Around the World in 80 Trees

/Resources/Suggestions/Around-the-World-in-80-Trees 9/9/2020 3:17:07 PM

Saudi Film Days

As sunset gilded Los Angeles on November 3, actor Giancarlo Esposito, most recently of Breaking Bad fame, joined a small flock of fellow Hollywood celebrities at Paramount Studios to walk a red carpet in front of an unprecedented backdrop: the logo for Saudi Film Days, the tw...

/Articles/March-2017/Saudi-Film-Days 3/10/2017 1:28:15 PM

Performing al-Andalus: Music and Nostalgia across the Mediterranean

/Resources/Suggestions/Performing-al-Andalus-Music-and-Nostalgia-across 5/5/2016 7:03:35 PM

Mr Five Per Cent: The Many Lives of Calouste Gulbenkian, the World’s Richest Man

/Resources/Suggestions/Mr-Five-Per-Cent-The-Many-Lives-of-Calouste-Gulben 3/5/2020 6:28:46 PM

Architecture of the Islamic West: North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, 700–1800

/Resources/Suggestions/Architecture-of-the-Islamic-West-North-Africa-and 9/9/2020 3:08:46 PM

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World; and The Silk Road: Central Asia Afghanistan and Iran: A

/Resources/Suggestions/The-Silk-Roads-A-New-History-of-the-World-and-Th 5/5/2016 7:45:52 PM

A Is For Arab

In the summer of 1974, Jack and Bernice Shaheen granted their kids a few hours on Saturday mornings for what was then an American children’s ritual: watching television cartoons, like Popeye the Sailor  and  Bugs Bunny, and staged, cartoonish battles among the charact...

/Articles/March-2016/A-Is-For-Arab 3/2/2016 2:00:00 AM

FirstLook: The Sphinx Imagined

Two summers ago I was browsing several hundred vintage postcards contained in narrow boxes all piled up in a Stillwater, Minnesota, antiques store. I was searching for images of Middle Eastern architectural motifs and styles found in the American-built environment, and I...

/Articles/April-2021/FirstLook-The-Sphinx-Imagined 4/15/2021 9:55:22 PM

FirstLook: The Sphinx Imagined

Two summers ago I was browsing several hundred vintage postcards contained in narrow boxes all piled up in a Stillwater, Minnesota, antiques store. I was searching for images of Middle Eastern architectural motifs and styles found in the American-built environment, and I...

/Home/Articles/FirstLook-The-Sphinx-Imagined 4/15/2021 9:55:22 PM

Tarab and the Art of Music

  Calendar Art    Patterns of Moon, Patterns of Sun Written by Paul Lunde “It is he who made the sun to be a shining glory, and the moon to be a light (of beauty), and measured out stages for her, that ye might know the number of years and th...

/Articles/November-2017/Tarab-and-the-Art-of-Music 11/1/2017 2:25:00 PM

Greetings from Cairo, USA

Greetings from Cairo, Illinois With land made spectacularly productive by the Mississippi River on one side and the Ohio River on the other, one can understand how the southern tip of the state of Illinois came to be known as “Little Egypt.” In 1818 a charter for inco...

/Articles/September-2020/Greetings-from-Cairo-USA 9/1/2020 2:00:00 PM

What's so Funny About Lucian the Syrian?

  Lucian the Syrian, or Lucian of Samosata, is thought to have written about 70 surviving works, a majority of which are satirical. He used the Platonic dialogue as his principal format for satire, but he also composed satirical narratives that amount to early comedic nov...

/Articles/July-2016/What-s-so-Funny-About-Lucian-the-Syrian 6/16/2016 8:22:16 PM

The Ottoman Carpets of Transylvania

How these carpets arrived in Transylvania not long after they were woven, and how they remain there today, is a story of pluck and perseverance. Recognized by the world’s top connoisseurs and collectors, these carpets have only lately been given their due, and they have an...

