Search results for ""The American University in Cairo Press""

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the literary language of today’s books, media, and formal communication throughout the Arab world, the region’s principal shared language of written and official discourse. The first book in this new series for the classroom is designed for adult learners of the language at the beginner stage.Drawing on her years of experience as an Arabic instructor, author Samia Louis has developed a course rich in everyday contexts and real-life, practical language, along with a wide range of grammar-learning strategies to allow students to deploy the language with confidence. Written in accordance with the ACTFL guidelines for teaching Arabic as a foreign language, the course is conceived in such a way to make the study of Arabic language and grammar easier for the student.Book 1 is divided into ten chapters, focusing on specific everyday situations, including greetings and introductions; people and names; numbers, dates, and telephone numbers; and directions and addresses. The chapters allow for the gradual acquisition of vocabulary and grammar, the exercises at the end of each chapter covering all the crucial skills of listening, reading, writing, and pronunciation, with emphasis on reading and writing. The accompanying DVDs include audio material for all listening activities, dialogs, and pronunciation exercises, as well as video films of real-life situations covered in the chapters. The book is further supported by interactive reading, writing, and grammar drills accessible through the Internet.

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After ne’er-do-wells spread rumors about a widowed mother’s weak moral character among the people of a slum on the outskirts of Tunis that festers with migrants who have come to the metropolis from the heartland in search of a better life, her twenty-year-old son takes matters into his own hands and commits an unspeakable crime. An imaginative and disturbing novel told from the alternating viewpoints of this unrepentant sociopath, as he sits and fumes on death row but willingly guides us through his juvenile exploits and twisted memories, and his murdered mother, who calmly gives an account of her interrupted life from beyond the grave, A Tunisian Tale introduces the narrative talents of Hassouna Mosbahi to an English-language audience for the first time, as he confronts both taboos of Tunisian society and the boundaries of conventional storytelling.

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This authoritative publication remains the definitive source for the findings of the various archaeological excavations undertaken in Egypt. Published under the auspices of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, its contributors include some of the most well-known Egyptologists in the world, covering a broad range of archaeological disciplines and spectrums. Volume 84 includes reports from Egyptian, Spanish, Polish, British, German, Swiss, French, American, Belgian, and Japanese archaeological missions working in Egypt. Included in this volume are reports on a video exploration of the Queen’s Chamber in the Great Pyramid at Giza; an examination of an ostracon with notations about bread in Demotic script; excavations at North Saqqara, Siwa Oasis, Abydos, the Temple of Thutmosis III at Luxor, Elephantine, Syene and Queen Tausert’s temple in Western Thebes; the recording of rock inscriptions in Wadi Nag el-Birka on an important ancient road leading from Thebes; and documentation and fieldwork at a late Roman fort at Nag al-Hagar, near Kom Ombo.

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Christianity began in the large and fertile Fayoum oasis of Egypt's Westem Desert as early as the third century, and its presence has endured to the present day. This volume, which constitutes a tribute to the scholarly work of the father of modern Coptology, Martin Krause, contains contributions on various aspects of Coptic civilization in Egypt's largest oasis over the past hundred years. The contributors are all International specialists in Coptology, from Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, and the United States. A number of the studies included in this volume deal with recent archaeological discoveries at Deir al-Banat, the early Christian graves in the necropolis at the eastern edge of the Fayoum, and the monastic settlements and medieval Coptic cemetery at Naqlun. Others provide thorough examinations of archaeological sites at Karanis, Tebtunis, and Naqlun. Contributions cover the rich Christian literary heritage in Greek, Coptic, and Arabic, while art historians touch on the famous Fayoum portraits and their influence on the production of Coptic icons, as well as on the medieval wall paintings at Naqiun and in textiles, metal objects, and basketry from the region. This important volume provides for the first time an up-to-date, comprehensive treatment of Christianity and monasticism in the Fayoum Oasis.

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A boy and his bunny rabbit gaze at a star-lit New York cityscape. The great Sphinx of Egypt sleeps. A child swings joyously across a river. This book offers a tantalizing glimpse of the adventures of Arthur and his imaginary friend, Bun-Bun. Together they travel through the Temple of Dendur to another time and place and befriend the lonely boy king, Tutankhamun.

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The discovery of ancient Egypt and the development of Egyptology are momentous events in intellectual and cultural history. The history of Egyptology is the story of the people, famous and obscure, who constructed the picture of ancient Egypt that we have today, recovered the Egyptian past while inventing it anew, and made a lost civilization comprehensible to generations of enchanted readers and viewers thousands of years later. This, the second of a three-volume survey of the history of Egyptology, explores the years 1881–1914, a period marked by the institutionalization of Egyptology amid an ever increasing pace of discovery and the opening of vast new vistas into the Egyptian past. Wonderful Things affirms that the history of ancient Egypt has proved continually fascinating, but it also demonstrates that the history of Egyptology is no less so. Only by understanding how Egyptology has developed can we truly understand ancient Egypt.

