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A market stall in Kadikoy, Istanbul © Sarah Johnson About the London Middle East Institute (LMEI)

Volume 9 - Number 5 Th e London Middle East Institute (LMEI) draws upon the resources of London and SOAS to provide October – November 2013 teaching, training, research, publication, consultancy, outreach and other services related to the Middle East. It serves as a neutral forum for Middle East studies broadly defi ned and helps to create links between Editorial Board individuals and institutions with academic, commercial, diplomatic, media or other specialisations. With its own professional staff of Middle East experts, the LMEI is further strengthened by its academic Professor Nadje Al-Ali SOAS membership – the largest concentration of Middle East expertise in any institution in Europe. Th e LMEI also Ms Narguess Farzad has access to the SOAS Library, which houses over 150,000 volumes dealing with all aspects of the Middle SOAS East. LMEI’s Advisory Council is the driving force behind the Institute’s fundraising programme, for which Mr Roger Hardy it takes primary responsibility. It seeks support for the LMEI generally and for specifi c components of its King's College, London programme of activities. Mrs Nevsal Hughes Association of European Journalists Mr Najm Jarrah Dr George Joff é Mission Statement: Cambridge University Mr Max Scott Th e aim of the LMEI, through education and research, is to promote knowledge of all aspects of the Middle Gilgamesh Publishing East including its complexities, problems, achievements and assets, both among the general public and with Ms Sarah Searight British Foundation for the Study those who have a special interest in the region. In this task it builds on two essential assets. First, it is based in of Arabia London, a city which has unrivalled contemporary and historical connections and communications with the Dr Kathryn Spellman Poots AKU and LMEI Middle East including political, social, cultural, commercial and educational aspects. Secondly, the LMEI is at SOAS, the only tertiary educational institution in the world whose explicit purpose is to provide education Dr Sarah Stewart SOAS and scholarship on the whole Middle East from prehistory until today. Mrs Ionis Th ompson Saudi-British Society and BFSA Dr Shelagh Weir SOAS LMEI Staff: Professor Sami Zubaida Birkbeck College Director Dr Hassan Hakimian Co-ordinating Editor Executive Offi cer Louise Hosking Sarah Johnson Events and Magazine Coordinator Vincenzo Paci Administrative Assistant Valentina Zanardi Listings Vincenzo Paci Designer Disclaimer: Letters to the Editor: Shahla Geramipour Th e Middle East in London is published Opinions and views expressed in the Middle East Please send your letters to the editor at fi ve times a year by the London Middle East Institute at SOAS in London are, unless otherwise stated, personal the LMEI address provided (see left panel) views of authors and do not refl ect the views of their or email [email protected] Publisher and organisations nor those of the LMEI or the Editorial Editorial Offi ce Board. Although all advertising in the magazine is Th e London Middle East Institute carefully vetted prior to publication, the LMEI does SOAS University of London not accept responsibility for the accuracy of claims Th ornaugh Street, Russell Square made by advertisers. London WC1H 0XG United Kingdom

T: +44 (0)20 7898 4490 SSubscriptions:ubscriptions: F: +44 (0)20 7898 4329 E: [email protected] www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/ To subscribe to Th e Middle East in London, please visit: www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/affi liation/ ISSN 1743-7598 Contents

4 19 EDITORIAL REVIEWS BOOKS LMEI Board of Trustees 5 Living to Some Purpose: Professor Paul Webley (Chair) Director, SOAS INSIGHT Memoirs of a Secularist Iraqi Professor Richard Black, SOAS Kebab and mezze globalised and Arab Statesman Dr John Curtis Roger Hardy British Museum Sami Zubaida H E Sir Vincent Fean KCVO Consul General to Jerusalem 7 20 Professor Ben Fortna, SOAS CULINARY CONNECTIONS Th e People Want: A Radical Mr Alan Jenkins Th e culture of food: An Exploration of the Arab Dr Karima Laachir, SOAS interview with Claudia Roden Uprisings Dr Dina Matar, SOAS Dr Barbara Zollner Roger Hardy Laleh Khalili Birkbeck College 9 21 LMEI Advisory Council ‘It quickens the spirits and BOOKS IN BRIEF Lady Barbara Judge (Chair) makes the heart lightsome’: Th e Professor Muhammad A. S. Abdel Haleem Near and Middle East Department, SOAS coff ee bean then and now 23

Mr Stephen Ball Sarah Searight and Alec Gordon RESTAURANT KPMG Moroccan Fish Stall – Golborne H E Khalid Al-Duwaisan GVCO Ambassador, Embassy of the State of Kuwait 11 Road Mrs Haifa Al Kaylani Nadje Al-Ali Arab International Women’s Forum Water: A drink for epicures Dr Khalid Bin Mohammed Al Khalifa Mary Isin President, University College of Bahrain 24 Professor Tony Allan King’s College and SOAS 13 OBITUARY Dr Alanoud Alsharekh Senior Fellow for Regional Politics, IISS Beekeeping in Britain and Sheila Whitaker (1936-2013)

Mr Farad Azima Arabia Dina Matar Iran Heritage Foundation Julian Lush Dr Noel Brehony MENAS Associates Ltd. 25 Mr Charles L. O. Buderi 15 Th e role of food in Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP Ms Zeynep Dereli A loaf of bread, a jug of wine Zoroastrianism APCO Worldwide and rhyme: Images of food in Sarah Stewart Professor Magdy Ishak Hanna British Egyptian Society Persian poetry HE Mr Mazen Kemal Homoud Ambassador, Embassy of the Hashemite Narguess Farzad 26 Kingdom of Jordan EVENTS IN LONDON Mr Zaki Nusseibeh 17 Sultans of Rome Founding Patron and Nevsal Hughes Member of the Advisory Council Sheikh Mohamed bin Issa al Jaber MBI Al Jaber Foundation

October-November 2013 The Middle East in London 3 EEDITORIALDITORIAL © M. Messkoub

DDearear RReadereader

Fresh and dried Iranian pistachios

Sarah Searight, Nevsal Hughes MEL Editorial Board here is no doubt Britain has gone Zubaida describes the range of foods to our homes via television screens. Th e 21st through a food revolution in the from the region which are now so much century is bringing us even more in contact Tlast decades. Long gone are the more available in London’s shops and with diff erent foods and cooking styles, days when you could only buy olive oil in restaurants, the result of the huge growth with London nurturing more and more a chemist’s shop, marked ‘for external use in residents from the Middle East. Roger ethnic restaurants and food stalls. In this only’. Today not only can you fi nd all kinds Hardy’s interview with Claudia Roden issue, Nadje al-Ali once again introduces of olive oil on any supermarket shelf but shows the infl uence of one individual on the reader to an alternative to cooking one’s also a variety of vegetables and fruit once the palate and diet certainly of Londoners own regional meal, and Narguess Farzad described as exotic by the British. Television with easy access to the crucial ingredients. provides us with the poetic dimension so and food journalism have also brought Alec Gordon and Sarah Searight describe vital to distinctive Persian cuisine. Other more recipes than one can even read, let how coff ee reached Britain (and its status articles include Nevsal Hughes’ discussion alone reproduce. today), via Constantinople. By the end with Warwick Ball of his latest book, Sultans For us two editors of this issue of Middle of the sixteenth century, many European of Rome, which describes the spread of East in London, the idea of Culinary merchants were determined to have access Turks across Asia and into Europe; and Connections epitomises the more pleasant to the precious drink back home. And it is Sarah Stewart introduces us to some of aspects of the relationship between Britain they who are quoted by Mary Isin in her the highlights of the current Zoroastrian and the Middle East, highlighted in many fascinating description of the signifi cance exhibition. of the articles here. Another member of water, much of it distributed via the of the editorial board came up with the magnifi cent fountains that are still a feature idea listening to Julian Lush describe his of modern Istanbul. beekeeping forays into the region, the Th e world shrank in the 20th century subject of his article on beekeeping in with so many people able to go to foreign Oman, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Sami lands and their eating habits were brought

4 The Middle East in London October-November 2013 IINSIGHTNSIGHT

Sami Zubaida takes a look at the wide range of Middle Eastern cuisine now available outside the region KKebabebab aandnd mmezzeezze gglobalisedlobalised © Alexander Hannon © Alexander

Kebabs go beyond the vertical skewers of Turkish doner and Lebanese shwarma, the best and original form being layers of meat and fat and not an industrial meatloaf

recent survey revealed that 41% of of rotating meat loaves made in factories. emporia of every sort of Middle Eastern British households have hummus European supermarkets now off er packets food: vegetables, olives and pickles, meat Ain their fridge (Guardian Shortcuts of kebab, slices of pork or turkey ready for counters, cheeses, bakeries off ering fl at Blog, 7 August 2013). Th is is an astonishing the microwave. Th is globalised cornucopia breads and pizza-like crusts of cheese and index of the degree to which Middle Eastern is surely to be welcomed, but the discerning herbs, called manaqish, and jars and tins of food, alongside curry and other selected diner will also search for authenticity and everything. Restaurants, snacks and juice items of world cuisine have been globalised, depth, which can be found in plenty in the bars intermingle with pharmacies, hair and in the process, transformed. diverse range of Middle Eastern restaurants dressers and estate agents, all announcing Taboule, essentially a Levantine parsley and groceries in London. themselves in Arabic. Th ese are mainly salad dotted with bulgar/burghul grains Middle Eastern food establishments dot Lebanese establishments, catering to a and tomatoes, is widely eaten in France, the geography of London, following patterns clientele of Arab residents and visitors only transformed to a couscous salad. of diaspora, settlement and commerce. for whom that part of London is a focus, Supermarket shelves display a wide range of At the heart of London’s West End is the especially during the tourist season in hummus, many unheard of in their native Lebanese/Arab enclave of Edgware Rd summer. Further up Edgware Rd into lands, chilli, sun-dried tomatoes, cream and Marble Arch, into parts of Mayfair. Maida Vale and beyond to Kilburn and cheese and Moroccan hummus, which Th e sound and smell of narguila smoke further west, there have sprung many must come as a surprise to Moroccans. pervades the area, from the many Arab café Iranian and Iraqi (mostly Kurdish) eateries Kebab shops are on every high street, terraces when the weather permits. and shops. Arab establishments have also mainly off ering doner kebab in the form Groceries and supermarkets are spread into many suburbs: Shepherds Bush and further west to Acton and Ealing Th is globalised cornucopia is surely to be welcomed, but the is a mixed area featuring foods of many nationalities, including Maghrebis alongside discerning diner will also search for authenticity and depth more Lebanese. One Moroccan food stall

