never before been written about in relation to each other. Brend tells the story of each poem and the painting that illustrates it, and she formally analyzes the images, placing them in their historical and artistic context. The images from both highly prized manuscripts are beautifully reproduced in color, and the ownership history of one of the manuscripts-recorded in the form of seal impressions and inscriptions- is also included. Ursula Sims-Williams provides a translation and commentary of these important marks of ownership which identify the Mughal rulers Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb, among many others.

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An analysis of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne from multiple historical, economic, and social perspectives. The last of the post-World War One peace settlements, the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne departed from methods used in the Treaty of Versailles and took on a new peace-making initiative: a forced population exchange that affected one and a half million people. Like its German and Austro-Hungarian allies, the defeated Ottoman Empire had initially been presented with a dictated peace in 1920. In just two years, however, the Kemalist insurgency enabled Turkey to become the first sovereign state in the Middle East, while the Greeks, Armenians, Arabs, Egyptians, Kurds, and other communities previously under the Ottoman Empire sought their own forms of sovereignty. Featuring historical analysis from multiple perspectives, They All Made Peace, What is Peace? considers the Lausanne Treaty and its legacy. Chapters investigate British, Turkish, and Soviet designs in the post-Ottoman world, situate th

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How did Iran’s unique position in the world affect and define its treatment of decolonization? During the final decades of Pahlavi rule in the late 1970s, the country sought to establish close relationships with newly independent counterparts in the Global South. Most scholarly work focused on this period is centered around the Cold War and Iran's relations with the United States, Russia, and Europe. Little attention has been paid to how the country interacted with other regions, such as Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Adding to an important and growing body of literature that discusses the profound and lasting impact of decolonization, Iran and Global Decolonisation contributes to the theoretical debates around the re-shaping of the world brought about by the end of an empire. It considers not only the impact of global decolonization on movements and ideas within Iran but how Iran’s own experiences of imperialism shaped how these ideas were received and developed.

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The nine essays in this volume were first presented at the Historians of Islamic Art Association's (HIAA) seventh biennial symposium entitled 'Regime Change' and they highlight some of the regimes of thought and changing trends that structure the field of Islamic art history.

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Naguib Mahfouz is one of the most important writers in contemporary Arabic literature. Winner of the Nobel Prize in 1988 (the only Arab writer to win the prize thus far), his novels helped bring Arabic literature onto the international stage. Far fewer people know his nonfiction works, however-a gap that this book fills. Bringing together Mahfouz's early nonfiction writings (most penned during the 1930s) which have not previously been available in English, this volume offers a rare glimpse into the early development of the renowned author. As these pieces show, Mahfouz was deeply interested in literature and philosophy, and his early writings engage with the origins of philosophy, its development and place in the history of thought, as well its meaning writ large. In his literary essays, he discusses a wide range of authors, from Anton Chekov to his own Arab contemporaries like Taha Hussein.He also ventures into a host of important contemporary issues, including science and modernity, the growing movement for women's rights in the Arab world, and emerging ideologies like socialism-all of which outline the growing challenges to traditional modes of living that we saw all around him.Together, these essays offer a fascinating window not just into the mind of Mahfouz himself but the changing landscape of Egypt during that time, from the development of Islam to the struggles between tradition, modernity, and the influences of the West.

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The Fertile Crescent region has long been regarded as pivotal to the rise of civilisation. Alongside the story of human development, innovation, and progress, there is a culinary tradition of equal richness and importance. The Culinary Crescent shows Heine’s deep knowledge of the cookery traditions of the Umayyad, Abbasid, Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal courts. In addition to a fascinating history, Heine presents more than seventy recipes—from the modest to the extravagant—with dishes ranging from those created by the celebrity chefs of the bygone Mughal era, up to gastronomically complex presentations of modern times. Beautifully produced, and designed for both reading and cooking, The Culinary Crescent is sure to provide a delectable window into the history of food in the Middle East.

