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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

Around the World in 80 Trees

This engrossing title tells the botanical backstories of six dozen or so trees (out of the world’s 60,000 known species) that have had “surprising human ramifications.” Many are from the Muslim world. The “primary ancestor of all the apples we eat” came from the “central Asian...

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

Discovery at Rosetta: Revealing Ancient Egypt

The decipherment of the Rosetta Stone is perhaps the greatest cryptography tale ever told. Less often told is the tale of the stone’s discovery in 1799 and the struggle over its ownership. This is the central focus of Downs, a history writer and journalist. Drawing upon eyewit...

/Resources/Books-and-More/Discovery-at-Rosetta-Revealing-Ancient-Egypt 5/6/2022 8:16:17 PM

The Life and Legend of the Sultan Saladin

The 12th-century chronicler Abd al-Latif praised Kurdish-born Ayyubid Sultan Saladin as “a great king who inspired both respect and affection, far and near.” That wide-ranging territory famously included the realms of his rivals. “[A] pagan man, but a distinguished knight...

/Resources/Books-and-More/The-Life-and-Legend-of-the-Sultan-Saladin 7/8/2022 4:44:11 PM

Performing al-Andalus: Music and Nostalgia across the Mediterranean

When the Arabs ruled al-Andalus (southern Spain) from the early eighth to the late 15th century, their artists created a new type of poem, the muwashshah, and set songs to it. While no authenticated songs remain from the period, 500 years later this musical legacy of al-Anda...

/Resources/Books-and-More/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

When Armenian Turkish businessman Calouste Gulbenkian died in 1955, Life magazine described him as the world’s richest man. His secretive global business machinations were the stuff of legends and he was a key figure in the development of oil in the Middle East. Today, the a...

/Resources/Books-and-More/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

Books about the arts of al-Andalus and the Maghrib typically focus on a country, an era, city or single building. Bloom, however, looks at architecture from southern Spain through Northwest Africa as “a distinct tradition in its own right.” Each chapter offers a map, ample ill...

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

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

Frankopan provides in 500 fast-moving pages nothing less than the entirety of East-West contact from the earliest ages until the 21st century, with asides on how goods, religion, technology and even political ideologies bounced back and forth along pan-Asian networks—“roads,” ...

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

/Articles/April-2021/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

2022 Calendar: Muqarnas

Made of plaster, brick, glazed tile, wood or stone, muqarnas (moo-KAR-nas) is characterized by sloping tiers of niche-like cells that alternate with brackets and stalactite-like pendants projecting and hanging over those below. Although scholars generally believe ...

/Articles/November-2021/2022-Calendar-Muqarnas 11/1/2021 12:22:58 PM

When Metalsmiths Found Their Groove

Like all creative leaps, this luxury ware did not emerge out of the blue but occurred in relation to a specific context. In this case, “it was a combination of things,” says Deniz Beyazit, curator in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Islamic Art. Co-curator of...

/Articles/September-2023/When-Metalsmiths-Found-Their-Groove 9/1/2023 2:00:04 PM

America's Music of the Nile

Of the world’s great rivers, there are perhaps none as iconic, even celebrated, as the Nile. This 6,650-kilometer natural wonder has acquired universal recognition particularly through its association with the pyramids, temples and tombs Egyptians built along and near...

/Articles/May-2023/America-s-Music-of-the-Nile 5/1/2023 2:04:00 PM

Central Asian Women Truckers: Analyzing Gender Stereotypes

Most long-haul truck drivers are white males. But that is changing as women from Central Asia and other regions show they can haul a load as good as a man. In these lesson activities, meet women who are breaking stereotypes and making a good living doing so.

/Resources/Learning-Center/February-2022/Central-Asian-Truckers 3/10/2022 3:36:05 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

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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 1/16/2023 3:05:23 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 1/16/2023 3:04:46 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 1/16/2023 3:01:21 PM

Indexes : Contributors

https://archive.aramcoworld.com/index/Contributors.aspx 1/16/2023 3:08:08 PM

January/February 1991