October-November 2013 The Middle East in London 5 (see p.23) there has recently been written London is now home to so many diasporic up in the food columns and awarded prizes. Kensington, long frequented by the richer communities and their food, and the Middle Middle Easterners, is home to many Iranian Eastern contingent is very well represented and Arab establishments. Turks have inhabited north-east London, Hackney and Stoke Newington, and further north and course meal, but specifi cally related to and mezze: stews, breads, pies, pastries and east, where you fi nd many ocakbasi grills, as drink, usually alcoholic. Items of the mezze sweets, some of them off ered in restaurants well as restaurants catering for local workers repertoire can be meals in their own right, and leaking into globalised menus. Of the and off ering stews and pilafs (rice or bulgar). such as hummus, vine leaves, bourek fl at breads pitta has become most common Th ere is even an iskembe (tripe) saloon. pastries (stuff ed with cheese or meat), and in eateries and markets, convenient for From these original areas of settlement and so on. But they only qualify as mezze when sandwiches and wraps; lavash, thin fl at commerce, Middle Eastern restaurants have served in small portions with drink, which bread, is especially good for wraps; Persian now spread into all areas of London. is also the case with Spanish tapas. Th e noun, is now more recognised in Indian On the menu of these restaurants are mezze repertoire is off ered primarily by naan. Pies and dumplings, especially kubba/ diverse regional foods, but meat grills, Lebanese and Turkish restaurants, as well kibbe/icli koft e, typically made with bulgar kebabs, and mezze are constant items. as the many Middle Eastern and North (cracked wheat) and ground meat, entered Kebabs go beyond the vertical skewers African restaurants who have adopted these the mezze repertoire, and are also served of Turkish doner and Lebanese shwarma modes. Iranian restaurants have their own as snacks and take-away, as has bourek, (also derived from Turkish), the best and particular ‘starter’ dishes: aubergines in wraps or pies of fi lo stuff ed with cheese original form being layers of meat and fat diff erent combinations, wild garlic, musir, in or meat. Sweet pastries of the baklava and not an industrial meatloaf. Cubes of yoghurt, sabzi paneer, an abundance of fresh family are widely off ered in Middle Eastern meat and ground meat patties on skewers herbs with white cheese, and kuku sabzi, a establishments, and now in supermarkets, are common to all, though with diff erent kind of herb frittata. Typically, prosperous not always of appetising quality. composition and seasoning, refl ecting Middle Eastern diners would not have Th e typical everyday meal for many in the regional origin: the Iranian ground meat considered the mezze as a meal, but would Middle East is a stew of meat and vegetables koubide tastes quite diff erent from the have proceeded to more meaty dishes. Now, eaten with rice and/or bread. Th ere are Turkish or Lebanese koft e. Iranians also however, especially in the globalised dining endless variations in methods of cooking, have distinct genres such as barg, sheets of fashions, meals consisting of a variety of spicing, ingredients of vegetables and herbs, meat rolled over a skewer. Chicken kebabs small dishes are popular and superseding and rice cookery. Th is genre is not so well are ubiquitous, but, to me, lack distinction. the three-course meal: Spanish tapas, Italian represented in restaurants. Iranians are Other grills include liver, kidney and cicchetti, Russian zakuski, and the ‘tasting justly proud of their refi ned rice cookery, sweetbreads. menus’ off ered by many restaurants. Mezze and their restaurants refl ect this taste: rice Garnishes and accompaniments are fi ts in very well with this trend. Many other served with grills or the khoresht, stew, of another source of regional variations. restaurants are now eclectic in including the day. Turkish eateries in London’s ethnic Mezze is a Persian word, meaning ‘taste’, items from all these diff erent regional enclaves, where local workers eat their khosh mezze means delicious. It is widely, traditions. lunch, off er a display of diff erent stews and and wrongly, translated as hors d’oeuvres. Th ere are, of course, many other genres rice or bulgar. It is not an opening course in a multi- of Middle Eastern foods, beyond kebab London is now home to so many diasporic communities and their food, and the Middle Eastern contingent is very well represented, at both the gourmet and the mass catering levels, and items of their food are now prominent in the fusion cuisines of the global scene.

Sami Zubaida is Emeritus Professor of Politics and Sociology at Birkbeck, Professorial Research Associate of the Food Studies Centre, and Research Associate of LMEI, both at SOAS

Sweet pastries of the baklava family are widely off ered in Middle Eastern establishments, and

© Sarah Johnson now in supermarkets

6 The Middle East in London October-November 2013 CCULINARYULINARY CONNECTIONSCONNECTIONS Few writers have done more than Claudia Roden to bring Middle Eastern food to an international audience. She talks to Roger Hardy about her Egyptian Jewish upbringing and her quest to reconstruct the origins and social background of one of the world’s great cuisines TThehe ccultureulture ooff ffood:ood: AAnn iinterviewnterview wwithith CClaudialaudia RRodenoden

Claudia Roden was born in Cairo in 1936 and grew up in Zamalek before moving to the UK

ell me about your memories of society. For instance, at school on the fi rst Was there nevertheless a degree of tension growing up in Cairo. day, they would call out every name and between the diff erent communities? T I was born in Cairo in 1936 and everybody would shout out what their Th ere was no tension until 1951, and if there grew up in Zamalek. My memories are religion was. And everybody was so proud was I didn’t really notice it. I left at fi ft een to joyful ones – going off to the Pyramids, to shout out their religion – it seems such go to school in Paris, but then I would come and stopping in restaurants along the way, a faraway thing now. We all spoke many back on holidays. I stayed in Egypt until the and the times I spent swimming. I was a languages, and among ourselves we would early 1950s. So I was there during Nasser’s swimming champion of Egypt and I beat the go from one language to the other without time – and we found it exhilarating. My women’s record for backstroke. noticing. And then if the teachers heard uncle, the wealthiest member of our family, you, they would shout ‘English only!’ In my put up a bust of Nasser in his warehouse. It was an extraordinarily cosmopolitan house we would speak French and Italian. In 1956 my parents had to leave aft er the Cairo. Did you take all that for granted We didn’t speak Arabic at home, though my Suez crisis. Jews without an Egyptian when you were growing up? father, from a Jewish family that had come passport or with no passport were forced Yes, we were used to a really cosmopolitan from Aleppo, spoke Arabic in his home. to leave within weeks. Th ose with Egyptian passports could stay, but there were internment camps for people deemed to be People thought I was doing something ridiculous, because possible sympathisers with Israel, so all the writing about food at that time wasn’t fashionable Jews were at risk.

October-November 2013 The Middle East in London 7 People in the Middle East are attached to their – and the people who make it that way say own food because that is what they know and love it’s fi ne. Will this cuisine – that you’ve spent a How important was food during your by the history and the sociology. Why? lifetime chronicling – survive? childhood? First of all, I thought people wouldn’t eat People are very attached to their food. It was very important because people the food of a culture they despised. So I Of course, the infl uence of globalisation were always in one another’s homes, and kept trying to tell them that there’s a whole is there, and hotels all off er international they were always entertaining. Th e food big world behind these foods. When I food. But people in the Middle East, as was a mixture. Egyptian, Syrian, Turkish went to the British Library, I asked about everywhere, are attached to their own food – because one of my grandmothers came books on Arab food and all they had were because that is what they know and love. from Istanbul – and we had relatives from translations of thirteenth-century Arabic And they don’t want to lose it for emotional Morocco and Iraq. manuscripts from Damascus and Baghdad. reasons, because it reminds them of their And this is how I got to read [the British family, and it’s part of their culture. People have suggested that, through food, scholar] Professor Arberry and the [French] you are reconstructing a lost world. Is that sociologist Maxime Rodinson. When Roger Hardy was a Middle East analyst with how you see it? Rodinson was in Lebanon with the French the BBC World Service for over twenty years. Yes. I started collecting recipes when the army during the Second World War, he He currently holds visiting fellowships at LSE Jews left Egypt, and many of them were found a medieval manuscript on cooking, and King’s College, London, and is a member stopping in London. I had been studying and he used it to work out what kind of of the editorial board art in London and was living there with my society existed at the time of the writer. It two brothers when my parents joined me. was enthralling. Several of the dishes had So, over a period of ten years, we saw a huge the same names, and the same ingredients, number of people arriving [in London] who as dishes we were eating – and suddenly I had settled elsewhere, or weren’t yet settled realised that our food culture went back a and were in a state of fl ux. And they were all long way. I started cooking nearly all the talking about food, people who never talked recipes that were in those medieval books. about it before, who didn’t exchange recipes before. It was a longing for something that Th ere’s great variety in Middle Eastern you’d lost. cuisine, but what’s characteristic about it? What makes it ‘Middle Eastern’? Did you learn to cook from your mother? When I see pine-nuts and raisins, sauces Yes. My mother had a cook, but she had to with almonds, dishes with meat and fruit, I know how to cook to teach him. Th e cooks know they are Middle Eastern [in origin]. were from Upper Egypt and they didn’t Dishes from Iran or from Baghdad pass to know how to cook the dishes we wanted Morocco and then to Spain. For instance, to eat. But when my mother came here [to I ate quinces stuff ed with minced lamb in London], she felt very lost. She found none Konya, in Turkey – and also stuff ed apples – of the relatives she would see every day in and then I found in Catalonia apples stuff ed Egypt, and so cooking became the one thing with minced pork, with fried onions, pine- she threw herself into – to please my father, nuts and raisins. People sometimes say I’m who was always keen to eat the foods of his an anthropologist, but I’m not. I’m not an childhood. So she was cooking all the time, academic. I go aft er what fascinates me. and I was living at home and I was cooking with her and taking notes. You’ve said that one of the characteristics of Middle Eastern cuisine is an essential When you got going as a writer in the conservatism, a suspicion of innovation. 1960s, people in Britain presumably knew I think there are a lot of countries that are very little about Middle Eastern food. conservative, and certainly in the Middle Yes, and people thought I was doing East they are. When I fi rst went back to something ridiculous, because writing Egypt, aft er a gap of thirty years, every about food at that time wasn’t fashionable. single thing on the table was the same as Collecting recipes, especially Middle thirty years before. Eastern ones was something they were contemptuous of. Nasser was reviled, But what about the impact of because of the Suez crisis – so they thought globalisation and the pressures of modern I was looking back to something that wasn’t life? worth looking back to. Well, everybody does things quicker, or they don’t do them at all. For instance, in Some cookery writers simply tell you what Morocco they use pressure cookers for to do, but you’ve always been fascinated tagine; they use the microwave for couscous