/Articles/May-2018/The-Ottoman-Carpets-of-Transylvania 5/1/2018 2:00:05 PM

The Canary Islands Connection

   But no less striking are the echoes here of what went westward, to the areas I’ve known for most of my adult life in the arid New World landscapes of the “desert borderlands” of the Southwestern us and northern Mexico. This includes, on the us side, Southern Californ...

/Articles/July-2019/The-Canary-Islands-Connection 7/1/2019 4:00:00 PM

Texting Cuneiform

Amid the grander finds were two much smaller ones: a pair of tablets, inscribed with cuneiform. One contained a list of personal names, and it was worn and incomplete. The other was far more intact, and it turned out to be a letter of complaint addressed to the prince of S...

/Articles/January-2020/Texting-Cuneiform 1/1/2020 3:00:00 PM

Cairo’s House of Knowledge

On March 24, 1005, a man reputed for madness came to his senses long enough to establish one of the most progressive and influential academic institutions of the Middle Ages. “On this Saturday ... the so-called House of Knowledge in Cairo was inaugurated,” wrote the chron...

/Articles/January-2019/Cairo-s-House-of-Knowledge 1/2/2019 5:49:59 PM

The Arabian Journey of Geraldine Rendel

In 1937, at age 52, she accompanied her husband, George, a British diplomat, on a three-week, east-to-west traverse of the five-year-old Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Along the way, she kept a journal that, though intended originally for publication, remained in her family fo...

/Articles/March-2020/The-Arabian-Journey-of-Geraldine-Rendel 3/2/2020 3:00:00 PM

Muslim Roots, U.S. Blues

Thirty percent: That’s how many of the 10 million West Africans brought to the Americas as slaves may have been Muslims, according to a growing body of research. The intonations, cadences, song themes and instruments of their musical traditions—and their daily prayers and reci...

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/200604/muslim.roots.u.s.blues.htm 4/20/2021 2:01:16 PM

The Life of Omar ibn Said

About one in five African slaves brought to the New World between 1500 and the mid-19th century was Muslim. Of them, only Omar ibn Said is known to have written a brief autobiography in Arabic. Remarkable for their humble eloquence and generosity of spirit, Said’s handwritten ...

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/201002/the.life.of.omar.ibn.said.htm 4/20/2021 2:00:35 PM

Indexes : Contributors

The magazine of cultures and connections Current Issue Go Contributors ABBAS, HAMRA History’s Hinge: ‘Ain Jalut , JA 07: 24-33, illustrator ABBOTT, KERRY Lebanon: A Heritage to Restore , MA 94: 32...

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/index/Contributors.aspx 4/20/2021 1:56:37 PM

Indexes : Contributors

The magazine of cultures and connections Current Issue Go Contributors ABBAS, HAMRA History’s Hinge: ‘Ain Jalut , JA 07: 24-33, illustrator ABBOTT, KERRY Lebanon: A Heritage to Restore , MA 94: 32...

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/index/Contributors.aspx 4/20/2021 2:04:23 PM

2014 Calendar: Domes

2014 Calendar: Domes

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/201306/2014.calendar.domes.htm 4/20/2021 1:56:40 PM

Silver from the Sea

Silver from the Sea

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/198205/silver.from.the.sea.htm 4/20/2021 2:03:00 PM

In Melville's Shadow

Was American writer Herman Melville reading an orientalist adventure novel by William Starbuck Mayo while drafting his classics Typee and Moby-Dick? Mayo is today remembered only by specialists, but his 1849 Kaloolah was a runaway best-seller that Melville appears to have admi...

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/201105/in.melville.s.shadow.htm 4/20/2021 1:59:58 PM

Lands That Never Were

World geography includes some mighty strange places that exist only on imagination's maps.

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/196304/lands.that.never.were.htm 4/20/2021 2:00:27 PM

Revolution by the Ream: A History of Paper

A millennium before Chinese papermaking techniques finally reached northern Europe, paper was known along the Silk Road. By 800 it was being manufactured in Damascus; by 1000, paper had eclipsed papyrus in Egypt and established itself as an indispensable tool for commercial, l...

