A Brief History of Monuments
By Stacy Hardy Abbasid Caliph Abu Ja’far al-Mansur, the founder of the ancient city of Baghdad, conceived of his new seat of government as a vast, walled, circular fortification. Before it was erected, Caliph ordered his army of labourers to dig a trench along the intended city’s circular foundations. Oil was poured into the trench and set alight. Caliph watched the […]
Season’s Greetings
By Rayyane Tabet On the morning of 1 December 1960, thousands of employees working for the Trans-Arabian Pipeline Company received a greeting card inside the envelope that contained their pay cheque. On the front, big bold letters announced the coming holidays and wished them “Seasonʼs Greetings”. The message on the back read: “From another plane […]
The African Affairs Bureau
By Helmi Sharawy I have pointed out in the past that the three spheres of interest in Egyptian politics (Arab, African and Islamic, in this order) mentioned in President Gamal Abdul Nasser’s booklet Philosophy of the Revolution did not indicate the real priority given to Egypt’s relations with Africa. The period 1956 –1960 was rich in […]
El-Salahi – The Wise Enemy
By Hassan Musa I want to introduce Ibrahim El-Salahi here as “our teacher,” using the first-person pronoun, although I did not personally have the honour of being his student when he was teaching drawing and painting at the College of Fine and Applied Art in Khartoum. I entered the college in 1970, a year after […]
Islam between Françafrique and Afrabia
By Wendell Hassan Marsh Upon his invasion of Egypt in 1798, Napoleon had a message for those Muslims suffering under Ottoman dominion. He would liberate Egypt and Islam and make them liberal, modern. Using rhetorical formulae and forms of argumentation put together by his army of Orientalists, Napoleon superficially provided the material that his critics at […]