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A unique comic-illustrated exploration of the rich vocabulary derived from body parts in Arabic We are all married to our bodies, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. As a result, the body is a hard-wired, powerful presence in thought and speech. Rooted in the Body: Arabic Metaphor and Morphology considers this basic premise of linguistic embodiment and shows how it is especially true of Arabic. Consciously and unconsciously, speakers of Arabic use reams of vocabulary derived from the body, making it an ideal springboard for a deeper and more nuanced understanding of Arabic morphology. Structurally speaking, Arabic is a language built on abstract roots, short sequences of single consonants that are systematically modified to produce actual vocabulary. Learning to recognize and manipulate those roots is an invaluable skill, especially for non-native adult learners, because it lightens their memorization load significantly.

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This issue of Alif explores drama in its many manifestations-—textual plays, performances, folk drama, choreographed story-telling, staged poetry recitals, and protest songs—as well as presenting modes of directing and production, comparative dramaturgy, specialized theater journals, experimental and independent troupes, testimonies and interviews. The issue covers dramatic works from eighteenth-century France to twenty-first century Britain and covers geographically Senegal to Lebanon, the US to China, while highlighting major dramatists from Egypt, Syria, and Morocco. The translations in this issue cover manifestos towards a new Arab Theater and an introduction to the recently published plays of Frantz Fanon.

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The sensational discovery in 1922 of Tutankhamun’s tomb, close on the heels of Britain’s declaration of Egyptian independence, accelerated the growth in Egypt of both Egyptology as a formal discipline and of ‘pharaonism'—popular interest in ancient Egypt—as an inspiration in the struggle for full independence. Emphasizing the three decades from 1922 until Nasser’s revolution in 1952, this compelling follow-up to Whose Pharaohs? looks at the ways in which Egypt developed its own archaeologies—Islamic, Coptic, and Greco-Roman, as well as the more dominant ancient Egyptian. Each of these four archaeologies had given birth to, and grown up around, a major antiquities museum in Egypt. Later, Cairo, Alexandria, and Ain Shams universities joined in shaping these fields. Contesting Antiquity in Egypt brings all four disciplines, as well as the closely related history of tourism, together in a single engaging framework. Throughout this semi-colonial era, the British fought a prolonged rearguard action to retain control of the country while the French continued to dominate the Antiquities Service, as they had since 1858. Traditional accounts highlight the role of European and American archaeologists in discovering and interpreting Egypt’s long past. Donald Reid redresses the balance by also paying close attention to the lives and careers of often-neglected Egyptian specialists. He draws attention not only to the contests between westerners and Egyptians over the control of antiquities, but also to passionate debates among Egyptians themselves over pharaonism in relation to Islam and Arabism during a critical period of nascent nationalism. Drawing on rich archival and published sources, extensive interviews, and material objects ranging from statues and murals to photographs and postage stamps, this comprehensive study by one of the leading scholars in the field will make fascinating reading for scholars and students of Middle East history, archaeology, politics, and museum and heritage studies, as well as for the interested lay reader.

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Tucked away in a rundown quarter, just out of sight of downtown Cairo, a group of intellectuals gather regularly to smoke hashish in Hakeem’s den. The den is the center of their lives, both a refuge and a stimulus, and at the center of the den is the remarkable man who keeps their hashish bowls topped up—Rowdy Salih. While his former life is a mystery to his loyal clientele of writers, painters, film directors, and even window dressers, each sees himself reflected in Salih; but without his humor, humility, or insight, or his occasional passions fueled by hootch. And when the nation has to face its own demons during the peace initiative of the 1970s, it is Rowdy Salih who speaks for them all. This is a comic novel with a broken heart, very like Salih himself, whose warm rough voice calls out long after we have recovered from the novel’s painful conclusion.

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Mastering the conjugation of Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA) verbs is an essential part of the student’s learning process, and it is equally challenging for instructors to ensure that the student has internalized them correctly. Yalla! Let’s Learn Egyptian Colloquial Arabic Verbs is a practical tool to help both students and teachers of Arabic in the classroom. The book presents the three hundred most frequently used verbs in ECA, each one categorized according to ECA verb patterns, which are based on those used in Modern Standard Arabic. The verbs are fully conjugated in the present/imperfect and past/perfect tenses in the affirmative and the negative, each entry also listing imperatives and active participles. This resource focuses on pronunciation, rather than reading or writing, in order to help students gain fluency in spoken Egyptian Arabic. To this end, each verb in the book is spelled phonetically.

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In this in-depth ethnography, Karin van Nieuwkerk takes the autobiographical narrative of Sayyid Henkish, a musician from a long family tradition of wedding performers in Cairo, as a lens through which to explore changing notions of masculinity in an Egyptian community over the course of a single lifetime. Central to Henkish’s story is his own conception of manhood, which is closely tied to the notion of ibn al-balad, the ‘authentically Egyptian’ lower-middle class male, with all its associated values of nobility, integrity, and toughness. How to embody these communal ideals while providing for his family in the face of economic hardship and the perceived moral ambiguities associated with his work in the entertainment trade are key themes in his narrative. Van Nieuwkerk situates his account within a growing body of literature on gender that sees masculinity as a lived experience that is constructed and embodied in specific social and historical contexts. In doing so, she shows that the challenges faced by Henkish are not limited to the world of entertainment and that his story offers profound insights into socioeconomic and political changes taking place in Egypt at large and the ways in which these transformations impact and unsettle received notions of masculinity.

