Zeina
@uglybabyfeet
Zeina
By opening up to global capital they have the potential to become a ‘new Arab metropolis’ to use Fuad Malkawi’s title in his prologue here – adapting Western forms and planning models. Unburdened by history they are free to create a new identity and in turn serve as a model for the rest of the Arab world.
Yasser Elsheshtawy, ‘The Great Divide:
... See more‘Do Arabs still exist? Not in the sense of a physical presence - but rather as a vital and contributing civilisation.’
Yasser Elsheshtawy, ‘The Great Divide: Struggling and Emerging Cities in the Arab World’, The Evolving Arab City, p.1
What Is The City But The People? (New York City Department of City Planning, 1969)
youtube.comIslamic cities boasted million-volume libraries and streets of booksellers: administrators, students, teachers, and thinkers of all kinds relied on relatively cheap, plentiful paper to do their work.
Roland Allen • The Notebook
Much of what was known in the Latin West about the intellectual life of the classical world was transmitted to it by Muslim scholars in Spain.35 The commercial life of the Muslim world had been far more advanced than that in much of Europe. Prestige goods and luxury wares, as well as silver and gold, flowed west into Europe, not the other way
... See moreJohn Darwin • After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000
The vast reach of their trade helped to make the port cities of the Near East centres of manufacture for high-value textiles and metal goods and great centres of consumption, information and knowledge. Fourteenth-century Cairo had a population of 600,000 – far larger than any city in Western Europe.
John Darwin • After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000
English was always borrowed, from hip-hop to Spanglish to The Simpsons. Early on, my father learned that in America, one must be emotionally demonstrative to succeed, so he has a habit of saying “I love you” indiscriminately, to his daughters, to his employees, to his customers, and to airline personnel.
Cathy Park Hong • Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
As a migrant myself, I have always been fascinated by the migration of stories, and these jackal tales traveled almost as far as the Arabian Nights narratives, ending up in both Arabic and Persian versions, in which the jackals’ names have mutated into Kalila and Dimna. They also ended up in Hebrew and Latin and eventually, as The Fables of Bidpai,
... See moreSalman Rushdie • Languages of Truth: Essays 2003-2020
what if public libraries were open late every night and we could engage in public life there instead of having to choose between drinking at the bar and domestic isolation
erin glasstwitter.com