The Afternoon Map

Posted on August 19, 2020 by Samah Kasha

The Afternoon Map is a cartography blog brought to you by Ottoman History Podcast

“We firmly believe that every book needs more maps, and would be delighted if these maps could be useful toward that end”
The Afternoon Map

The blog is dedicated to presenting quality Ottoman/Turkish/Middle Eastern/Balkan maps with a maximum pixel-to-word ratio. A range of original, visually appealing and intellectually engaging maps harvested from archives and libraries around the world.

The afternoon Map will appeal to history buffs, travelers and map enthusiasts. Each map is provided with some background and analysis when available. Historians and other researchers will find these maps useful for their work.

“The Afternoon Map is a member of MENAlab, a constellation of independent internet destinations focused on the history, society, and culture of the Middle East and North Africa”
The Afternoon Map

The blog uses content generated by scholars and researchers from a variety of disciplines. The afternoon Map is open access and free from advertisement.

MAP LIST

Under Afternoon Map’s Comprehensive Map List, one can find the following:

Historical Maps

Blog posts in this section varies in topics (geographical, touristic, ethnic, etc.), in dates (as old as 1874) and in length (from one map to 14 maps)

Home Made Maps

In this section, things get really interesting! Treasure map, food maps, Folk song map, etc.

Non Maps

Topics in this section, not necessary related to maps, but it is worthwhile exploring!

Articles

A list of published articles authored and/or co-authored by Nick Danforth on various media platforms and academic journals. There is a couple of articles that are marked unpublished.

PODCAST

Provide a link to Ottoman History Podcast, a podcast about the Ottoman Empire, the modern Middle East, and the Islamic world.

RANDOM

In this section, blog posts are randomly displayed. This may appeal to those who like the surprise factor.

Kerning Cultures

Posted on August 7, 2020 by Ghazaleh Ghanavizchian

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“Stories From The Middle East And North Africa, And The Spaces In Between”

Kerning Cultures is a female-led podcast founded in 2015 and is based in UAE. It is the first venture-funded podcast company in the Middle East. This podcast is Hebah Fisher’s idea; she is the co-founder of Kerning Cultures. This podcast formed in response to the lack of mainstream media in the Middle East, that young generation can relate to, also it came to existence aiming to open a new window to this misunderstood parts of the world.

This podcast started as a start-up and with very little help, the first three years Hebah Fisher (co-founder and CEO) and Razan Alzayani (co-founder and former executive producer) of the project, invested all their savings in this project, they worked for their” mission of telling stories of places they call home”. They aim to re-introduce the region to themselves and Middle Eastern audiences, as well as to introduce it to non-Middle Eastern listeners through their stories, stories that anyone even from very far away can relate to. So This podcast is being produced in Arabic and English.

Usually the image of the Middle East, pictured by the main stream media is biased, one-sided and heavily politicized.

This podcast tries give an image of Middle East and North Africa, beyond the stereotypical characteristic and common generalizations, by covering different topics and telling stories of history, science, culture, current affairs from these regions and Middle East. Each episode somehow unveils the reality of life in the region and aims to give a balanced picture of its people, and their nuanced lived experience.

Various topics are covered in this podcast. for example “Birthplace of the UAE” is about Public Health; “Fight or Flight” tells the story of a kite maker from Afghanistan who immigrated to the US and “Reviving Hamra Street” is about Beirut and its street art.

Or in the episode, “Not Just My Hijab” a two-part series, women with different backgrounds talk about their stories and experiences of wearing Hijab or, discontinuing wearing Hijab and what it means to them. This narrates the lived experience of those women with their voices, which is different from the narrative of an article in a prestigious International journal picturing women wearing Hijab and mostly in relation to religious matter. There are many factors that impact and form people’s lives, belief system, culture and collective memories , though usually these factors are excluded from media narrative, Kerning Cultures is trying to shed light on those factors and various dimension of life in the Middle East.

In addition to its valuable content, Kerning Cultures choice of media, podcast and use of voice, makes a meaningful connection to the region through the old tradition of oral history and story telling.

Kerning Cultures was described by its listener from different corner of the world as: informative, touching, intriguing and a must listen.