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Arab graphic design emerged in the early twentieth century out of a need to influence, and give expression to, the far-reaching economic, social, and political changes that were taking place in the Arab world at the time. But graphic design as a formally recognized genre of visual art only came into its own in the region in the twenty-first century and, to date, there has been no published study on the subject to speak of. A History of Arab Graphic Design traces the people and events that were integral to the shaping of a field of graphic design in the Arab world. Examining the work of over eighty key designers from Morocco to Iraq, and covering the period from pre-1900 to the end of the twentieth century, Bahia Shehab and Haytham Nawar chart the development of design in the region, beginning with Islamic art and Arabic calligraphy, and their impact on Arab visual culture, through to the digital revolution and the arrival of the Internet. They look at how cinema, economic prosperity, and political and cultural events gave birth to and shaped the founders of Arab graphic design. Highlighting the work of key designers and stunningly illustrated with 600 color images, A History of Arab Graphic Design is an invaluable resource tool for graphic designers, one which, it is hoped, will place Arab visual culture and design on the map of a thriving international design discourse.

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Hani was out for an evening stroll near Cairo's Tahrir Square when a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. An informant had identified him, and he was thrown into the back of a police truck. There began a seven-month nightmare as he was swept up, along with fifty other men, in the infamous Queen Boat affair that targeted Egypt’s gay community. Finally free, but traumatized into speechlessness, Hani writes down the events of his life—his first sexual desires, his relationship with his mother, his marriage of convenience, and his passion for Abdel Aziz, the only man he ever truly loved. In the Spider’s Room is a sensitive and courageous account of life as a gay man in Egypt.

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Wahhabism is often understood as a radical version of Islam responsible for inspiring and motivating Islamic terrorism. Western Imaginings: The Intellectual Contest to Define Wahhabism is an inquiry into how Wahhabism has been understood and represented by Western intellectuals, particularly those belonging to the neo-conservative and liberal traditions. In contrast to the existing literature that treats Wahhabism as a historical phenomenon or a monolithic theological ideology, a literature often written by authors keen to promote geopolitical interests or with ideological axes to grind, Davis’s work considers Wahhabism as a discursive construct crafted and popularized by a Western intellectual elite. This comprehensive study speaks to how and why Western intellectuals have chosen to represent Wahhabism in specific ways, ranging from an analysis of the particular rhetorical techniques employed by these intellectuals to a consideration of the religious and political beliefs that inspire and motivate their decisions. Western Imaginings is aimed at students of political philosophy, intellectual traditions, and sociology; media and policy professionals; and anyone interested in how Islamic doctrines like Wahhabism have been represented in an international context framed by a heightened anxiety about radical Islam.

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Palestinian–Armenian Ivana eloped with a British doctor in the 1940s, in the midst of the Nakba, and emigrated to England. Over half a century later, her daughter Julie has been tasked with her dying wish: to take her ashes back to their old home in Acre. With her husband Walid, they leave London and embark on a journey back to their country of birth. Written in four parts, each as a concerto movement, Rabai al-Madhoun’s pioneering new novel explores Palestinian exile, with all its complex loyalties and identities. Broad in scope and sweeping in its history, it lays bare the tragedy of everyday Palestinian life.</

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A medical practitioner and talented draftsman, Alessandro Ricci was born in Siena, Italy, at the end of the eighteenth century. He traveled extensively throughout Egypt and Sudan between 1817 and 1822. During his stay, he worked as an epigraphist for Giovanni B. Belzoni in the tomb of Seti I and later entered into the service of British consul general Henry Salt and English explorer William John Bankes, on whose behalf he visited and documented Siwa (1820), Sinai (1820), and Nubia (1818-19 and 1821-22). Ricci also became the physician to Ibrahim Pasha's Upper Egypt expedition and achieved fame for daringly saving the life of Ibrahim Pasha during the military campaign that led to Egypt's conquest of Sudan in 1821-22. Upon his return to Italy, Ricci wrote a long account of all his journeys and reworked a series of ninety plates into striking form, yet failed to publish either. In 2009, Daniele Salvoldi identified a complete typewritten copy of Ricci's Travels in the National Archives of Egypt in Cairo. Drawings intended to accompany the text as plates were tracked down in different locations in Italy and the United Kingdom. From Siena to Nubia is the English-translated critical edition, with notes and introductory chapters, of Ricci's travel account, which provides detailed information about the countries he visited, including descriptions of ancient ruins and social customs, botanical and geological remarks, and historical and ethnographical observations. It adds to the recent, growing corpus of exploration literature on nineteenth-century Egypt as well as bringing to light obscure sources important to the early history of Egyptology.