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The volume `The Early Ottoman Peloponnese: A study in the Light of an Annotated editio princeps of the TT10-1/14662 Ottoman Taxation Cadastre (ca. 1460-1463)' is a revised version of the author's PhD thesis, conducted at Royal Holloway, University of London, under the supervision of the late Professor Julian Chrysostomides. Part I contains an Introduction, three Chapters (1-3) and a Conclusion. The Introduction presents the aims, scope and methodology adopted, followed by a survey of previous scholarship conducted on the subject, and a brief historical examination of the late Byzantine Peloponnese and its conquest by the Ottomans. It concludes with a brief codicological and palaeographical description and dating of the cadastre TT10-1/14662. Chapter 1 presents the Historical Geography of the Peloponnese, listing all the place-names (667 in total) mentioned in the sequence they appear in the TT10-1/14662 register accompanied by topographic and linguistic notes. This is followed by a set of thirty-eight digital maps of the early Ottoman Peloponnese using GIS (Geographical Information Systems). Chapter 2 discusses the Demography of the Peloponnese, including the settlement patterns, the density of population and its categorisation into urban/rural, sedentary/nomadic, concentrating, in particular, on the influx and settlement of the second largest ethnic group, after the Greeks, in the peninsula, namely the Albanians.Chapter 3 explores the Administrative and Economic Structures of the Peloponnese, concentrating on the Ottoman timar system and taxation. A detailed presentation of the level of agricultural production, types of crops, livestock, fishing, commerce, industrial development, etc. is illustrated with tables and charts.The Conclusion summarises the findings of the research and attempts to identify areas for possible future investigation. Part II comprises a diplomatic edition of the transcribed Ottoman text. The study closes with full bibliography followed by facsimiles of the cadastre.

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In honour of Goethe and the 200th anniversary of the first publication of his outstanding poem sequence the West-Eastern Divan (1819), A New Divan contains outstanding original poems by twenty-four leading poets - twelve from the `East' and twelve from the `West' - and presents a truly international poetic dialogue inspired by the culture of the Other and Goethe's late, great work. The poets come from across the East - from Morocco to Turkey, Syria to Afghanistan - and from across the West - from Germany to the USA, Estonia to Brazil. Writing in Arabic, Persian and Turkish, and English, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Slovenian, each pair of poets has responded to one of the themes of the twelve books of Goethe's original Divan, including `The Poet', `Love', `The Tyrant', `Faith' and `Paradise'. Working directly with the original poets or via a bridge translation the twenty-two English-language poets have created new poems that draw on the poetic forms and cultures of the poets taking part. Three pairs of essays enhance and complement the poems, mirroring Goethe's original `Notes and Essays for a Better Understanding of the West-Eastern Divan'. A New Divan is a life-enhancing, lyrical conversation at a time when understanding of the Other has never been more important. In celebrating Johan Wolfgang von Goethe, it also celebrates the art of poetry and the art of translation.

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The region comprised of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is well known for its abundant natural resources and important geostrategic position. That image, however, is often overshadowed by ongoing sectarian violence and trans-boundary conflicts that threaten the stability of the entire region and dominate much of the global news cycle. Although the region's fragile environmental state has increasingly preoccupied policymakers in individual countries, there is as yet insufficient concerted effort to recognize and address problems relating to sustainability and climate change. And despite the urgency of these challenges, there are very limited academic resources, if any, dedicated to studying MENA's environmental future. Environmental Challenges in the MENA Region draws from the proceedings of a seminal international conference on the subject at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. The chapters in this book are predicated upon two critical premises: that expertise and awareness from a wide range of disciplines is required to understand and address environmental challenges; and that, to have a real chance of success, MENA countries need to confront these problems as common and shared threats. The interdisciplinary nature of this book mirrors the conclusion reached: that these nations must cooperate on all fronts in order to shape the future of their mutual environment.