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ArabLit: Arabic Literature and Translation

Posted on August 3, 2020 by Anaïs Salamon

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ArabLit: Arabic Literature in Translation is a blog launched in 2009 by Marcia Lynx Qualey, a freelance journalist living in Cairo who holds a Master Degree in creative writing from the University of Minnesota. In addition to maintaining ArabLit M. Lynx Qualey writes about Arabic literature for a number of newspapers and journals: The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Your Middle East, and AGNI Online, a literary journal published by Boston University.

Over time, ArabLit became a good source of daily news and views on Arab and Arabic literature and translation. As described in an interview by Claire Jacobson (for Asymptot): “her [Qualey’s] coverage leaves no stone unturned, spanning a wide range of genres (from poetry to nonfiction, magical realism to science fiction) and countries (from Morocco to Iraq, Sudan to Syria).”

In 2017, ArabLit won the prestigious Literary Translation Initiative Award at the London Book Fair, and M. Lynx Qualey launched the BULAQ Podcast in collaboration with Ursula Lindsey, from The Arabist. BULAQ focuses on contemporary writing from and about the Middle East and North Africa, and on literature (what does it do? Why does it matter? How does it relates to society, history and politics?). BULAQ is co-produced by Sowt, a podcasting platform producing and distributing high-quality audio programs in Arabic based in Amman (Jordan) and launched in 2016.

In 2018, with support from fans and readers (53,208 followers in July 2020), Qualey was able to develop ArabLit by launching new initiatives:

the ArabLit Story Prize is awarded every year to the best short stories recently translated from Arabic to English by non-previously published translators
ArabKidLitNow! provides a “fresh view on contemporary Arabic children’s literature, in Arabic and in translation” is addressed to publishers, translators, readers of Arabic, Arabic language learners, readers of English, teachers, librarians, booksellers, etc.
ArabLit Quarterly is a theme-based “magazine that brings together Arabic literature, essays, wordplay, art, music, and food in translation”
ArabLit Store offers items and publications for purchase.

In 2020, despite de COVID-19 crisis, M. Lynx Qualey was able to:

Launch the 5th and 6th issues of ArabLit Quarterly covering “The road” and “The crime” themes, and start working on the 7th and 8th issues that will focus on “Cats” and “Dreams”
Start a “lock-in literature” series for readers with limited access to books during the COVID-19 shutdowns
Run the #ArabicTranslationChallenge with Kevin Blankinship, assistant Professor of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University.

Interested people can follow Marcia Lynx Qualey on Facebook, Instragam, Twitter, Youtube, SoundCloud, or by subscribing to the Tiny Newsletter. Last, in order to support further development, ArabLit is welcoming donations.

Anwar El-Sadat Digital Archive

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Samah Kasha

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Anwar El-Sadat Digital Archive is a collaborative effort between The International School of Information Science (ISIS) and the Special Projects Department at Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

The project compiles all the material pertaining to the late President Anwar El-Sadat in a digital archive documenting an important epoch in the discourse of Egyptian history.

The Archive provides information on the life of late President Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat to historians, politicians, and researchers who are interested in analyzing and studying one of the most important transitional periods in Egyptian history.

The Archive is divided into three main areas and each area is further subdivided

El-Sadat’s Life
El-Sadat’s Archive
Journalistic Perspective

El-SADAT’S LIFE

In this section, one can explore facts and archival materials related to the early life of El-Sadat, his political life, after 23 July Revolution, his presidency, donated collections and his famous quotes. An internal link is made available to El-Sadat’s Museum that is housed in Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

In addition to the above, El-Sadat’s life includes books and articles that he wrote during the revolution and after he became a president.

El-SADAT’S ARCHIVE

This section is divided into six collections:

The speech collection contains 1116 letters, words and text statements by President Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat.

The photo collection and for the first time, this number of rare El-Sadat related are displayed on the Internet, close to 20,000 photos

The video collection contains more than 317 videos, in which President El-Sadat appears, ranging from talk shows, news reports and documentaries.

The documents collection includes more than 970 Egyptian and American documents, some of which are rare documents in addition to documents in the President’s handwriting.

The audio collection is compilation of audios by President El-Sadat. This collection contains 44 audio tracks.

The press collection contains 7814 press items, ranging from news, reportage and articles that goes back to the period of the late President El-Sadat

JOURNALISTIC PERSPECTIVE

Televised interviews, this section is devoted to all television interviews and letters available of President Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat in an attempt to highlight how he dealt with the Arab and Western media and how he approached and handled its challenges.