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Cairo's Islamic monuments are part of an uninterrupted tradition that spans over a thousand years of building activity. No other Islamic city can equal Cairo's spectacular heritage, nor trace its historical and architectural development with such clarity. The discovery of this historic core, first visually by nineteenth-century western artists then intellectually by twentieth-century Islamic art specialists, now awaits the delight of the general visitor. This new, fully revised edition of a popular and handy guide continues to walk the visitor around two hundred of the city's most interesting Islamic monuments. It also keeps pace with recent restoration initiatives and newly opened monuments.

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Another hilarious adventure for children with Mr. Mummific, the mummy with attitude. Having described his death and long mummification process in his last book, How I Became a Mummy, he now tells the story of his mishaps, misunderstandings, and misadventures as he leaves his tomb through the False Door to embark on the complicated and hazardous journey to the Afterlife aboard the magnificent Ship of Millions. The dangers he faces along the way (and desperately hopes to avoid) include being left hanging upside-down from the cavern ceiling, being swallowed (and vomited out again) by a giant serpent, or becoming a tasty morsel for the hideous Eater of the Dead. Once again, the pompous and frequently perplexed former pharaoh is our entertaining guide to some of the traditions and beliefs of the ancient Egyptians. Illustrated with eighty colorful scenes from the deathly existence of the funniest mummy you'll ever meet, Mummies, Monsters, and the Ship of Millions is a further ghastly treat for children and Egyptologists of all ages.

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When a prostitute and her ill-fated lover are killed in a gruesome double murder, seasoned investigator Detective Hanash is called in. The case draws him into Casablanca's slums, blighted by criminality, religious extremism, and despair. Hanash's years on the job have made him intimately familiar with the city's seedy underbelly, but this time he harbors a personal connection to one of the victims, one he must conceal at all costs.

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Said leads a comfortable, yet boring, middle-class life. That is, until one afternoon, he leaves work early and crosses into the rough side of town, in search of a run-down boxing club. His obsession with this underground sport grows: he starts skipping work and showing up with visible injuries. Things begin to unravel as he quits his job, trains full time, and is entered for the fight of his life. Will this be the making of him, or is it the end of the road?Maan Abu Taleb's stylish debut novel is beautifully observed and carefully paced. Far from being a celebration of machismo, All the Battles approaches the pervasive presence of violence in society with nuance and grace.

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A collection of letters in a small painted box passed down through three generations of a London family is the starting point for a vivid account of a three-month journey up and down the Nile in a bygone age. The letters, like a time capsule, bring to life a lost world of Edwardian travel and social mores, of Egypt on the brink of the modern age, of the great figures of Egyptology, of aristocrats and archaeologists. In 1907/08 Ferdinand Platt (known to his family as Ferdy) traveled to Egypt as personal physician to the ailing 8th Duke of Devonshire-one of the giant statesmen of the late Victorian age-and his family party, recounting his adventure in letters to his young wife in England. Throughout the journey Ferdy not only reported on the sights of the country around him, with his amateur Egyptologist’s eye, and the people he met along the way (including Howard Carter and Winston Churchill) but also recorded his private thoughts and intimate observations of a formal and stratified society, soon to be witness to its own extinction. Introduced by Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson and Ferdy’s great-nephew Julian Platt, the letters open an intriguing window onto travel in Egypt during the Belle Epoque and the golden age of Egyptology.

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Egyptian Muslims and Jews were not always at odds. Before the Arab-Israeli wars, before the mass exodus of Jews from Egypt, there was harmony. Spanning the 1930s to the 1960s, this sweeping novel accompanies Galal, a young boy with a Jewish mother and a Muslim father, through his childhood and boyhood in a vibrant popular quarter of Cairo. With his schoolboy crushes and teen rebellions, Galal is deeply Egyptian, knit tightly into the middle-class fabric of manners, morals, and traditions that cheerfully incorporates and transcends religion-a fabric about to be torn apart by a bigger world of politics that will put Galal's very identity to the test.

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In one of the most remarkable artistic pilgrimages in history, the nineteenth century saw scores of Western artists heading to the Middle East. Inspired by the allure of the exotic Orient, they went in search of subjects for their paintings. Orientalist Lives looks at what led this surprisingly diverse and idiosyncratic group of men—and some women—to often remote and potentially dangerous locations, from Morocco to Egypt, the Levant, and Turkey. There they lived, worked, and traveled for weeks or months on end, gathering material with which to create art for their clients back in the drawing rooms of Boston, London, and Paris. Based on his research in museums, libraries, archives, galleries, and private collections across the world, James Parry traces these journeys of cultural and artistic discovery. From the early pioneer David Roberts through the heyday of leading stars such as Jean-Léon Gérôme and Frederick Arthur Bridgman, to Orientalism’s post-1900 decline, he describes how these traveling artists prepared for their expeditions, coped with working in unfamiliar and challenging surroundings, engaged with local people, and then took home to their studios the memories, sketches, and collections of artifacts necessary to create the works for which their audiences clamored. Excerpts from letters and diaries, including little-known accounts and previously unpublished material, as well as photographs, sketches, and other original illustrations, bring alive the impressions, experiences, and careers of the Orientalists and shed light on how they created what are now once again recognized as masterpieces of art.