8 The Middle East in London October-November 2013 CCULINARYULINARY CONNECTIONSCONNECTIONS

Sarah Searight and Alec Gordon explore the history of Arabica coff ee ‘‘ItIt quickensquickens tthehe sspiritspirits aandnd mmakesakes tthehe hhearteart llightsome’:ightsome’: tthehe ccooff eeee bbeanean tthenhen aandnd nnowow

Coffee bushes growing on terraces in the Yemeni highlands

rabica coff ee comes from Yemen in and thence to Constantinople where it including Bait al-Fakih, and thence to southern Arabia, though Ethiopia caught the attention of European trading Mokha where Europeans established Awas probably its original birthplace. companies. trading houses. From there it was shipped According to legend the thirteenth century William Biddulph, preacher to the to Europe, oft en via Bombay, to supply the sufi shaikh, Ali ibn Umar al Shadhili, on English merchant community in Aleppo, fl ourishing coff ee houses of seventeenth being invited to Yemen from Ethiopia, noted in 1609 the popularity of coff ee century Vienna, Paris and London. insisted on bringing coff ee bushes with him in Constantinople ‘for it causeth good In Yemen the more common drink is to Mokha in Yemen so that the infused concoction and driveth away drowsiness.’ qishr, the husk of the bean infused with beans would keep him awake during nightly An early London coff ee house, established ginger; true coff ee is usually reserved for meditations. Th e mosque and mausoleum in 1652 by Pascal Rosee, advertised that special occasions, imbibed in tantalisingly dedicated to the shaikh still stand outside coff ee ‘much quickens the spirits and makes small quantities. Mokha. the heart lightsome … neither laxative nor Coff ee is a major traded soft commodity, Yemen’s coff ee grows on the monsoon- astringent.’ along with sugar, grains and oilseeds. Global irrigated terraces of the high western Th e annual coff ee harvest was carried consumption has been rising, reaching escarpment. It is generally harvested in the down from the escarpment to various almost 140 million 60-kg bags in 2011/12 autumn and the berries are dried in the sun markets on the Yemeni coastal plain, (the international coff ee year starts in before the husks are separated from the beans. From the sixteenth century the taste An English merchant William Biddulph noted for coff ee drinking was picked up by the the popularity of coff ee in Constantinople ‘for it Ottomans, transported up the Red Sea to Alexandria (noted there by the Venetians) causeth good concoction and driveth away drowsiness’

October-November 2013 The Middle East in London 9 back to registered farmers in developing Yemeni coff ee growers suff er from the overall instability of countries. As a result, Fairtrade has been a the country and the lack of any regulatory body or grading great success, yielding substantial benefi ts to all involved – including farmers and their communities. Fairtrade remains vulnerable, October). Th e USA is the world's biggest 1989, the International Coff ee Agreement however, to some of the problems faced by coff ee-drinker, accounting for 16% of global (ICA), supported by almost all coff ee commodity agreements. Probably the most consumption last year. Among coff ee- importing and exporting countries, aimed signifi cant of these is overproduction and growing countries, Brazil and Ethiopia are at reducing the volatility of coff ee prices its price consequences. Unlike the coff ee the only signifi cant coff ee-drinkers. by stabilising the balance between global agreement, Fairtrade does not aim to limit Today, both Arabica and Robusta supply and demand. For coff ee-producing market supply. coff ee (Arabica's less aromatic but equally countries, export quotas were set in relation Continued success could, paradoxically, important relative) are grown throughout to agreed expectations of global demand. depress prices, leaving farmers worse the tropics, initially transported out of For their part, importing members of the instead of better off . Fairtrade represents Arabia by the Dutch to Indonesia. Yemen Agreement, who also stood to gain from a more effi cient way of supporting thus lost its monopoly. Brazil is by far the stabilised prices, agreed to refuse imports of farmers – especially smallholders – and biggest producer today, mainly of Arabica coff ee unless accompanied by quota stamps. their communities than an EU scheme coff ee, accounting for almost a third of Th e ICA was not unsuccessful in its known as Stabex. Th is aims to compensate global output of coff ee of all types. primary aim of curbing price volatility. the economies of developing countries Like all agricultural produce, coff ee yields Even so, and like the other international dependent on exports of commodities like are vulnerable to the weather — especially commodity agreements (for natural coff ee – and especially their farmers – from rainfall and drought, and to insect pests. In rubber, cocoa, sugar, grains, copper and collapse in the international price. Th e aim the past, crop failure, especially in Brazil, tin), it eventually collapsed. Today the was admirable but Stabex proved hard to has had dramatic impacts on harvests and International Coff ee Organisation, which administer. Recipient governments were prices. manages the ICA, no longer tries to regulate expected to distribute grants among huge In the 1960s and 1970s, eff orts to protect coff ee exports, confi ning itself to market numbers of farmers. In Uganda, which the economies of developing countries from monitoring and providing a forum for qualifi ed for a Stabex grant shortly aft er price volatility - and the smallholders who discussions. Volatility has returned to the General Amin had been defeated and account for the bulk of production - led to market. Last year, the price of mild Arabica driven out of the country, the government formal agreements between producing and coff ee fell by a massive 31%. understandably used it to meet the cost of consuming countries which were aimed at With the benefi t of hindsight it is standing down a citizens’ army. reducing the volatility of prices - especially not diffi cult to see why international Fairtrade on the other hand has been a of soft commodities such as rubber, sugar commodity agreements – especially soft - success to all involved, including farmers and tea - on the international market. commodity agreements – collapse. Cartels and their communities. Even so, it remains Until it lost its price-setting functions in are notoriously diffi cult to run (and the vulnerable to some of the problems faced ICA was much helped by support from by commodity agreements everywhere. coff ee-importing countries). Th e coff ee Probably the most signifi cant of these is agreement probably tried to stabilise prices overproduction and its price consequences. at too high a level, at least in terms of the Unlike the export quota scheme run by ‘opportunity cost’ to the farmer (i.e. what the International Coff ee Agreement, alternative activities there were), which Fairtrade does not aim to limit market led to overproduction. Also, agriculture supply. Continued success could therefore, is not the same as mining. For a farmer, paradoxically, depress prices, leaving unlike an oil producer, production farmers worse instead of better off . Yemeni foregone is production lost. Moreover coff ee growers, meanwhile, suff er from the price-stabilisation is not much use to a overall instability of the country and the smallholder if it prevents prices rising in lack of any regulatory body or grading. So response to a poor harvest. far Fairtrade has had little or no impact on Another initiative, and one aimed the plight of the original suppliers of this specifi cally at farmers in developing ‘good concoction.’ countries, is Fairtrade. Fairtrade cleverly exploits the willingness of shoppers in Alec Gordon is a consultant for EIU and western supermarkets to pay a premium Sarah Searight is a member of the editorial for coff ee (and other Fairtrade-branded board produce such as bananas). Th is is passed

Yemen's coff ee is generally harvested in the autumn and the berries are dried in the sun before the husks are separated from the beans

10 The Middle East in London October-November 2013 CCULINARYULINARY CONNECTIONSCONNECTIONS

Mary Isin explains the Turkish fascination with water over the centuries WWater:ater: A drinkdrink

fforor eepicurespicures © Mary Isin

Osman Ağa Mosque Fountain was built in 1722 and can be found in Kadıköy, Istanbul

n Turkey many people travel out of barrels of it sent to them daily, even to weighed again. Th e lightest was that from town weekly to bring back water from considerable distances.’ the Şem’ûn spring, which was thereaft er Ia favoured spring and take plastic always supplied for the sultan. Murad III demijohns on picnics to fi ll at springs Th e Turkish attitude to water could be preferred water from Akpınar spring near renowned for their fl avour. Th ose who compared to that of Europeans to wine. Beykoz on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus cannot aff ord to buy bottled spring water Harrison Griswold Dwight, an American and an offi cial made the long journey by queue at local fountains for a free supply. who was born in Istanbul in 1875, recalled boat daily to bring back a fresh supply. Th is discerning attitude to water goes back that the Turkish connoisseur of water ‘calls Provision of water was regarded as one to Ottoman times, as recorded by Sir Henry for the product of his favourite spring as of the foremost acts of charity as well as Woods, an English admiral who served in might a Westerner for a special vintage, and an obligation of the state, so fountains the Ottoman navy in the 19th century: he can tell when an inferior brand is palmed were built by their thousand, both by the ‘Th e water-drinking Turk has a very off on him.' state and private individuals. Th ese were fi ne discriminating palate as regards Following the conquest of Istanbul in usually carved with ornamental motifs and that fl uid, and can tell at once, upon 1453 an investigation was carried out to inscriptions, one of the most common being taking up a glass of it, the spring from discover the fi nest spring water for the use ‘By water all things have life'. One foreign which it has come. Th ose wealthy of Sultan Mehmed II. Wads of cotton wool visitor aptly compared the fountains to enough to aff ord the expense, have, of equal weight were soaked in samples statues in Europe, ‘with the diff erence that when away from Constantinople, from each spring, dried in the sun and most fountains are beautiful or interesting.’ Fountains were built not only in cities Th e Turkish attitude to water could be and towns but at remote spots on roads for the use of travellers. Jean Baptiste compared to that of Europeans to wine Tavernier (1605-1689) wrote, ‘Th ere is one