The project team has collected most of the book covers that talked about the era of President Anwar El-Sadat as an assistant to the researcher to reach a better understanding of El- Sadat’s story in both its human and political aspects.

Anwar El-Sadat Digital Archive materials were compiled from different sources, such as news agencies, museums, various other institutions, and a collection graciously granted by the late President’s family. The database was published on the Internet with tools and features that facilitate easy navigation through the website. It is important to note that the archive is available only in Arabic.

The digital archive also enables users and researchers to perform comprehensive searches among the different sections and categories of data.

The Arabist

Posted on June 30, 2020 by Anaïs Salamon

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Launched in Cairo (Egypt) in 2003 by Issandr El Amrani, a Moroccan-American writer and analyst, The Arabist is an independent blog covering “the domestic politics of Arab countries”. If the primary focus lies on Egypt, the blog also aims at exploring “broader issues in the Arab world, US policy in the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and cultural developments throughout the region”. The blog is maintained in collaboration with Ursula Lindsey, a journalist interested in “culture, education and politics in the Arab world”, and welcomes contributions from multiple contributors, journalists and/or academics specializing in the region. After a very prolific decade, The Arabist is now less frequently updated, but remains nevertheless a valuable and reliable source of information for scholars interested in contemporary Arab politics.

Screenshot of ‘The Arabist’ main page, June 30, 2020.

The main page is used for posting links relevant to the themes of the blog, and is updated every couple of months. The Podcast & Projects tab in the top-left menu leads to additional resources: podcasts, press articles in translation, a guide to Egyptian political, economic and social issues, and an Egyptian magazine’s archive.

Bulaq: The Arab World in Books is a podcast started in November 2017. Co-hosted by Ursula Lindsey and Marcia Lynx Qualey, book critic, editor, ghostwriter, and literary consultant and editor-in-chief of ArabLit, Bulaq looks at the Middle East and North Africa “through the lens of literature and at literature through the lens of current events”.

From 2009 to 2014, The Arabist Podcast focusing on Egyptian politics during the revolution and its aftermath was co-hosted by Issandr El Amrani and Ursula Lindsey.

The 80+ episodes of both podcasts can be listened to and/or downloaded from their respective pages.

The Sabry Guide was developed in 2012 by Bassem Sabry, an Egyptian political analyst who passed away prematurely in 2014, to provide an overview of the political, economic and social challenges facing post-Mubarak Egypt, with a a focus on the everyday problems encountered by the Egyptian population. Re-arranged for clarity, this guide will be of interest to scholars working on contemporary Egypt.

From 2011 to 2018, in partnership with the firm Industry Arabic, ‘The Arabist’ regularly published materials selected from the Arabic press In (English) Translation.

Last but not least, The Cairo magazine archive makes available the 30 issues of this “magazine for News, Business and Culture” published between March and November 2005.

The Palestine Poster Project Archives

Posted on June 19, 2020 by Samah Kasha

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The Palestine Poster Project Archives (PPPA) was created by Dan Walsh for a master thesis project at Georgetown University, stating that: “It is a work-in-progress.”

The Palestine poster genre dates back to around 1900 and, incredibly, more Palestine posters are designed, printed and distributed today than ever before. Unlike most of the political art genres of the twentieth century such as those of revolutionary Cuba and the former Soviet Union, which have either died off, been abandoned, or become mere artifacts, the Palestine poster genre continues to evolve. Moreover, the emergence of the Internet has exponentially expanded the genre’s network of creative contributors and amplified the public conversation about contemporary Palestine.
Dan Walsh – Silver Spring, MD April 2009

A unique historical repository of primary data on modern Palestine. Audiences who are interested in this rich, yet under-valued module of Palestinian cultural heritage, can have a better understanding of people who were engaged in the contemporary history of Palestine and recorded it in their graphic art.

According to PPPA a “Palestine poster” is defined in a five-part definition as any poster:

1) With the word “Palestine” in it, in any language, from any source or time period.
2) Created or published by any artist or agency claiming Palestinian nationality or Palestinian participation
3) Published in the geographical territory of historic Palestine, at any point in history, including
4) Published by any source which relates directly to the social, cultural, political, military, economic or iconographic history of Palestine or Palestinian nationalism contemporary Israel
5) Related to Zionism or anti-Zionism in any language, from any source, published after August 31, 1897

Site visitors can browse the poster collection by: Artists (2,640), Posters (13,774), Wellsprings, Special Collections (920), Iconography, Original Copies, Portfolios, Duplicates/Exchanges, Year of Publication, Country of publication, and Nationality/Artists

The Liberation Graphics Collection of Palestine Posters, which was Nominated to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Program 2016-2017, is a subset of the more than 11,500 posters featured at the Palestine Poster Project Archives web site.