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In October 1999 during a trip to Cairo, Cyrus Kadivar, an exiled Iranian living in London, visited the tomb of the last shah and opened a Pandora's box. Haunted by nostalgia for a bygone era, he recalled a protected and idyllic childhood in the fabled city of Shiraz and his coming of age during the 1979 Iranian revolution. Back in London, he reflected on what had happened to him and his family after their uprooting and decided to conduct his own investigation into why he lost his country. He spent the next ten years seeking out witnesses who would shed light on the last days of Pahlavi rule. Among those he met were a former empress, ex-courtiers, disaffected revolutionaries, and the bereaved relatives of those who perished in the cataclysm. In Farewell Shiraz, Kadivar tells the story of his family and childhood against the tumultuous backdrop of twentieth-century Iran, from the 1905-1907 Constitutional Revolution to the fall of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, before presenting accounts of his meetings with key witnesses to the Shah's fall and the rise of Khomeini. Each of the people interviewed provides a richly detailed picture of the momentous events that took place and the human drama behind them. Combining exquisite vignettes with rare testimonials and first-hand interviews, Farewell Shiraz draws us into a sweeping yet often intimate account of a vanished world and offers a compelling investigation into a political earthquake whose reverberations still live with us today.

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There is no escaping the Jerusalem of the religious imagination. Not once but three times holy, its overwhelming spiritual significance looms large over the city's complex urban landscape and the diurnal rhythms and struggles that make up its earthbound existence. Nonetheless, writes Paola Caridi, in this intimate and hard-hitting portrayal of the city, it is possible to close one's eyes and, "like the blind listening to sounds," discern the conflict and plurality of belonging that mark out the city' secular character. Jerusalem without God leads the reader through the streets, malls, suburbs, traffic jams, and squares of Jerusalem's present moment, into the daily lives of the men and women who inhabit it. Caridi brings contemporary Jerusalem alive by describing it as a place of sights and senses, sounds and smells, but she also shows us a city riven by the harsh asymmetry of power and control embodied in its lines, limits, walls, and borders. She explores a cruel city, where Israeli and Palestinian civilians sometimes spend hours in the same supermarkets, only to return to the confines of their respective districts, invisible to each other; a city memorable for its ancient stones and shimmering sunsets but dotted with Israeli checkpoints, "postmodern drawbridges," that control the movement of people, ideas, and potential attackers. Describing Jerusalem through the lenses of urban planners and politicians, anthropologists and archaeologists, advertisers and scholars, Jerusalem without God reveals a city that is as diverse as it is complex, and ultimately, argues its author, one whose destiny cannot be tied to any single religious faith, tradition, or political ideology.

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"Gabriel Sherlock arrives in Oman in 1982, fleeing shame and disaster back home in Ireland, and begins an intense affair with a woman whom no one else has seen. Locals insist she must be one of the jinn-a supernatural being-but Gabriel refuses to buy into the folklore, despite her sudden, unexplained disappearance. Twenty-six years later, Irishwoman Thea Kerrigan lands in Muscat, chasing her own ghosts from the past, and is approached by Gabriel, who believes she is his lost lover. Certain that they have never met before, Thea is nonetheless drawn to this deluded, and perhaps dangerous, stranger and the rumors that surround him. "Sometimes, the sunniest settings have the darkest shadows. Of Sea and Sand takes you to such a place, plays tricks with light and time-and leaves you not knowing who is real: Us, or Them? Fictional angels and vampires have had their time. Now it's the turn of the jinn." - Tim Mackintosh-Smith

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In 1986, when this autobiography opens, the author is a typical fourteen-year-old boy in Asyut in Upper Egypt. Attracted at first by the image of a radical Islamist group as "strong Muslims," his involvement develops until he finds himself deeply committed to its beliefs and implicated in its activities. This ends when, as he leaves the university following a demonstration, he is arrested. Prison, a return to life on the outside, and attending Cairo University all lead to Khaled al-Berry's eventual alienation from radical Islam. This book opens a window onto the mind of an extremist who turns out to be disarmingly like many other clever adolescents, and bears witness to a history with whose reverberations we continue to live. It also serves as an intelligent and critical guide for the reader to the movement's unfamiliar debates and preoccupations, motives and intentions. Fluently written, intellectually gripping, exciting, and often funny, Life Is More Beautiful than Paradise provides a vital key to the understanding of a world that is both a source of fear and a magnet of curiosity for the west.