October-November 2013 The Middle East in London 11 ‘No country exceeds Turkey in the excellence of its writing in 1856-1858 compared Istanbul’s water supply favourably with that of Paris water, and the attention the inhabitants pay to the and the well-travelled Rev. Nathanael erection of fountains and their preservation’ Burton wrote in the 1830s, ‘no country which I have visited exceeds it in the excellence of its water, and the attention the thing remarkable in this Road as in many vast sums on expanding and improving inhabitants pay to the erection of fountains others, which manifests the Charity of Istanbul’s water system that his chief and their preservation.’ the Turks. For in most of the high Roads, architect Sinan wrote of the water line into While admiring the water supply, that are far from Rivers, they have set up the city from Kağıthane, ‘In place of water however, many Europeans were at a loss Cisterns, whither when the Rains fail, the we poured gold and silver into that channel.’ to understand the Turkish liking for water neighbouring Villages bring Water for the In 1833 Commodore de Kay, an American as a drink. No one, they concluded, would Travellers, who would otherwise be very naval physician, estimated that Istanbul’s drink water unless compelled to do so, and much distressed.' water system could not be built for less than they put this strange habit solely down to Legacies for the provision of water were 50 million dollars: the Islamic ban on alcohol. William Grelot common. Joseph Pitton Tournefort wrote in ‘A ft er a deliberate survey of the various wrote in the 17th century, 'Were not Wine the early 18th century, ‘Even they who have hydraulic contrivances for supplying forbidden by their Law, it would have been but moderate fortune, leave something aft er Constantinople with water, one is at a much greater convenience, and an act their death, to maintain a man to give water a loss to know which to admire most, of higher Charity to have erected so many in the summer-heats to drink to passengers.’ the native good sense which pointed Taverns near the Tombs of the Dead, where Others left money for providing snow to out the necessity and importance of the Living might have drank the Founders cool the fountain water during the summer, furnishing the capital and its suburbs Health in good Wine.' or placed pitchers of water at their doors with pure and wholesome water, the for passersby to quench their thirst. In 1971 ingenuity displayed in conquering Mary Isin is the author of Sherbet and Spice: local people living by country roads around almost invincible obstacles, or that wise Th e Complete Story of Turkish Sweets, an Bodrum were still placing pottery jars of and liberal economy which considers encylopedic dictionary of Ottoman cuisine water in niches in the dry stone walls for no expense too enormous, no sacrifi ces and an Ottoman cookery book. She is also passersby to drink on their way to nearby too great, in comparison with the editor of a A King`s Confectioner in the villages. Th e slight evaporation through the health and comfort of the people... Th e Orient and an eighteenth-century Turkish porous clay kept the water at a refreshingly city of New-York, with a population dictionary of Persian culinary terms cool temperature. of more than 200,000 inhabitants, Vendors of free drinking water were has been deliberating for years over numerous in the 16th century, as described the question - whether it is expedient by Sebastian Muenster: ‘wandringe aboute to spend two millions of dollars for Cityes, cary good and alwayes freshe water the purpose of introducing a copious in certaine bottels, of the which they give to supply of pure and wholesome water.’ everye one demaunding for the same, freely Tophane Fountain was built by Mahmud I and gladlye for the which dutifull good will La Baronne Durand de Fontmagne (1730-1754) and worke of mercye.’ Baron Wenceslas

Wratislaw in 1599 wrote, ‘Many in their last © Kenan Kaya wills give directions for this, and appoint perpetual wages for persons who serve in this manner,’ and Nicolas de Nicolay in 1577 added the following curious details: ‘To make the water seem more faire & detectable to drinke, they put within the cuppe many and divers stones of Calcedonie, Iaspe and lapis Azuli, bearing in the same hand a looking glasse which they hold before the eyes of those to whom they give to drink, exhorting and admonishing them with words demonstrative to think on death.’

Vendors of free drinking water, though no longer equipped with precious gems and mirrors, were still a feature of city streets in the 19th century, although Şemseddin Sami commented disparagingly that most of these sebilci were no better than beggars. Süleyman the Magnifi cent spent such

12 The Middle East in London October-November 2013 CCULINARYULINARY CONNECTIONSCONNECTIONS

Julian Lush visits Oman, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to fi nd out about beekeeping in the region BBeekeepingeekeeping iinn BBritainritain aandnd AArabiarabia

Prof Ahmad Al-Khazim of Al-Baha is head of the Al-Buqshan Chair of Bee Research at King Saud University in Riyadh

hat links beekeepers in Arabia incense route hardly lacked for honey, as Langstroth in 1852 and became universally with those in Britain? Clearly indeed is recorded by Pliny. Th e indigenous adopted. Wthere’s a common interest in the south Arabian bee, apis mellifera yemenitica, In Arab countries today, beekeepers are management of bees and obtaining their was traditionally kept for centuries in almost all commercially driven, producing honey. Yet it was equally clear to us British hollowed log hives. In ancient Egypt, the honey to sell for their living. It can be of a beekeepers that there would be diff erences practice was highly developed, even to the quality so highly appreciated that its best in purpose and practice – contrasts of extent of loading feluccas with beehives grades command extreme prices. In the UK, terrain, climate, types of forage and in and seasonally proceeding down the Nile however, we are almost wholly amateurs species of bees. Th is called for investigation while the bees foraged at stopping places, who keep bees out of fascination with and so it was that groups of a dozen or so gathering nectar until the boats were loaded the craft of managing this extraordinary beekeepers from the UK, with a core from with honey to a loading mark, whereupon creature. Th is is not to decry the expertise the London Beekeepers Association, made they sailed on northward to Medinat al Asal of the foremost British beekeepers, but visits to Oman, Egypt and Saudi Arabia in near Heliopolis, the centre for a thriving they have usually acquired this by studious February of the years 2011, 2012 and this honey market. In Britain, beekeeping application, practice and enquiry rather year, 2013. Since this was for the majority has been recorded since medieval times, than by academic qualifi cation as we found their fi rst time in any Arabian country, it the native bees housed in straw skeps, a oft en the case in Oman, Egypt and Saudi gave the chance to experience the scene in tradition lasting until the removable frame Arabia. Arabia as well. hive was invented in America by Rev How do the bees in Arabia make such Beekeeping has been practised in Egypt and the Arabian peninsula far longer than Beekeeping has been practised in Egypt and in Britain. Th e populations of Hadramaut and Saba and other rich kingdoms on the the Arabian peninsula far longer than in Britain

October-November 2013 The Middle East in London 13 Honey can be of a quality so highly appreciated We found a diff erent scene again in Saudi Arabia. Professor Ahmad Al Khazim, whose that its best grades command extreme prices family comes from Al-Baha province in the mountains of the southwest, performs two fi ne honey? Th ere are certain fl owering In Oman too, Sultan Qaboos maintains roles. He is Head of the Al-Buqshan Chair trees ubiquitous to the desert and mountain a private series of royal gardens and farms of Bee Research at King Saud University regions – the ilb tree (zisyphus spina Christi) which do experimental work on suitable in Riyadh where an international team and the universal desert samar bush (acacia crops. In an extensive establishment of professors and post-graduate students tortilis). Th e other fl ora of the Arabian outside Muscat, there is also a sizable apiary work in bee-related areas of study. In Al- peninsula are well known for their rich with a staff of trainees under their Head Baha itself, where there is a tradition of variety and the bees have learned to fi nd Beekeeper, Keith Ferguson. Originally beekeeping in both the highlands and the their nectar. Egypt too hardly lacks for from Sri Lanka, Keith has been in Oman 30 coastal plain, Dr Ahmad is promoting the fl owering plants in the agricultural Nile years. We had with us John Chapple, one of conversion from traditional long hives to valley and Delta regions and in the Western UK’s foremost beekeepers, who keeps the modern Langstroth hives so as to improve Desert oases. beehives in Buckingham Palace gardens. the production of honey and the livelihoods In Arabia, the traditional log hives, Th us we brought together two royal of the beekeepers. An association is already involving the destruction of brood comb beekeepers – surely a unique combination! in support of beekeepers in adopting to remove the honey, are being steadily During our visit, it was suggested that royal modern methods. replaced by modern, square Langstroth Omani honey be entered in the British For us British, this has been a highly hives with removable comb frames. Th e National Honey Show in 2011 where, with instructive learning experience; we felt conversion is not always readily accepted, great aplomb, it carried fi rst prize in the amateurs among professionals but our as we found in Al-Baha province of Saudi international class. Arabian hosts never for a moment lacked Arabia, since many beekeepers have a In Egypt beekeeping is ubiquitous in the in courtesy, friendship and unbounded reluctance to give up the practice of their fertile plains of the Nile valley and in the hospitality. forefathers until convinced that the new Delta. By good fortune we had to guide us a methods are better. young bee research scientist, Dr Saad Masri, Julian Lush is secretary of the London In Oman, the conversion to modern hives also qualifi ed in apiculture in Germany Beekeepers Association is already almost universal. Traditional and Al-Mansura University. Th rough him palm-log hives are now kept rarely, but we met numerous heads of commercial notably by one confi rmed traditionalist, beekeeping associations. Beekeepers in Said bin Khalfan in the Wadi Bani ‘Aouf in Egypt keep their apiaries, consisting of the heart of the Jebel Akhdar. Beekeeping 50, 100 or even 200 hives, on the roofs of is widely practised throughout the country houses to save agricultural land. One huge as part of the rural economy, for locally bee farm ran a commercial queen rearing produced honey commands astonishingly business, selling new queens in thousands to high prices. In the supermarkets of Muscat, other beekeepers. prominent honey stall-holders sell it (in old Vimto bottles for preference) at the equivalent of £50 or even £100 per kilo for fi ne ‘ilb or samar honey. Th e Omani and Saudi Arabian standards of living support this. Not so in Egypt where the economy is far weaker although even there the price for fi ne honey is relatively high. In Oman, the numerous individual commercial beekeepers are supported by the Ministry of Agriculture which has established research centres in several major places in the interior. Th ese run training and queen breeding programmes to provide newly mated queens to beekeepers to sustain productivity and genetic stock of the Omani colonies. Th e centre at Saiq atop the Jebel Akhdar produces 7000 queens in the year for beekeepers. Th e Bee Research Department is headed by Dr Hassan Al- Lawati who is well qualifi ed with PhDs in apiculture from Germany and Portugal.