The PPPA is an educational site and does not engage in any commercial or merchandising activities. Posters’ duplicates are frequently traded with private individuals as well as other archives and libraries. Furthermore, The PPPA has a strict policy concerning poster’s removal, as it will never remove a poster from its site. There is a dedicated link on the website for poster submission. Last but not least, the FAQ provides a deep insight into the core objectives of the archive, as it comprehensively answers a wide range of questions, it is worthwhile checking.

Allama Iqbal Poetry (کلام علامہ محمد اقبال)

Posted on June 10, 2020 by Ghazaleh Ghanavizchian

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Allama Iqbal Poetry کلام علامہ محمد اقبال is a website established by a team of freelancer gathering all Iqbal’s Poetry works in one place.

This page provides free access to a complete collection of Urdu and Persian Poetry of Allama Iqbal, as well as English translation, transliteration and Urdu explanation of the poetries.

Muhammad Iqbal (9 November 1877 – 21 April 1938) known as Allama Iqbal was a leading and prominent Persian and Urdu poet of India in the first half of the 20th century. He was also a distinguished philosopher, theorist, and barrister in British India, and he was known to be the “Spiritual Father of Pakistan” because of his contribution to the nation.

His poetry works are cherished internationally among literature scholars’ community as well as among Indians, Pakistanis, Iranians, Afghans and Bangladeshis. Along with his fame as a poet, he is also known as one of the Muslim philosophical thinkers in the modern era therefor his Urdu and English lectures and letters, believed to have been important in political, social, religious and cultural discourses.

To read more about Allama Iqbal and his work, Encyclopedia Iranica has an article about him, access here.

Allama Iqbal Poetry is a searchable website with the possibility of searching for words, couplet, verse and shair in Iqbal’s poetry. Moreover, these 11 complete Urdu and Persian books of him are accessible to be browsed too.

Palestinian Journeys

Posted on June 3, 2020 by Anaïs Salamon

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Palestinian Journeys is a collaborative project of the Palestinian Museum and the Institute for Palestine Studies. The Palestinian Museum is an independent institution founded in 1997 by the Taawon Welfare Association with the goal of promoting a dynamic vision of Palestinian culture engaged with new perspectives on history, society and culture. The Institute for Palestine Studies is an independent not-for-profit research institution founded in 1963 to document Palestine and and publish ground-breaking scholarship on historical and contemporary Palestine.

Powered by by Visualizing Palestine, whose productions we already highlighted on this blog (here), the Palestinian Journeys platform is continuously populated with valuable content.

Palestinian Journeys main page

The platform is discoverable via two main entries accessible from the left-hand side of the screen: the “Timeline,” and the “Stories.

The Timeline, “an ever-growing encyclopedic collection of historical events, biographies, themed chronologies”. Originally created by he Institute for Palestine Studies, it aims at highlighting historical, socioeconomic and cultural themes, relying on historical documents, and multimedia content. From within the timeline, various categories are available:

Overall Chronology covering from 1500 A.D. to 2016 A.D.
Thematic Chronologies browsable either by subject ( Colonization, Diplomatic, Institutional, Legal, Policy/Program, Sanctions, Violence) or by date
Highlights pointing to significant events subdivided by subject (Biographical, Colonization, Contextual, Cultural, Diplomatic, Institutional, Legal, Policy/Program, Popular Action, Sanctions, Socioeconomic, Violence)
Biographies sub-divided by profession (Artists, Businessmen and Economists, Clerics, Educators, Feminist Figures, Journalists, Poets, Political Leaders, Politicians, Revolutionaries and Activists, Scholars and Historians, Trade Unionists, Writers and Novelists)
Documents sub-divided by type (Chart, Illustration, Map, Photograph, Text)