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In 1980, Syrian filmmaker Mohammad Malas traveled to Lebanon to film a documentary of interviews with Palestinians of the refugee camps around Beirut about their dreams. The Dream: A Diary of the Film is Malas's haunting chronicle of his immersion in the life of the camps, including Shatila, Burj al-Barajneh, Nahr al-Bared, and Ein al-Helweh. It also describes the filmmaking process, from the research stage to the film's unofficial release, in Shatila Camp, before it reached a global audience. In vivid and poetic detail, Malas provides a snapshot of Palestinian refugees at a critical juncture of Lebanon's bloody civil war, and at the height of the PLO's power in Lebanon before the 1982 Israeli invasion and the PLO's subsequent expulsion. Malas probes his subjects' dreams and existential fears with an artist's acute sensitivity, revealing the extent to which the wounds and contingencies of Palestinian statelessness are woven into the tapestry of a fragmented Arab nationalism. Although he halted his work on the film in 1982, following the massacres of Sabra and Shatila, he completed it in 1987, turning 400 interviews into 23 dreams and 45 minutes of screen time. Both diary and film present these people somewhere between present and past tense, but they are preserved forever in the word, magnetic tape, and now in digital code. The Dream is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the Palestinians in the modern Middle East, and for students and scholars of Arab filmmaking, politics, and literature.

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What are the long-term structural features of the Egyptian economy? What are the factors that have facilitated or inhibited its performance? This crucial and timely work answers these questions and more by examining the most important economic decisions to have impacted the Egyptian economy since 1952 and the political factors behind them. Drawing on Khalid Ikram's extensive knowledge of economic policymaking at the highest levels, The Political Economy of Reforms in Egypt, 1952-2015 lays out the enduring features of the Egyptian economy and its performance since 1952 before presenting an account of policy-making, growth and structural change under the country's successive presidents to the present day. Topics covered include agrarian reforms; the Aswan High Dam; the move towards Arab socialism and a planned economy; the reversal of strategy and the infitah; fiscal, monetary, and exchange-rate policies; consumer subsidies; external debt crises; negotiations between Egypt and international donors and financial institutions; privatization; labor and employment; and poverty and income distribution. The analysis concludes with an examination of institutional reforms and development strategies to tackle the Egyptian economy's structural problems and lay the foundation for sustained and rapid growth. Written from the point of view of a 'participant-observer, ' this book will be indispensable to students of political economy, to scholars of Egypt and the Middle East, and to the general reader who wishes to understand, especially from the wealth of insider information provided, how domestic and international politics and economics can interact to shape decisions that promote, or prevent, economic reforms.

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This essential book explores the early years of military rule following the Free Officers' coup of 1952. Enriched by interviews with actors in and observers of the events, Nasser's Blessed Movement shows how the officers' belief in a quick reformation by force was transformed into a vital, long-term process that changed the face of Egypt. Under Gamal Abdel Nasser, the military regime launched an ambitious program of political, social, and economic reform. Egypt became a leader in Arab and non-aligned politics, as well as a model for political mobilization and national development throughout the Third World. Although Nasser exerted considerable personal influence over the course of events, his rise as a national and regional hero in the mid-1950s was preceded by a period in which he and his colleagues groped for direction, and in which many Egyptians disliked--even feared--them. Joel Gordon analyzes the goals, programs, successes, and failures of the young regime, providing the most comprehensive account of the Egyptian revolution to date. This edition includes a new Introduction that looks back at the post-1952 period from a post-2011 perspective.

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In Egypt's modern history, reform of personal status laws has often formed an integral part of political, cultural, and religious contestations among different factions of society. From the beginning of the twenty-first century, two significant reforms were introduced in Egyptian personal status laws: women's right to petition for no-fault judicial divorce law (khul') and the new mediation-based family courts.Legal Reform and Gender Justice examines the interplay between legal reform and gender norms and practices. It examines the processes of advocating for, and contesting the khul' and new family courts laws, shedding light on the agendas and strategies of the various actors involved. It also examines the ways in which women and men have made use of these legal reforms; how judges and other court personnel have interpreted and implemented them; and how the reforms may have impacted women and men's understandings, expectations, and strategies when navigating marriage and spousal roles.Drawing on an extensive four-year field study, Al-Sharmani highlights the complexities and mixed impacts of legal reform, not only as a mechanism of claiming gender rights but also as a system of meanings that shape, destabilize, or transform gender norms and practices.

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Christianity and monasticism have flourished along the Nile Valley in the Aswan region of Upper Egypt and in what was once Nubia, from as early as the fourth century until the present day. The contributors to this volume, international specialists in Coptology from around the world, examine various aspects of Coptic civilization in Aswan and Nubia over the past centuries. The complexity of Christian identity in Nubia, as distinct from Egypt, is examined in the context of church ritual and architecture. Many of the studies explore Coptic material culture: inscriptions, art, architecture, and archaeology; and language and literature. The archaeological and artistic heritage of monastic sites in Edfu, Aswan, Makuria, and Kom Ombo are highlighted, attesting to their important legacies in the region.