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/199903/revolution.by.the.ream-a.histo
ry.of.paper.htm 4/20/2021 2:01:53 PM

The Golden Horses of Turkmenistan

The gold-colored

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/199703/the.golden.horses.of.turkmenis
tan.htm 4/20/2021 1:59:31 PM

The Masterpiece Minbar

On September 19, 1137, a group of the finest craftsmen of Córdoba, in Muslim Spain, began work on a minbar, a stepped pulpit, ordered for the congregational mosque of Marrakech, Morocco. What they produced after several years of work was recognized even then as a masterpiece a...

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/199803/the.masterpiece.minbar.htm 4/20/2021 2:00:55 PM

Patient Restoration: The Kuwait National Museum

During the Gulf War, Irag trucked artifacts and artworks from the Kuwait National Museum to Baghdad. When a UN-monitored restitution team arrived in the Iraqi capital in 1991, they found less was damaged or missing than many had feared. The KNM has labored since then to recons...

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/200005/patient.restoration-the.kuwait
.national.museum.htm 4/20/2021 2:01:56 PM

A Global Guide to Islamic Art

From Los Angeles to Tehran, soaring public interest in the traditional arts of Islamic cultures is prompting construction of nearly a dozen new galleries and museums. Two leading art historians and curators review the most prominent collections and give tips on how to apprecia...

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/200901/a.global.guide.to.islamic.art.
htm 4/20/2021 1:59:29 PM

America’s Arabian “Cuppa Joe”

Although most coffee poured in the United States has always come from Latin America, US manufacturers have sold cup after cup with the help of fanciful images and names that infuse their brands with the mystique of a playfully imaginary, romanticized “Middle East.”

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/201005/america.s.arabian.cuppa.joe.ht
m 4/20/2021 1:56:54 PM

Nights with Fires and Drums: Paul Bowles and Morocco

Music first drew Paul Bowles to Morocco, where he gained notoriety as a novelist. But in 1959, he recorded traditional Moroccan music and compiled a diverse collection that today more than ever, inspires Western musicians—and audiences.

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/199604/nights.with.fires.and.drums-pa
ul.bowles.and.morocco.htm 4/20/2021 2:01:28 PM

Indexes : Article Titles

The magazine of cultures and connections Current Issue Go Article Titles #techboom #arabnets , Battah, H., MJ 14: 22 14 Centuries of Hospitality , Nawwab, N. I., MA 01: 10 A 14th Century Trust , D...

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/index/Titles.aspx 4/20/2021 1:56:34 PM

Tripoli: Lebanon’s Mamluk Monument

From Egypt to the Levant, exquisite stonework flourished under the Mamluk sultans of the 13th and 14th centuries. In Tripoli, Lebanon, however, the Mamluks went one step farther: They laid out a whole new city. Much of it survives today.

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/200003/tripoli-lebanon.s.mamluk.monum
ent.htm 4/20/2021 1:56:38 PM

Traders of the Plain

More extensive than the civilizations of Mesopotamia, less centralized than that of Egypt, and less well understood than either, the orderly, peaceful and creative Indus Valley civilization traded widely, built well and succumbed to unknown forces. Or perhaps it still exists, ...

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/199905/traders.of.the.plain.htm 4/20/2021 2:00:01 PM

Mideast Cool

Using styles and media as diverse as the countries from which they come, artists of Middle Eastern origins, working in or outside the Middle East, are full of new energy that respects the past, is passionate about today and is helping to create tomorrow.

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/201103/mideast.cool.htm 4/20/2021 2:01:03 PM

The Minaret: Symbol of Faith & Power

Cylindrical, square, stair-stepped or helical, plain or ornamented, the minaret is the most ubiquitous symbol of Islam—so much so that new mosques today often include one strictly for reasons of tradition. Yet the first mosques had no minarets at all, and many famous ones, suc...

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/200202/the.minaret-symbol.of.faith.po
wer.htm 4/20/2021 2:01:05 PM