The Sahara is not a Boundary
Ziad Bentahar is an assistant professor of French and Arabic at Towson University in the United States. He grew up in Morocco, where his interest in the country’s competing relationships to “the Arab world” and to rest of the continent began. His recent scholarship looks at reasons why the identities of “Arab” and “African” seem, […]
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 […]
On the Meaning of the Timbuktu Manuscripts
By Shamil Jeppe Timbuktu is symbolic. I mean it’s a place, but it’s also, for me, a symbol of a written tradition across a huge region. In symbolic terms it calls attention to traditions of writing that pre-dated the introduction of the European script and the printed book. Because if you look at the history […]
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 […]