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From the 1980s onward, billions of dollars were poured into irrigation improvement programs in Egypt. These aimed at improving local Nile water management through the introduction of more water-efficient technology and by placing management of the improved systems in the hands of local water user associations. The central premise of most of these programs was that the functioning of such associations could rely on the revival of traditional forms of social capital-social networks, norms, and trust-for their success. Social Capital and Local Water Management in Egypt shows how the far-reaching social changes wrought at the village level in Egypt through the twentieth century rendered such a premise implausible at best and invalid at worst.Dalia Gouda examines networks of social relationships and their impact on the exercise of social control and the formation of collective action at the local level and their change over time in four villages in the Delta and Fayoum governorates. Outlining three time frames, pre-1952, 1952-73, and 1973 to the present, and moving between multiple actors-farmers, government officials, and donor agencies-Gouda shows how institutional and technological changes during each period and the social changes that coincided with them yielded mixed successes for the water user associations in respect of water management. Social Capital and Local Water Management in Egypt is essential reading for anyone working in the field of community based natural resource management in Egypt, including policymakers and practitioners, donor agencies, and civil society organizations, as well as anthropologists and sociologists.

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It's spring 1990 in a dingy small-town Moroccan bar. Zina is serving drinks when a mysterious man approaches her. The man gives Zina a handwritten note from her husband, Aziz, who disappeared the day after their wedding, eighteen years ago, after participating in the failed 1972 coup against King Hassan II. Zina has spent the past eighteen years searching for Aziz, who has been imprisoned in inhuman conditions in a solitary cell inside a secret desert jail. Will Zina finally find Aziz? Moving back and forth between 1990 and the past, A Rare Blue Bird That Flies with Me recounts the painful circumstances that brought Zina and Aziz together and the torture after the 1972 coup that tore them apart. Told from the perspective of several narrators-including Zina, Aziz, Aziz's two jailors-Youssef Fadel's novel is a masterful history of modern Morocco.

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This book presents a history of Old Cairo based on new archaeological evidence gathered between 2000 and 2006 during a major project to lower the groundwater level affecting the churches and monuments of this area of Cairo known by the Romans as Babylon. Examination of the material and structural remains revealed a sequence of continuous occupation extending from the sixth century BC to the present day. These include the massive stone walls of the canal linking the Nile to the Red Sea, and the harbor constructed by Trajan at its entrance around ad 110. The Emperor Diocletian built the fortress of Babylon around the harbor and the canal in ad 300, and much new information has come to light concerning the construction and internal layout of the fortress, which continues to enclose and define the enclave of Old Cairo. Important evidence for the early medieval transformation of the area into the nucleus of the Arab city of al-Fustat and its later medieval development is also presented.

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Traditionally, Egyptian cooking has been best practiced and enjoyed at home, where generations of unrecorded family recipes have been the sustaining repertoire for daily meals as well as sumptuous holiday feasts. Abou El Sid, one of Cairo's most famous restaurants, has become well known for its authentic Egyptian dishes, and now presents more than fifty of its most classic recipes in a cookbook for the enjoyment of home cooks all over the world. Egyptians will recognize their favorites, from holiday dishes such as Fettah to the arrays of appetizers like aubergine with garlic, special lentils, and tahina; those new to Middle Eastern food will find the recipes simple and simply delicious, and enjoy the Egyptian table even if they don't have the heritage of the pharaohs in their family backgrounds. - 57 authentic Egyptian recipes from starters to main courses to desserts. - Each recipe illustrated with gorgeous, full color photographs. - Beautifully designed and visually sumptuous boutique book.

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Besides the three mainstream languages, Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, other languages such as Kurdish and Amazigh (Berber) have contributed to the rich literary tapestry of the region. Vernacular poetry and folktales, standardized Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, as well as literary works by Middle Easterners in different European languages offer a complex regional literary field. While comparative work among the "classical" traditions of these literatures is undertaken without comment, scholarship on their modern traditions is suspended between the exigencies of imperialism, nationalism, and academic parochialism. This issue of Alif is devoted to the exploration of those persistent ties and affinities, as well as to the attempt to recover and discover new or enduring linkages between literatures, languages, and cultures in a world where they are largely forgotten or willfully ignored.

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The Holy Land—the birthplace of great religions—is also an environment of unique flora and fauna. Encompassing a vast, ancient region—lying between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, from Syria in the north down to Egypt in the south—the Holy Land has been home to an array of wildlife, some of which remain today, others of which have vanished for all time. The sacred stories of Noah’s Ark filled with such animals, and the Garden of Eden exemplified the diversity and cohabitation of the natural world. This AUC Press Nature Foldout explores some of the most beloved wildlife revered as sacred and special in the Holy Land, past and present.Includes:• Over 50 species of flora and fauna• Map of the Holy Land with geological sites including the Jordan Valley, Euphrates River, Dead Sea, Mount Carmel, Negev Desert, Sinai, the Mediterranean, Red Sea, and River Nile• Quotes from holy texts giving insight on the relationship of humankind with wildlifeAbout the series: The AUC Press Nature Foldout series combine, in beautifully practical form, a wealth of information written by leading experts with striking full-color illustrations on the flora and fauna of Egypt and the Middle East. Designed for nature lovers and outdoor adventurers, as well as for indoor use, the foldouts come in an easily foldable format, at once compact, waterproof, and portable, making them durable and convenient travel guides. Size is 23 x 8.5 in. / 58.5 x 21.5 cm unfolded.