A rooftop apiary near Al-Mansura, Egypt. Beekeeping has been practised in Egypt and the Arabian peninsula far longer than in Britain

14 The Middle East in London October-November 2013 CCULINARYULINARY CONNECTIONSCONNECTIONS

Food and drink have always held a prized place in Middle Eastern literature, explains Narguess Farzad A loafloaf ofof bread,bread, a jjugug ooff wwineine aandnd rrhyme:hyme: IImagesmages ooff ffoodood iinn PPersianersian ppoetryoetry © The Fitzwilliam Museum

Lohrasp enthroned (c.1540) from Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh

ood imagery has been an integral part as Manuchehri, Anvari and Nezami, many a cook, as translated by Arthur George and of the literatures of the Middle East, of whose works are illustrated by sumptuous Edmond Warner: Fwith the earliest examples appearing in miniature paintings. ‘Foods then were few, men did not kill a Sumerian poem of the second millennium A well-known account of the potency of to eat BC. In Persian literature the most vivid food appears in the Shahname, when the But lived on vegetals of all earth's and colourful examples begin to appear almost vegan King Zahhak is gradually produce; from the tenth century onwards. Th e poets seduced and corrupted by Satan, who So evil-doing Áhriman designed at the courts in the greater Khorasan paid introduces him to dishes of eggs, veal, richly To slaughter animals for food, and particular attention to the variety of food cooked game and other elaborate recipes. served and the culinary expertise that was then In this passage, Satan, alternatively referred Both bird and beast. He fed the king on available. Th eir descriptions highlight the to by his Arabic name Iblis or the Persian blood sophistication of the court and the health Ahriman, appears to Zahakk in the guise of To make him lion-fi erce, and like a of its treasury. Th e best examples of such poetry can be found in the works of Rudaki, Jami describes the tables laid with rare fruits, or the Shahname of Ferdowsi as well as in the feasting scenes described by the other platters of quince blossom pastilles, delicate Samanid, Ghaznavid and Saljuq poets such sugared almonds and jugs of cordial and sherbets

October-November 2013 The Middle East in London 15 Rumi, Sa’di and Hafez beguile us with descriptions the drainers of dregs; On the Day of the Covenant this was of wine with such expertise that the most the only gift conferred loquacious of sommeliers would fail to match We have imbibed what He poured into our cup slave however, is when each lady is presented Were it the nectar of Paradise or the Obeyed him. First he fed his lord on with a fruit-knife and invited to peel an wine of intoxication’ yolk orange: Rumi, while a master user of the wine To make him strong; he liked the ‘One hand the knife held, sharp its imagery, is equally discerning about fl avour much work to do, soups and sweetmeats and shows a sound And praised Iblís.’ Orange the other, gladness to renew.’ knowledge of what goes on in the kitchen. Th e conversation between a cook and Th e following day Satan serves the king At this precise moment Joseph is enticed the chick-pea boiling in a pot of broth in a meal of partridges and silver pheasants, to look in on the gathering and as he steps book three of the Masnavi is ostensibly a followed by lamb a day later, then roast veal into the room, the women who catch metaphor for the hardship and pain entailed with saff ron, and fi nally beef with rosewater, a glimpse of him begin to swoon and a in the meaningful journey from naivety musk and vintage wine on the last day. As shocking scene of self-infl icted injuries to maturity but the attention to detail his reward he asks to kiss and lay his eyes ensues: shows that Rumi knew a lot about food and face on the king’s shoulders: ‘With that one sight their senses them preparation too. He also betrays a weakness ‘Iblís received permission, kissed and forsook, for the variations of halvas that appear in vanished. And from their hands the reins of his poems. Prepared from fi gs, dates or a A marvel followed—from the power shook. variety of raisins and syrups, Rumi assures monarch's shoulders, From her own hand her orange no one us that their fi nest can elevate the mystic to Grew two black snakes.’ knew, the heavens. And thus across her hand the knife she If only Rumi could visit London today And with this line begins the horror of a drew. where he would be spoilt for choice and millennium of Zahakk’s rule of terror who A pen made one her fi ngers with her could indulge his sweet tooth with the could only satiate the snakes by feeding sword, wide range of halvas available in shops and them the brains of two young men every Upon her heat devotion to record; Middle Eastern patisseries all over the city. day. Ferdowsi wonders if this was a plan to From every line there fl owed a stream rid Iran of its young heroes and indeed the of blood, Narguess Farzad is a Senior Fellow in Persian world of humankind. Th ey cried aloud: “No mortal man is at SOAS and a member of the editorial board On a more cheery note the fi ft eenth he, century Jami takes us to the lavish lunch “Not formed, like Adam, of water and party of the ladies of Egypt organised by clay: Zulaikha, Potiphar’s wife. Her ulterior “An angel pure below has found his motive is to silence their gossiping tongues way.”’ Zal shoots a water-fowl (c.1570) and justify her love for the beautiful Joseph: ‘What a feast in a royal banquet hall! In the twelft h to fi ft eenth centuries, © The Fitzwilliam Museum What sweetmeats pure of each colour the predominant and recurring image in and hue, Persian poetry is that of wine and the poets Like a light refl ected the darkness take great pain to describe its preparation, through! consumption and powers. However, the And in crystal cups whose lip overfl ows inebriating earthly wine of the earlier heroic Is mingled rose-water with attar of rose. and romantic epics, as well as the self- Its ground was decked as with the sun's indulgent pleasure of drinking associated golden bars: with the quatrains of Omar Khayyam, is Th e silver cups a galaxy of stars. transubstantiated into the wine of divine Flavour and perfume from table and intoxication. Only two centuries later the bowl, poetic persona has all but abandoned the Food for the body and strength for the splendid royal banqueting halls of Iran soul. and appears to be content to inhabit the Th ings there for eating whatever you old tavern. In this era it falls to Rumi, Sa’di wish, and Hafez to beguile us with descriptions Of bird they had brought together and of wine with such expertise that the most fi sh.’ loquacious of sommeliers would fail to match. Jami describes in detail the tables that Th e wine of this period is oft en a are laid with rare fruits, all ripe and juicy, metaphor for spiritual resilience. In his platters of quince blossom pastilles, delicate solitude, Hafez of Shiraz dismisses the sugared almonds and jugs of cordial and forbidders of wrong: sherbets. Th e climax of the lunch party, ‘Go away, ascetic, and stop picking on

16 The Middle East in London October-November 2013 CCULINARYULINARY CONNECTIONSCONNECTIONS

Nevsal Hughes talks to author Warwick Ball about the relationship between East and West, and Turkish expansion SSultansultans ooff RRomeome

Warwick Ball is an archaeologist who has carried out excavations, surveys and architectural studies in the Middle East

ultans of Rome: Th e Turkish World Turkey and elsewhere in the region. He Arabs and their forbears, the Phoenicians, Expansion is the third of four volumes travelled throughout most countries are bound up with European history and Sexamining the spread of cultures from between the Mediterranean and China as identity. Th e second volume, Towards One the East into Europe. In his introduction to he prepared this series. Th e fi rst volume, World: Ancient Persia and the West, explores the series, Asia in Europe and the Making of Out of Arabia: Phoenicians, Arabs and the the interaction between East and West the West, author Warwick Ball writes that his Discovery of Europe, concentrates on how with the author suggesting that rather than wish is to explore the eff ect of those cultures from beyond the conventional boundaries of Europe. He describes Turks as a people whose origins in the Far Ball is an archaeologist who has carried East are far beyond Arabia and Persia, let alone Europe, out excavations, surveys and architectural studies in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, but who became a part of a history of all three