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The familiar and heartwarming story of Christmas is one of hope, encapsulated by the birth of the infant Jesus. It is also a story that unites Christianity and Islam--two faiths that have often been at odds with each other. The accounts of the Nativity given by the Evangelists Luke and Matthew find their parallels in Surahs 3 and 19 of the Qur'an, which take up the Annunciation to Mary, the Incarnation from the Holy Spirit, and the Nativity. Christmas and the Qur'an is a sensitive and precise analysis of the Christmas story as it appears in the Gospels and the Qur'an. Karl-Josef Kuschel presents both scriptures in a convincing comparative exegesis and reveals startling similarities as well as significant differences. Kuschel explores how Christians and Muslims read these texts and reveals an intertwining legacy that serves as a base for greater understanding. Without leaving the realm of theology, Kuschel approaches his analysis in a theocentric way by emphasizing the shared belief that God is almighty, which, he argues, can act as a healing suture between Christianity and Islam. Christmas and the Qur'an gives the reader the chance to remember the message of hope that the birth of Jesus brings and invites to a dialogue between Muslims and Christians.

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Egyptian street artist Bahia Shehab began taking to the streets using lines from Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish during the Egyptian revolution of 2011. Since then, she has taken her peaceful resistance to the streets of the world, from New York to Tokyo, Amsterdam to Honolulu. This exhibition catalogue documents not only Shehab's striking artwork itself, but also the stories of the people she meets along the way, and her observations from the streets of each new city she visits. It is her artists manifesto, a cry for freedom and dignity, and a call to never stop dreaming.

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Over the course of five decades, Professor Sir Nasser David Khalili has assembled eight of the world’s most important collections of art. Together they consist of over 35,000 objects, with each collection providing an exhaustive account of its subject. In acquiring, conserving, researching, exhibiting, publishing and digitising these collections, Sir David has contributed, significantly to numerous fields of scholarship and in the process helped foster a greater understanding of the world’s traditions. One of these eight collections – Hajj and the Arts of Pilgrimage – was compiled not only on the basis of its intrinsic aesthetic merit, but principally as a means of telling a complete visual story of Hajj and the importance of the sanctuaries of Mecca and Medina. Hajj and the Arts of Pilgrimage consists of twenty-seven essays addressing objects in the remarkable collection of Professor Sir Nasser David Khalili. The collection features more than five thousand objects relating to the arts of pilgrimage, from the eighth century to today, and includes Qur’ans, illustrated manuscripts, rare books, scientific instruments, textiles, coins, paintings, prints, and photo-postcards, as well as archival material, unique historical documents, and examples of the work of some of the earliest Muslim photographers of Hajj. Together the essays in Hajj and the Arts of Pilgrimage provide a comprehensive overview of Hajj, illustrating the religious, spiritual, cultural, and artistic aspects of pilgrimage to the Holy Sanctuaries of Islam and the cosmopolitan nature of Hajj itself. Each essay is written by a prominent specialist in the field and beautifully illustrated with full-colour images of objects from the collection, some of which have never been seen before. This work is a fitting tribute to Professor Sir Nasser David Khalili and his decades of passion, determination and scholarship in the field of Islamic art. These volumes will transform our perception of the pilgrimage.

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In the early 1250s Mongke Khan, grandson and successor of the mighty Mongol emperor, Genghis Khan, sent out his youngerbrothers Qubilai and Hulegu to consolidate his grip on power. Hulegu was welcomed into Iran while his older brother, Qubilai, continued to erode the power of the Song emperors of southern China. In 1276 he finally forced their submission and peacefully occupied their capital, Hangzhou. The city enjoyed a revival as the cultural capital of a united China and was soon filled with traders, adventurers, artists, entrepreneurs, and artisans from throughout the great Mongol Empire includinga prosperous, influential and seemingly welcome community of Persians. In 1281, one of their number, Al al-Din, built thePhoenix Mosque in the heart of the city where it still stands today. This study of the mosque and the Ju-jing Yuan cemetery,today as a lake-side public park, casts light on an important and transformative period in Chinese history, and perhaps themost important period in Chinese Islamic history. The book is published in the Persian Studies Series of the British Instituteof Persian Studies.