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As with his earlier works, Mohamed El-Bisatie's novel is set in the Egyptian countryside, about which he writes with such understanding. Episodic in form, it deals with a family Zaghloul the layabout father, Sakeena the long-suffering wife, and two young boys. The central theme of the book is hunger: the hunger of not knowing where one's next meal is coming from, and the universal hunger for sex and love. Sakeena's life revolves round trying to provide her family with the necessary daily loaves of bread that will stave off starvation. Labor-shy Zaghloul works on and off at one of the village's cafes, but prefers to spend his time listening in on conversations about subjects such as politics, which he would have liked to know more about, if only he had been an educated man. He is also intrigued by the stories told by young university students about their sexual exploits. Eventually chance presents him with a new job: to keep company with an elderly and over-fat man and help him on and off the mule he has to use for getting about. After looking in turn at the lives of the husband and the wife, the novel finally focuses on their elder son, who, although lacking the advantages of any sort of education, nonetheless shows more initiative than his father, and discovers his own way of contributing to the family bread larder. Despite its bleak title, Hunger is told with a lightness of touch and the writer's trademark wry humor.

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The Treaty of Ghent signed in 1814, ending the War of 1812, allowed Americans once again to travel abroad. Medical students went to Paris, artists to Rome, academics to Gottingen, and tourists to all European capitals. More intrepid Americans ventured to Athens, to Constantinople, and even to Egypt. Beginning with two eighteenth-century travellers, this book then turns to the 25-year period after 1815 that saw young men from East Coast cities, among them graduates of Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, travelling to the lands of the Bible and of the Greek and Latin authors they had first known as teenagers. Drawing on unpublished letters and diaries together with previously neglected newspaper accounts, as well as a handful of published accounts, this book offers a new look at the early American experience in Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean world. More than thirty illustrations complement the stories told by the travellers themselves.

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This monograph offers a diachronic analysis of the development of street protests in Egypt that led to the downfall of Mubarak in 2011. It shows how the January 25 uprising was the culminating episode of negotiating power relations in a series of five consecutive contentious cycles since 2000. Based on a conceptual framework combining premises of social movement theory, power and knowledge, and sociology of space, it argues that the negotiation of power relations in Egypt has been expressed through the ‘battle’ over socially produced protest spaces.

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Dublin is alien territory for young and impoverished Egyptian academic Mutazz, who is preparing a PhD on Irish poet Seamus Heaney. Mutazz has enough problems with his family's high expectations and the unrequited, idealized love that he left behind in Cairo. Now he has to deal with cantankerous landlords, the inscrutable local women, the Irish judiciary, haunted seminaries, and cold winter nights selling flowers on the banks of the Liffey to make ends meet. His own personal demons travel with him, especially the clash between his sexual desires and his reluctance to become emotionally entangled with anyone other than his version of the ideal woman. In his year away from home Mutazz learns how diverse the world is, but returning to Cairo is a shock that tests his physical and mental strength.

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Penned by a scholar who was personally involved in research into the enigmatic young pharaoh, this comprehensive and fully illustrated new study reviews the current state of our knowledge about the life, death, and burial of Tutankhamun in light of the latest investigations and newest technology. Zahi Hawass places the king in the broader context of Egyptian history, unraveling the intricate and much debated relationship between various members of the royal family, and the circumstances surrounding the turbulent Amarna period. He also succinctly explains the religious background and complex beliefs in the afterlife that defined and informed many features of Tutankhamun's tomb. The history of the exploration of the Valley of the Kings is discussed, as well as the background and mutual relationships of the main protagonists. The tomb and the most important finds are described and illustrated, and the modern X-raying and CT-scanning of the king's mummy are presented in detail. The description of the latest DNA examination of the mummies of Tutankhamun and members of his family is one of the most absorbing parts of the book and demonstrates that scientific methods may produce results that cannot be paralleled by traditional Egyptology.

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A Tuareg youth ventures into trackless desert on a life-threatening quest to find the father he remembers only as a shadow from his childhood, but the spirit world frustrates and tests his resolve. For a time, he is rewarded with the Eden of a lost oasis, but eventually, as new settlers crowd in, its destiny mimics the rise of human civilization. The Libyan Tuareg author Ibrahim al-Koni, who has earned a reputation as a major figure in Arabic literature with his many novels and collections of short stories, has used Tuareg folklore about Anubis, the ancient Egyptian god of the underworld, to craft a novel that is both a lyrical evocation of the desert's beauty and a chilling narrative in which thirst, incest, patricide, animal metamorphosis, and human sacrifice are more than plot devices. In this novel, fantastic mythology becomes universal, specific, and modern.

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In this new study, the author examines sijills, the official documents of the Ottoman Islamic courts, to understand how sharia law, society, and the early-modern economy of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Ottoman Cairo related to the practice of custom in determining rulings. In the sixteenth century, a new legal and cultural orthodoxy fostered the development of an early-modern Islam that broke new ground, giving rise to a new concept of the citizen and his role. Contrary to the prevailing scholarly view, this work adopts the position that local custom began to diminish and decline as a source of authority. These issues resonate today, several centuries later, in the continuing discussions of individual rights in relation to Islamic law.

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