Overall Timeline

The Stories section, a continually updated collection of Palestinian testimonies and accounts, is an original creation of the Palestinian Museum. It aims at making widely available “marginalized and forgotten narratives about the Palestinian experience, highlighting unknown stories, personal accounts, oral histories, and undiscovered experiences” and “emphasizes how the Palestinian people took part in forging their own history. ” The Stories can be filtered either by theme (Arts & Culture, Economy, Society, War & Resistance, Women) or by by period:

Ottoman Rule
Early Mandate Period
Second Mandate Period
The Palestine War and the Nakba
Reverberation of 1948 Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
The Rise of the Palestinian Movement in the Wake of the 1967 Arab Defeat
From a Sense of Victory to separate Peace and civil War
Palestinian Defeat, Division and Survival
The first Intifada and the beginning of Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations
The Oslo process and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority
The Aqsa Intifada and the end of an Era in Palestinian Politics
A Palestinian Authority divided, Israeli Assaults on Gaza and Peace process Setbacks.

Stories

In addition, an “Inspire me” category allows visitors to discover the Palestinian Journeys through a selection of marking moments, events, and characters, and a search feature allows visitors to focus on a specific event or theme they are interested in.

Inspire me

A short description including source is available for each document, and sometimes related content is suggested:

The interface is bilingual English-Arabic.

La fabrique du Caire moderne

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Anaïs Salamon

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La fabrique du Caire moderne is a “pilot project about urban development, architecture, Euro-Mediterranean entanglements and global investment in Cairo in the 19th and 20th centuries.”

The project is is co-directed by Professors Mercedes Volait (CNRS) and Adam Mestyan (Duke) and conducted in collaboration with researchers from:

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France)
Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale (Egypt)
Hungarian Cultural Institute in Cairo (Egypt)
Duke University History Department (USA).

Hosted by Duke University, the blog includes news items and announcements relating to the project as well as lengthy thematic articles and descriptions of relevant archival documents (photographs, plans, maps, etc.).

The Sources page references the main photo albums used to conduct the research.

Last, the website is trilingual: Arabic, French and English.

Call for contribution in the form of translation@ Museum With No Frontier

Posted on April 11, 2020 by Ghazaleh Ghanavizchian

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If in the face this pandemic you are staying home and have more time on your hands, If despite all this you are still passionate about culture, art and history, If you too believe that art, culture and cultural heritage should be accessible to everyone as much as possible, If you were looking for an opportunity to contribute for a good cause, But more importantly, If you can translate from English to Arabic, then this post is probably for you.

Mueseum With No Frontier (MWNF) has launched a campaign to have more of their museum and exhibitions related content translated into Arabic, in order to give greater access to art and culture to more people from around the world.

“We are in need of support to translate more of our database to Arabic so those in Arab countries and beyond can access our online Explore Islamic Art Collections and other exhibitions.”

If interested, contact them at: office@museumwnf.net

Brief background about Museum With No Frontier:

MWNF was founded as an independent non-profit organization in 1995 on the initiative of Eva Schubert. MWNF program is a collaboration between public and private partners from all over the world and its main activities consist of “MWNF Virtual Museum and related MWNF Galleries and the MWNF Exhibition Trails and related books and travel program.”

MuseumWNF is determined to link cultures via a diversified knowledge of history, heritage and culture encourage practicing peaceful coexistence. Moreover, part of their mandate is cooperation with the Arab world and promoting Islamic art.

“Contributing to better knowledge of Arab countries and cooperating with Arab partners on educational and cultural tourism projects has been an MWNF priority since its foundation. Since 2010 MWNF has had a partnership with the League of Arab States to promote awareness of the Arab world’s history and cultural legacy through joint projects.”

More information about MWNF can be found here.

There is also volunteer opportunities for native-language translators to help with translations:
English to Arabic
English to Spanish
German to English
Spanish to English

For more information click here and here

MWNF on Facebook, Twitter, Instgram.

مدونة مكتبة الدراسات الاسلامية في جامعة مكغيل

Resources for Islamic Studies

Category Archives: Thematic resources

The Afternoon Map

Kerning Cultures

ArabLit: Arabic Literature and Translation

Anwar El-Sadat Digital Archive

El-SADAT’S LIFE

El-SADAT’S ARCHIVE

JOURNALISTIC PERSPECTIVE

The Arabist

The Palestine Poster Project Archives

Allama Iqbal Poetry (کلام علامہ محمد اقبال)

Palestinian Journeys

La fabrique du Caire moderne

Call for contribution in the form of translation@ Museum With No Frontier