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Descriptions in literature of premodern Indian cities have included a diversity of peoples found in the streets and markets, evoking a sense of wealth and abundance, and connection to regional and global networks of trade and production. But they also raise questions on how the residents lived together and negotiated their differences: which differences mattered, when and to whom? How did state actions and policies affect urban society and the lives of various communities? How and why did conflict occur in urban spaces? In considering these questions, this book explores the histories of urban communities in the three cities of Ajmer, Nagaur and Pushkar in Rajasthan, between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The focus of this study is on everyday life and contextualising religious practices and conflicts by considering patterns of patronage and looking at conflict more broadly within society. Various archival documents are examined, from family and institutional records to state registers, and the findings demonstrate the complex and sometimes contradictory ways religion intersected with the political, economic and social realms. Negotiations and shared norms meant that many patronage patterns and processes persisted, albeit in altered forms, and it was the robustness of these structures that contributed to the resilience of urban spaces and society in precolonial Rajasthan.

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Amman, the capital of Jordan, contends with a crisis of identity rooted in how it grew to become a symbol for the Anglo-Hashemite government first, and a city second. As a representation of the new centralised authority, in 1921 Amman became the seat of the mandatory government that orchestrated the development of Transjordan. Despite its diminutive size, the city grew to house all the components necessary for a thriving and cohesive state by the end of the British mandate in 1946. However, in spite of its modernising and regulatory ambitions, the Transjordan government did not control all facets of life in the region. Instead, the story of Transjordan is one of tensions between the state and the realities of the region, and these limitations forced the government to scale down its aspirations. This book presents the history of Amman's development under the rule of the British mandate from 1921-46 and illustrates how the growth of the Anglo-Hashemite state imbued the city with physical, political, and symbolic significance.

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The Qur'an identifies Jesus as a sign of God, and he holds a place as one of the most important prophets in Islam. Looking at Jesus in Islam also reveals both deep differences from and rich connections to the view of Jesus in Christianity. In The Other Prophet, Mouhanad Khorchide and Klaus von Stosch explore and explain the position of the Qur'anic Jesus, with one scholar working from the Muslim and the other from the Christian theological perspective. Their combined research presents a history of Jesus' presence in the Qur'an and provides astute observations to deepen the understanding of both Christians and Muslims. Here we find that a common view of Jesus from the Muslim and Christian sides is not only possible, but also expands our understanding of Jesus and his message.

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This lavishly illustrated volume of essays introduces a fascinating array of subjects, each exploring an aspect of the far-reaching "mercantile effect" and its impact across western Asia in the early modern era. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the increased movement of merchants and goods from China to Europe brought desirable commodities to new markets, but also spread ideas, tastes, and technologies across western Asia as never before. Through the newly-established Dutch, English, and French East India companies, as well as much older mercantile networks, commodities including silk, ivory, books, and glazed porcelains were transported both east and west. The Mercantile Effect shows a fascinating array of trade objects and the customs and traditions of traders that brought about a period of intense cultural interchange.

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This volume consists of essays published in newspapers between 1982 and 1988, coinciding with the early years of Hosni Mubarak's presidency. Mahfouz describes Mubarak's early administration as an 'unhurried democracy'. In these essays, Mubarak is not subjected to direct criticism, which is mainly reserved for Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat. Meanwhile, political figures such as Saad Zaghloul and Mustafa al-Nahhas are praised as great leaders, signifying Mahfouz's continuous sympathy with the Wafd party. Mahfouz's exceptional humanity is most prominent in the careful attention he pays to the daily challenges faced by Egyptians. The writing presented here reveals his remarkable insight into the country's political and social issues, as well as a pragmatic capacity to see the larger picture, particularly when it comes to the role of Egypt in the Arab world. A recurring theme in the majority of the essays is Mahfouz's perseverance in insisting, despite hardships, on tolerance and justice, on peaceful coexistence, on the maintenance of work ethics, on the importance of cultural education, and the merits of democracy.