October-November 2013 The Middle East in London 17 dividing the world into opposing camps, it was Persia that fi rst created the idea of Ball off ers no apologies for at times being guilty of one world. In Sultans of Rome he describes viewing Turkish history through rose-tinted spectacles Turks as a people whose origins in the Far East are far beyond Arabia and Persia, let alone Europe, but who became a part of a between Sasanian Persia and Byzantium, Mogul India even though there is a Turk history of all three. and describes it as the greatest war in the thread that runs through all of them. Th e I start by asking him: ‘Why the title, history of the world ‘because so much Ottoman state was very Byzantine as well, Sultans of Rome?’ ‘A huge amount of was connected by that time and there was as I have emphasised in the book. It was thought went into the choice of title’ he that knock-on eff ect right across the old European as well as Islamic, Byzantine as replies. ‘I wanted to associate a name that is world and everything changed. Changes well as Turkish. So they did absorb.’ one of the most fundamental to European in China were very direct, of course, but Ball off ers no apologies for perhaps, cultural identity – Rome – with one that is more in Europe and Middle East everything at times, being guilty of viewing Turkish a key part of Turkish and Islamic history changed before and aft erwards - new history through rose-tinted spectacles. He and identity – Sultan – so as to demonstrate peoples arriving on the scene, Turks arriving says this is to get away from the negative that they are not two separate, unbridgeable in Anatolia, Slavs coming down into the attitude towards the ‘terrible Turk’ that still worlds, but have a huge shared history and Balkans, aft erwards the rise of the Arabs. It predominates in so many histories. Later identity. And aft er all, Sultan of Rome is a really was the end of the old world. Another in the book he refers to the exchange of genuine Turkish historic title!’ historian, James Howard-Johnston, called it populations between Turkey and Greece Ball emphasises that throughout Turkish the last great war of antiquity. He described aft er the new Turkish Republic was history there has been a strong sense of it as that for the same reason in that it was founded. He emphasises that it was not a awareness of being a ‘Turk’, a common really the end of the ancient order.’ unilateral expulsion of Greek communities feeling of Turkishness. ‘When looking at Ball says the conquest of Constantinople from Anatolia but they were exchanges other peoples’ histories you don`t get such has become iconic as the beginning of of communities, provoked by the Greek high sense of identifi cation,’ says Ball. ‘I am the contact between Greek and Turk, a invasion of Turkey. ‘Why is this fact not thinking of early Turk inscriptions from contact viewed in Manichean terms as known widely outside Turkey?’ I ask the eighth century, the runic inscriptions good versus evil. I ask him why. ‘Because him. Ball’s answer is simple: ‘Ever since found by the Orkhon river in Mongolia, for Constantinople was a symbol’ says Ball. ‘It the 18th century, western Europe had example. Th ey do write “We are Turks”. You was the last remnant of the Roman Empire, that romantic obsession with Greece and don`t get such strong ethnic identity with which was Europe`s greatest empire. It was Greeks, this idea of Greeks being the origin other peoples at all.’ a symbol for the rest of Europe because of European identity, European civilisation. Th e Eastern Turk Empire was it was the last bastion of Christianity in Lloyd George viewed the Greek invasion instrumental in bringing about the Sui the East. And also very symbolic, very of Turkey in heroic terms, as a revival of dynasty of China in the early seventh iconic for the Muslims because the Koran Alexander the Great`s heroic conquest of century. Ball believes this was indirectly mentions Constantinople and it was viewed Asia.’ a part of a greater war being fought as the ultimate goal for the Islam as well.’ Th e fourth volume in the series, Th e He believes it is the polyglot nature of the Gates of Europe, published by East & state and the symbiosis between incoming West Publishing, will discuss the peoples ruler and indigenous ruled that is also who bridged the vast inner Eurasian land most characteristic of Turkish dynasties; mass throughout history to once more their ability to embrace and reinvigorate demonstrate an essential unity of Europe the older cultures of the peoples they have and Asia. encountered. I ask: ‘Would you say Islam was the Sultans of Rome: Th e Turkish World cause of it not becoming truly European Expansion (Asia in Europe and the Making as we perceive European to mean today?’ of the West) is published by East & West ‘It was not so much Turkey or Islam as the Publishing (£13.31) Christian European perception of Islam as being alien and un-European’, replies Nevsal Hughes is a journalist (formerly of the Ball. ‘Ottomans have embraced Islam but BBC World Service) and is a member of the they have also embraced many European editorial board ways - in fact one must stress that contrary to popular European misconception, the Ottomans became a European power before they became a Middle Eastern one: the Turks conquered Constantinople from the West not the East, and remained a mainly European power to the end.’ He continues: ‘What is European? Because the Ottoman state was very diff erent from other Muslim states, very diff erent from Safavid Iran or

18 The Middle East in London October-November 2013 RREVIEWS:EVIEWS: BOOKSBOOKS LLivingiving ttoo SSomeome PPurpose:urpose: MMemoirsemoirs ooff a SSecularistecularist IIraqiraqi aandnd AArabrab SStatesmantatesman

By Adnan Pachachi

Arabian Publishing, 2013, £25

Reviewed by Roger Hardy

ow 90, Adnan Pachachi has lived In 1959, at the age of 37, Pachachi became in December 2003. Th e fi nal indignity, through the modern transformation Iraq’s ambassador to the United Nations. described more in sorrow than in anger, Nof the Middle East, and of his native Th is was the start of a long and fruitful was the vicious campaign by political rivals country, Iraq. Born in Baghdad in 1923, period in diplomacy. He recounts with to deny him the presidency. he remembers the city of his childhood as pride the assessment of a British diplomat, His judgement on himself and his fellow ‘a large village lacking in all essentials: no Sir Patrick Dean, who described him as a Iraqis is unsparing: ‘We failed in part electricity, no clean water … on rainy days ‘clever and unscrupulous opportunist’ for because of our own ineptitude as politicians, … the streets became a sea of mud’. He his anti-colonialist stance at the UN. In but chiefl y because the Iraqi people were imbibed Iraqi nationalism from his father, 1965 Pachachi returned home to become not yet ready to shed their sectarian and Muzahim al-Pachachi, who would become foreign minister. But by the end of 1968 he ethnic prejudices.’ prime minister in 1948-49 – and Arab ‘became convinced that the new Ba’athist As the historian Peter Sluglett suggests nationalism during the revolt in Palestine regime [in Baghdad] was far more brutal in his foreword to these memoirs, one in the mid 1930s, when he was a student and oppressive than anything Iraq had seen’. may diff er from one or other of Adnan at Victoria College in Alexandria. Aft er He resigned the following year, left Iraq to Pachachi’s judgements, while still feeling graduating from the American University settle in Abu Dhabi, and did not return to that this is a valuable testimony to the life of Beirut, he joined the Iraqi foreign service his homeland for over thirty years. and times of modern Iraq. and, not yet 22, was sent to Washington. Over the next two decades Pachachi acted It was here he got married (to his beloved as an adviser to Abu Dhabi’s ruler, Sheikh Roger Hardy was a Middle East analyst with Selwa, with whom he had three daughters) Zayed, helping him set up a diplomatic the BBC World Service for over twenty and here, during the fateful years following service. From the early 1990s, he became years. He currently holds visiting fellowships the Second World War, that he witnessed active within the Iraqi opposition to at LSE and King’s College, London, and is Harry Truman’s involvement in the Saddam Hussein, identifying himself, not a member of the editorial board Palestine problem. as a Sunni Arab, but as a secular nationalist. Back in Iraq in 1958, Pachachi witnessed Th is is the part of the book many readers the revolution that overthrew the British- will turn to. It deals, in fairly summary backed monarchy and was deeply shocked fashion, with the role Pachachi played by the murder of the long-serving prime in the aft ermath of Saddam’s overthrow. minister, Nuri al-Said. Politically, he had Although he was no enthusiast for Western had his diff erences with Nuri, but socially intervention (‘an illegal war of choice’), he he’d been a family friend; he recalls how on returned to Baghdad in May 2003 and, summer nights, when they were children, with some misgivings, joined the Iraqi Nuri had taken them out on a boat to an Governing Council, set up by the American island in the middle of the Tigris, where proconsul Paul Bremer. they’d swim and eat grilled fi sh and listen to Pachachi witnessed the twists and turns his jokes and stories. of US policy – and the capture of Saddam

October-November 2013 The Middle East in London 19 RREVIEWS:EVIEWS: BOOKSBOOKS TThehe PPeopleeople WWant:ant: A RRadicaladical EExplorationxploration ooff tthehe AArabrab UUprisingsprisings

By Gilbert Achcar

Saqi Books, £13.99, 17 June 2013

Reviewed by Laleh Khalili

ow does one tell the story of a geopolitical interests of the US, the the one that is expressed in the streets, revolutionary moment when detrimental – even destructive – infl uence whenever the people want.’ Hthe cataclysmic events are still of Saudi Arabia on regional politics, the Th ere are a few minor things with which underway, when the future remains emergence of Qatar as a regional power , to quibble. Achcar characterises the Gulf remarkably uncertain, and where upheavals the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the monarchies as archaic, but arguably the continue to characterise the day-to-day region, the emergence of youth and women’s combination of massive oil rent, enormous conduct of politics? movement, the eff ects of social media, and sovereign wealth funds, the regional reach Gilber Achcar’s Th e People Want provides the importance of workers’ movements (in and infl uence of these regimes, and the a felicitous response to this question. Th e particular in Tunisia and Egypt) as the bases peculiar imperial protection arrangements book, published a few months ago, before of protest. they enjoy is very modern. In a few the coup that toppled the Morsi regime and Achcar’s broader framing is fi rmly places we hear about the ‘persistence’ of the chemical weapons attack in Syria which Marxist, and his lucid explication of sectarianism or tribalism in the region, may yet redraw the map of the region, various aspects of the revolution using the where recent historical works show the is a thoughtful and acute analysis of the writings of Marx, Lenin, Althusser and ways in which ‘tribes’ and ‘sects’ were political and economic factors underlying other theorists (including especially Max invented or ‘solidifi ed’ at the conjuncture the recent uprisings in the Arab world, Weber) is jargon-free, clear, and a model of colonialism, modern state-formation, and a provisional assessment of what the of marrying theory to empirical material. and emergence of national polities. Th e revolutionary movements have thus far Achcar draws on secondary literature conceptual frames of political rentierism, accomplished in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, and synthetises this with his empirical (neo)patrimonialism, and the idea of long- Bahrain and Yemen. economic and political data and his own term Ottoman ‘decline’ have been variously Achcar provides a clear description of keen political analysis. Th e style is fl uid, challenged in the specialist literature. And what he calls the ‘fettered development’ of readable and witty. His scrutiny of the the useful charts and graphs illustrating the region – its high unemployment and regional militaries and the roles they have the economic landscape of the region underemployment, vast informal sector, played in the uprisings is perceptive, and could have been broken down to show the rentier economies, poverty and inequality. as regards the role the Egyptian military divergences between the oil-rich and oil- He explains the ‘peculiar modalities of might play, even prescient. His provisional poor countries . But in a book as insightful, capitalism in the region’: plummeting balance sheets for the various uprisings thought-provoking, and compelling as this, investment in infrastructures, dependence are concise, clear, and judicious. In all, these are minor objections. Any reader on rents (from oil, infrastructure, and aid), he sees the socioeconomic structures of who would like a clear-eyed, theoretically massive privatisation and denationalisation the region surviving the uprisings thus grounded, and lucid assessment of what the of national assets, and more broadly the far, while political hierarchies are mostly Arab uprisings have wrought so far would infi tah (or liberalisation) policies that are reshuffl ed rather than overturned. He is benefi t from Gilbert Achcar’s Th e People regional variations on global neoliberal still hopeful because he sees the uprisings’ Want. policies. Th e book not only attends to main achievement as the clear emergence these economic factors but also elucidates of a people who ‘express their democratic Laleh Khalili is a Professor of Middle East the political specifi cities that have shaped will in the most radical way: not only the politics at SOAS the region in the last few decades: the will [expressed via the ballot box], but also