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In 1914 the Middle East was still dominated, as it had been for some four centuries, by the Ottoman Empire; by 1923, its political shape had changed beyond recognition as the result of the insistent claims of Arab and Turkish nationalism and of Zionism. This book examines that historic transformation, taking as its focus the work of three leaders. The Hashemite Emir Feisal hoped to head an Arab kingdom in Syria but was thwarted by the French. The Turkish war hero Mustafa Kemal defied the imperial ambitions of the European powers, inspiring a new Turkish nationalism and founding a secular republic on the ruins of a defeated empire. The Russian-born scientist Chaim Weizmann seized the chance to secure the Balfour Declaration in favour of Zionism from the British in 1917, and then successfully argued for a British mandate for Palestine which would carry this out.

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The reign of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1941-1979), marked the high-point of Iran's global interconnectedness. Never before, nor ever since, have Iranians felt the impact of global political, social, economic, and cultural forces so intimately in their national and daily lives, nor have Iranian actors played such an important global role, on battlefields, barricades, and in board rooms far beyond Iran's borders. Modern Iran is in many ways the product of the global interconnectedness that dramatically accelerated in the 1960s and 1970s. From the launch of the Shah's White Revolution in 1963 to his overthrow in the popular Revolution of 1978-79, Iran experienced the longest period of sustained economic growth that the country had ever experienced. The shift in power from oil consumer to oil producers fuelled the modernisation aspirations of a generation of Iranians, in the context of competing capitalist and Marxist models of development. The history of Pahlavi Iran has traditionally been written as prologue to the 1979 Iranian Revolution. These histories largely locate the political, social and cultural origins of the revolution firmly within a national context, into which global actors intruded and Iranian actors retreated. While engaging with this national narrative, this volume is concerned with Iran's place in the global history of the 1960s and 1970s. It examines and highlights the transnational threads that connected Pahlavi Iran to the world, from global traffic in modern art and narcotics, to the embrace of American social science by Iranian technocrats and the encounter of European intellectuals with the Iranian Revolution. In doing so, this volume seeks to write Pahlavi Iran into the global history of the 1960s and 1970s, when Iran mattered far beyond its borders.

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This book is a study of moulids, the popular Egyptian religious festivals (Muslim and Christian) as they were in the first half of the 20th century. Moulids also had a secular side, where sports, games, theatres, shadowplays, beer booths, sweet stalls, eating houses, dancing, and laughter, were as much part of the festival as the religious processions and the whirling of dervishes. Nor were the festivals exclusive to one religion or the other- Muslims and Christians happily attended each other's moulids. Some of the rites and customs date from as far back as the Pharaonic period, but the moulids are gradually dying out. Many of the 126 festivals described here have since faded away, making the book of lasting interest. Published in Cairo at the height of the Second World War, Bimbashi McPherson's The Moulids of Egypt is a fascinating and highly original contribution to the study of the country's religious folklore and practice.

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The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne may have been the last of the post-World War One peace settlements, but it was very different from Versailles. Like its German and Austro-Hungarian allies, the defeated Ottoman Empire had initially been presented with a dictated peace in 1920. In just two years, however, the Kemalist insurgency turned defeat into victory, enabling Turkey to claim its place as the first sovereign state in the Middle East. Meanwhile those communities who had lived side-by-side with Turks inside the Ottoman Empire struggled to assert their own sovereignty, jostled between the Soviet Union and the resurgence of empire in the guise of League of Nations mandates. For 1.5m Ottoman Greeks and Balkan Muslims, ‘making peace’ involved forced population exchanges, a peace-making tool now understood as ethnic cleansing. Chapters consider competing visions for a postOttoman world, situate the population exchanges relative to other peace-making efforts, and discuss economic factors behind the reallocation of Ottoman debt as well as refugee flows and oil politics. Further chapters consider Arab, Armenian, American and Iranian perspectives, as well as the long shadow cast by Lausanne over contemporary politics, both inside Turkey and out.

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This book reviews and analyses the modern history of Kuwait by telling the story of Abd al-Aziz Sa'ud al-Babtain (b. 1936), a businessman, philanthropist, and poet whose own story closely interweaves with the history of the state. 'The Poet and Businessman' takes a uniquely wide-ranging view of this history and is a rare study of an individual from a generation in the Gulf who experienced it firsthand and witnessed the benefits of the discovery of oil. It was this discovery, which came with costs alongside the many benefits, that has played a crucial part in the socio-economic and cultural development of Kuwait and across the wider Gulf region. Constructing an overview of the modern history of Kuwait in parallel with the life of Abd al-Aziz Sa'ud al-Babtain, Stenberg succeeds in filling a lacuna in contemporary scholarship on the Middle East, especially on a neglected area of Arabian history. The result is a balanced account of the state of Kuwait enriched by the story of a remarkable and influential individual.

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The Constitutional Revolution of 1906 opened the way for enormous change in Persia, heralding the modern era and creating a model for later political and cultural movements in the region. Broad in its scope, this multidisciplinary volume brings together essays from leading scholars in Iranian Studies to explore the significance of this revolution, its origins, and the people who made it happen. As the authors show, this period was one of unprecedented debate within Iran s burgeoning press. Many different groups fought to shape the course of the Revolution, which opened up seemingly boundless possibilities for the country s future and affected nearly every segment of its society. Exploring themes such as the role of women, the use of photography, and the uniqueness of the Revolution as an Iranian experience, the authors tell a story of immense transition, as the old order of the Shah subsided and was replaced by new institutions, new forms of expression, and a new social and political order. "

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The essays in this book trace a rich continuum of artistic exchange that occurred between successive Islamic dynasties from the twelfth through nineteenth centuries as well as the influence of Islamic art during that time on cultures as far away as China, Armenia, India, and Europe. Taking advantage of recent technologies that allow new ways of peering into the pasts of art objects, the authors break new ground in their exploration of the art and architecture of the Islamic world. The essays range across a variety of topics. These include a look at tile production during the reign of the Qaytbay, the book bindings associated with Qansuh al-Ghuri, and the relationship between Mamluk metalwork and that found in Rasulid Yemen and Italy. Several essays examine inscriptions found on buildings of the Fatimid, Mamluk, and Ottoman periods, and others look at the debt of European lacquer works to Persian craftsmen, the Armenian patrons of eighteenth-century Chinese exports, and the influences of Islam on art and architecture found all across India. The result is a sweeping but deeply researched look at one of the richest networks of artistic traditions the world has ever known. "

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When Naguib Mahfouz quit his job as a civil servant in 1971, a Nobel Prize in literature was still off on the horizon, as was his global recognition as the central figure of Arab literature. He was just beginning his post on the editorial staff of the Egyptian newspaper "Al-Ahram," and elsewhere in Cairo, Anwar Sadat was just beginning his hugely transformative Egyptian presidency, which would span eleven years and come to be known as the Sadat era. This book offers English-language readers the first glimpse of the Sadat era through Mahfouz s eyes, a collection of pieces that captures one of Egypt s most important decades in the prose of one of the Middle East s most important writers. This volume stitches together a fascinating and vivid account of the dramatic events Sadat s era, from his break with the Soviet Union to the Yom Kippur War with Israel and eventual peace accord and up to his assassination by Islamic extremists in 1981. Through this tumultuous history, Mahfouz takes on a diverse array of political topics including socioeconomic stratification, democracy and dictatorship, and Islam and extremism which are still of crucial relevance to Egypt today.Clear-eyed and direct, the works illuminate Mahfouz s personal and political convictions that were more often hidden in his novels, enriching his better-known corpus with social, political, and ideological context. These writings are a rare treasure, a story of a time of tremendous social and political change in the Middle East told by one if its most iconic authors."