20 The Middle East in London October-November 2013 BBOOKSOOKS ININ BRIEFBRIEF FFathersathers aandnd SSons:ons: TThehe RRiseise aandnd FFallall ooff PPoliticalolitical DDynastyynasty iinn tthehe MMiddleiddle EEastast By M.E. McMillan

In December 2010, a revolution began in Tunisia that rocked the Arab world and ripped up the political rulebook of the Middle East. For generations, power in the Arab world has been monopolised by monarchs or military men and in the twenty-fi rst century, presidents began to act like kings and appoint their sons to succeed them. Fathers and Sons: Th e Rise and Fall of Political Dynasty in the Middle East traces the history of power in the Arab world from the Prophet to the present and reveals the story behind the headlines of the Arab Spring.

June 2013, Macmillan, £54.09

JJerusalem,erusalem, PPalestinealestine & JJordan:ordan: iinn tthehe aarchivesrchives ooff HHishamisham KKhatibhatib

By Hisham Khatib

Th is publication maps the history and society of the Holy Land, as recorded in writings, paintings, maps and photography of Western travellers and observers. Dr Hisham Khatib has spent almost 40 years amassing the vast and historically valuable collection of representations of the Near East featured in this book. It spans 400 years of Ottoman Rule, but bears a heavy focus on 19th Century watercolors, including works from Edward Lear, Carl Haag and Carl Werner. Th e images are accompanied by an engaging and informative text.

May 2013, Gilgamesh Publishing Ltd, £35 TThehe PPrinciplesrinciples ooff AArabrab NNavigationavigation

By Anthony R Constable and William Facey

Th is book contributes to the study of a nautical culture which is vital to an understanding of Indian Ocean history. Drawing on source material such as the guides by the southern Arabian navigators Ahmad ibn Majid and Sulayman al-Mahri in the 15th and 16th centuries AD, as well as surviving logbooks of dhow captains in the early 20th, the volume covers the principal ideas, techniques, instruments and calculations used, deploying astronomy, geometry and mathematics to explain their methods. It includes an account of a practical attempt to apply these methods in 2010, on an adventurous voyage from Muscat to Singapore in a reconstructed early medieval dhow.

Feb 2013, Arabian Publishing, £32.22

October-November 2013 The Middle East in London 21 BBOOKSOOKS ININ BRIEFBRIEF UUndernder MMyy WWigig

By Dr Jamal Nasir

Th is fi rst hand account follows Nasir from a young Palestinian refugee, through to a career at the Bar in London, and on to a role as chief legal advisor to King Hussein of Jordan, whom he served for most of the last fi ft y years of the twentieth century. Among other notable events, Nasir was part of the Palestinian delegation that made representation to the UN following the 1967 war. He went on to serve as Minister of Foreign Aff airs and Minister of Justice. Intimately acquainted with the workings of government in the region, Nasir here reveals previously unpublished accounts of key moments behind the scenes in modern Middle East history.

July 2013, Gilgamesh Publishing, £16.85 PPerformingerforming tthehe IIranianranian SState:tate: VVisualisual CCultureulture aandnd RRepresentationsepresentations ooff IIranianranian IIdentitydentity

Edited by Staci Gem Scheiwiller

Th is book discusses what it means to ‘perform the State’, what this action means in relation to the country of Iran and how these various performances are represented. ‘Performing the State’ refers to an individual (or a group of persons) who re-enacts rituals, ceremonies, customs, traditions and laws, or who dons certain guises, that either accomplish the State’s goals or rebel against them as a form of critique. Th is anthology examines various approaches to determining the Iranian State via the performativity of persons with the intention of illuminating how social practices, ideologies and identities are shaped, represented, visualised, circulated and repeated – not only nationally but also worldwide.

Feb 2013, Anthem Press, £60 NNarratingarrating CCononfl iictct iinn tthehe MMiddleiddle EEast:ast: DDiscourse,iscourse, IImagemage aandnd CCommunicationsommunications PPracticesractices iinn LLebanonebanon aandnd PPalestinealestine By Dina Matar and Zahera Harb Th e term confl ict has oft en been used broadly and uncritically to talk about diverse situations ranging from street protests to war, though the many factors that give rise to any confl ict and its continuation over a period of time vary greatly. Narrating Confl ict in the Middle East explores another path to addressing long-term confl ict by examining the ways in which such confl icts in Palestine and Lebanon have been, and are, narrated, imagined and remembered in diverse spaces, including that of the media. In so doing, the contributors engage with local, global, and regional realities in Lebanon and in Palestine and they respond to these realities.

May 2013, IB Tauris, £15.29

22 The Middle East in London October-November 2013 RREVIEWS:EVIEWS: RESTAURANTRESTAURANT MoroccanMoroccan FFishish SStalltall GolborneGolborne RRoadoad

ust back from a jaunt through a continent off ering up memories of Jwhite wines and dark meats in the Black Forest; bountiful tables and farmers markets nestled in Gascony's sunfl ower landscape; thronged Pinxos bars and wild seafood in the Basque towns of northern Spain. Th ree indulgent weeks. Now here we are in W10. Th e cunning plan is to drink soup on Golborne Road. But this isn't just any soup. Our friend Sami Zubaida suggested a Moroccan soup stand that has won the 2012 BBC food award for best food stall, serving spicy beans and lentils, along with grilled meat in wraps and locally sourced merguez. Th e idea is to write a review and eat aff ordable food that won't disappoint aft er all those gorgeous tables. Except that it is raining. And on this, the day before Notting Hill Carnival, shops are being shuttered, portaloos and barricades are sprouting on every corner, and the award-winning soup stand is nowhere to be seen. Oh, and did we say that it is really raining? Golborne Road slow-walks down from Kensal Road to eventually meet trendy Portobello Road. Still sporting something on our knees. Plump and juicy fi llets of cod the while falls the inevitable rain. We are of a community feel in the midst of some or crisp skinned sea bass lie alongside clingy defi nitely back in London. of London's most notoriously gentrifi ed golden spoonfuls of spiced rice, sweetened Our host confesses to being Egyptian. streets, it has been home to Caribbean, with carrots and peas. Th e dark salad leaves “But the boss - he is Moroccan.” He hastens Spanish and Portuguese communities. But are sharply dressed as are the pale green to add. “Th is is Moroccan fi sh.” “Moroccan it is the Moroccans who have made the grilled peppers. He moves among us doling à la Masri!” I say. He is momentarily greatest impression in recent years, earning out vivid pink prawns as presents (very startled to hear his country named so. “Yes, the place the sobriquet ‘Little Morocco’. moreish – no pun intended) and globes of Moroccan à la Masri.” Th en comes a warm Now, just near El Marrakesh Butchers, we roasted cherry tomatoes. He gives crescents smile. see seven young fashionistas perched on of lemon, bread, napkins. A fragrant steam metal stools, their anoraks shiny with rain, rises. Our arms, legs and feet are damp, but A platter at the Moroccan Fish Stall is £6.99 being served by a smiling man in a white we are warming up. chef's jacket. Th ey appear excited, intent. Two customers discuss the scheduled Nadje Al-Ali is on the editorial board of the Th ey seem to have forgotten about the rain. arrival of some drummers for tomorrow's Middle East in London and Mark Douglas is Th is is the Moroccan Fish Stall. Blue and carnival. One with a South African accent her eating partner white striped plastic sheets stretch over and two suitcases in tow speaks of a gig he stall scaff olding, a white fridge, a grill and a once helped organise beside the pyramids counter, and the aforementioned stools. Th e of Giza. A woman who looks like she could chef radiates enthusiasm. With the counter be from Mexico City, or possibly Mumbai, places full, he insists we sit inside his discusses fi sh grilling techniques with the workspace, between the trays of marinating smiling chef. Another steps back from the fi sh and baskets of bread. He operates counter and begins a Skype conversation smoothly in the cramped space apparently on her mobile, occasionally spinning unphased and produces large platters of around with her phone so that her distant food, which we balance on covered crates or interlocutor can survey the scene. All

October-November 2013 The Middle East in London 23 OOBITUARYBITUARY SSheilaheila WWhitakerhitaker ((1936-2013)1936-2013)