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An entire chapter (surah) of the Qur'an bears her name. She is the only woman mentioned by name in the Qur'an-indeed, her name appears more frequently than that of either Muhammad or Jesus. From the earliest times to the present day, Mary has continued to be held in high regard by Christians and Muslims alike. And yet Mary has also been the cause of much rancour and tension between these two world religions. In this groundbreaking study, Muna Tatari and Klaus von Stosch painstakingly reconstruct the picture of Mary that is presented in the Qur'an and show how veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Roman Catholic Church intersects and interacts with the testimony of the Qur'an. Their sensitive and scholarly treatise is an important contribution to constructive interfaith dialogue in the 21st century.

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Carole and Robert Hillenbrand are acclaimed academics who have made immense contributions to the fields of Islamic history and art history. The respect and affection of the academic community towards them is legendary. For these two volumes, editors Ali Ansari and Melanie Gibson have gathered a wide-ranging selection of scholarly essays by some of their longstanding colleagues as well as by recent students who now occupy academic positions across the world. The volume dedicated to Robert Hillenbrand includes thirteen articles on subjects which include studies on a rare 8th-century metal dish with Nilotic scenes, Chinese Qur’ans, the process of image making in both theory and practice, and a shrine in Mosul destroyed by ISIS.

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In 1814, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe read the poems of the great fourteenth-century Persian poet Hafiz in a newly published translation by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall. For Goethe, the book was a revelation. He felt a deep connection with Hafiz and Persian poetic traditions, and was immediately inspired to create his own West-Eastern Divan as a lyrical conversation between the poetry and history of his native Germany and that of Persia. The resulting collection engages with the idea of the other and unearths lyrical connections between cultures. The West-Eastern Divan is one of the world's great works of literature, an inspired masterpiece, and a poetic linking of European and Persian traditions. This new bilingual edition expertly presents the wit, intelligence, humor, and technical mastery of the poetry in Goethe's Divan. In order to preserve the work's original power, Eric Ormsby has created this translation in clear contemporary prose rather than in rhymed verse, which tends to obscure the works sharpness. This edition is also accompanied by explanatory notes of the verse in German and in English and a translation of Goethe's own commentary, the "Notes and Essays for a Better Understanding of the West-Eastern Divan." This edition not only bring this classic collection to English-language readers, but also, at a time of renewed Western unease about the other, to open up the rich cultural world of Islam.

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This book provides an overview of the range of seminarian thinking in Iran on the controversial topic of the hijab. During the modern period, Iran has suffered a great deal of conflict and confusion caused by the impact of Western views on the hijab in the 19th century, Riza Shah Pahlavi's 1936 decree banning Islamic head coverings, and the imposition of the veil in the wake of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Hijab addresses the differences of opinion among seminarians on the hijab in the Islamic Republic of Iran, focusing on three representative thinkers: Murtaza Mutahhari who held veiling to be compulsory, Ahmad Qabil who argued for the desirability of the hijab, and Muhsin Kadivar who considers it neither necessary nor desirable. In the first chapter, the views of these three scholars are contextualized within the framework known as 'new religious thinking' among the seminarians. Comprehending the hermeneutics of this new religious thinking is key to appreciating how and why the younger generation of scholars have offered divergent judgements about the hijab. Following the first chapter, the book is divided into three parallel sections, each devoted to one of the three seminarians. These present a chronological approach, and each scholar's position on the hijab is assessed with reference to historical specificity and their own general jurisprudential perspective. Extensive examples of the writings of the three scholars on the hijab are also provided.

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The causes of global transitions are numerous and complex. Market globalization, technology, climate change and post-colonial political forces are all forging a new world. But caught up in the mix are some powerful religious narratives that are galvanizing peoples and reimagining political and social order. Some are repressive, fundamentalist imaginations such as the so-called Islamic Caliphate. Others could be described as post-religious such as the evolution of universal human rights out of the European Christian tradition. But the question of the compatibility of these religious world views, particularly those that have emerged out of the Abrahamic faith traditions, is perhaps the most pressing issue in global stability today. What scope for dialogue is there between the Jewish, Muslim and Christians ways of imagining the future? How can we engage with these multiple imaginations to create a shared peaceful future? This is an interdisciplinary volume of both new and well-known scholars exploring how religious narratives interact with the contemporary geopolitical climate.

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