Sheila Whitaker with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat

heila Whitaker, who served as director it all. Of course, it doesn’t happen at all like and 1984. She served on festival juries from of the International Program at the that. You get more and more hooked.’ Venice to Syria and was awarded a Chevalier SDubai Film Festival, died on 29 July Whitaker’s fi rst fi lm festival in London, de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the 2013 in London at the age of 77. Since her in 1987, caused controversy, largely French Minister of Culture, an Honorary involvement with fi lm during an illustrious because she decided to open the festival Doctorate of Letters by the University of and varied career that took her to the with Mike Hodges’ IRA drama A Prayer Newcastle and an Honorary Dctorate of Middle East, Whitaker had been at the for the Dying. However, she decided to Law by the University of Warwick. She was forefront of eff orts to celebrate Arab fi lm replace the fi lm following a bombing in a regular visitor to the Fajr Film Festival and bring it to international attention. She Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, less than a in Iran during the years when it played an also actively supported the Palestinian cause week before the festival was due to open. important role in discovering new directors and championed female fi lmmakers. Under Whitaker’s stewardship the festival and co-edited Life and Art: Th e New Iranian Whitaker began her working life as a grew, eventually screening more than Cinema in 1999 to accompany an NFT secretary aft er she opted to take a typing 200 features each year and becoming the season. course rather than accept a scholarship she largest non-competitive festival in Europe. Whitaker was a fervent supporter of the had won while at Kings Norton Grammar Whitaker was also instrumental in bringing Palestinian cause and people. She was a School for Girls to study history at fi lms from the Middle East, Iran and Asia, member of the board of PalFest from its Birmingham University. Her administrative as well as the best in US indie cinema, to inception in 2008 until her death in 2013. skills were to come in useful during her fi lm London audiences. Th ese fi lms have now She also worked as a volunteer with the festival career, which took off soon aft er become some of the main off erings of the International Solidarity Movement and she was appointed as head of programming largely acclaimed London fi lm festivals. One was committed to supporting justice for at the National Film Th eatre in London in of the changes she made was to seal a deal to Palestine. Whitaker was diagnosed with 1984. Recalling her career trajectory that bring the festival out of the NFT to cinemas motor neurone disease shortly aft er the saw her change jobs from secretary to fi lm in London in order to reach a broader Dubai Film Festival in December 2013. festival director, she said: ‘I had always been audience. She will be remembered as a passionate keen on cinema, but in a purely amateur Alongside her festival and fi lm cinephile, a strong-willed, very eff ective fi lm way ... I was a punter. When I got this job, it programming career, Whitaker was an festival director who always retained her wasn’t something I had wanted to do since author and critic, with strong support for sense of fun. She is survived by her brother. I was 12 years old or anything like that. I women’s issues. She wrote obituaries for remember that my hesitation was that I the Guardian and was the founding editor Dina Matar is a senior lecturer for the Centre really enjoyed cinema. I worried that if I just of Writing Women, a journal devoted to for Media and Film Studies at SOAS spent all day working at it, I’d get tired of women’s prose and poetry between 1982

24 The Middle East in London October-November 2013 EEXHIBITIONXHIBITION

Sarah Stewart explains the importance of food and fi re in Zoroastrian rituals

TThehe rroleole ooff ffoodood iinn ZZoroastrianismoroastrianism

ood plays a major role in the rituals personifi ed in the ancient Avestan prayer, performed as part of the priestly act of of Zoroastrianism and has done since the Atash Nyayesh, dedicated to this most worship, the yasna and took place in the Fancient times. Th e cult of the temple esteemed of the seven creations: open in a consecrated space. Oblations of fi re grew out of the ritual tending of the Fire gives command to all for whom fat were made to the fi re while the ritual ever-burning hearth fi re, a custom that goes he cooks the evening and the morning off ering to water consisted of a mixture of back to Indo-Iranian times when the fi re in meal. From all he solicits a good milk and the juice from the pounded haoma the home was kept alight for the duration off ering, and a wished-for off ering, and plant. According to the ancient Yashts, of a man’s lifetime. Acknowledged as the a devotional off ering (Niyayesh. 5.13). hymns addressed to the divinities (yazatas) household divinity, the hearth fi re received of the Zoroastrian and pre-Zoroastrian off erings of wood, incense and oblations Off erings to the two major elements of worlds, the divinities were invoked and of fat from the sacrifi cial animal. Fire is Zoroastrian ritual, fi re and water, were invited to the sacrifi ce in order that rewards might be granted to the worshipper.

Th e Everlasting Flame: Zoroastrianism in (Above) The fi re table History and Imagination will take place from (Below-left) The ritual table upon which are included the sacred bread, the 11 October to 14 December in the Brunei pounded pomegranate twigs, clarifi ed butter, saucer containing goat's Gallery at SOAS, University of London. milk and the knife for cutting the date-palm leaf See www.theeverlastingfl ame.com for more (Below-right) The priest tends the ritual fi re information

October-November 2013 The Middle East in London 25 LISTINGS EEventsvents iinn LLondonondon

HE EVENTS and organisations listed Tbelow are not necessarily endorsed or supported by The Middle East in London. The accompanying texts and images are based primarily on information provided by the organisers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the compilers or publishers. While every possible effort is made to ascertain the accuracy of these listings, readers are advised to seek confirmation of all events using the contact details provided for each event. Submitting entries and updates: please send all updates and submissions for entries related to future events via e-mail to [email protected]

BM – British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG SOAS –SOAS, University of London, Th ornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG LSE – London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2 2AE

OCTOBER EVENTS

Tuesday 1 October

Until 30 November | Nour Festival of Arts Annual showcase of contemporary arts and culture from across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) which will take place at more than twenty venues across Kensington and Chelsea and will feature exhibitions, talks, workshops, fi lm, food, music and performances. Highlights include Lawand: Untitled, Lawand: Equinox, From Beirut to London (See Exhibitions, page 34) artist Natacha Atlas in concert at the Royal Albert Hall, the London Algerian Ballet performing A featuring 47 SOUL, a newly formed musicians with roots from diff erent Wednesday 2 October Journey to Algeria, an evening Palestinian and Jordanian band, and Arab regions.Various ticket prices with Sami Tamimi: Dishes from Crossways / Al Multaq, a dialogue and venues. W www.nourfestival. 5:30 pm | From Qadhafi to Jerusalem, Borderless beats and exchange by artists and co.uk Democracy? Th e evolution of

26 The Middle East in London October-November 2013 the Libyan-Italian relationship Th ursday 3 October Th reats to Democratisation in the identify the internal failures prior to, from 1969 to date (Lecture) Mattia Aft ermath of the Arab Uprisings and at the moment of, the conception Toaldo, British School at Rome. 4:00 pm | Views of Palestine: (Workshop) Organised by: Centre of the Oslo Accords, as well as in its Organised by: Th e Society for perspectives and experiences from for the Study of Democracy, aft ermath. Tickets: £25/£20 conc. Libyan Studies. Admission free. Th e the British Mandate (Lecture) Anne University of Westminster and the - Pre-registration required. Brunei British Academy, 10 Carlton House Lineen, curator of the Britain in Institute of Financial Economics, Gallery Lecture Th eatre, SOAS. E Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH. E Palestine exhibition. Organised by: American University of Beirut. palestineconference@googlemail. [email protected] W Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) Admission free - Pre-registration com W http://soaspalsoc.org/ www.societyforlibyanstudies.org and the BM. Lineen will talk about required. Pavilion (fi rst fl oor), conference/ her search for alternative images University of Westminster, 115 New 6:00 pm | Startup Rising: Th e of Palestine for Britain in Palestine Cavendish Street, London W1W Sunday 6 October Entrepreneurial Revolution exhibition, photographs depicting 6UW. E elaff ea@staff .westminster. Remaking the Middle East real-life stories that created a picture ac.uk 9:00 am | Self-Critique Two (Lecture) Chris Schroeder. of Palestine as a ‘lived-in’ place, Decades Aft er Oslo (Two-Day Organised by: LSE Middle East scene of complex lives, hard work Saturday 5 October Conference) See listing on Saturday Centre. Schroeder will discuss and diffi cult choices. Admission 5 October for more information. the new start-up culture that is free. Stevenson Lecture Th eatre, 9:00 am | Self-Critique Two burgeoning in the Middle East, and Clore Education Centre, BM. T 020 Decades Aft er Oslo (Two-Day describe the broader ecosystem 7935 5379 E [email protected] W Conference) Organised by: SOAS Monday 7 October challenges and opportunities www.pef.org.uk Palestine Society and hosted by changing in the region. Admission the Centre for Palestine Studies, 10:30 am & 2:00 pm | Th e Saeed free. Wolfson Th eatre, New Friday 4 October SOAS and the London Middle Motamed Collection - Part II (Sale) Academic Building, LSE. E East Institute, SOAS (LMEI). Th e Admission free. Christie’s South [email protected] W www.lse. 9:30 am | Rethinking the Arab SOAS Palestine Society's 9th Annual Kensington, 85 Old Brompton ac.uk/middleEastCentre/home.aspx Transition: Opportunities and Conference which will aim to Road, London SW7 3LD. T 020

The Palace of NEW Darius at Susa The Great Royal Residence of Achaemenid Persia Edited by Jean Perrot Introduction by John Curtis ‘A major resource and, with its lavish illustration, a joy to handle and read.’ – Sir John Boardman, FBA, Emeritus Lincoln Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford ‘This sumptuous volume provides a richly illustrated, authoritative survey of the key structures and many individual objects found at Susa’ – David Stronach, OBE, Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Archaeology, University of California, Berkeley

www.ibtauris.com 544 pages 300 x 230 pages 9781848856219 Hardback £60.00

October-November 2013 The Middle East in London 27 Afsoon: The Travelling Birds and The Flags of Dharma, courtesy of Xerxes Art (See Exhibitions, page 34)

7389 2398 E [email protected] Perspectives from Turkey in (Film) Organised by: Th e Mosaic 7:00 pm | Incorporating Spolia W www.christies.com Byzantine Studies. Followed by a Rooms. Also on Wednesday in Alexandria (Lecture) Hélène reception. Admission free. Council 20 November and Wednesday Fragaki, independent scholar, Paris. 6:30 pm | A Most Masculine State: Room, King’s Building, King’s 27 November. Season of fi lms Organised by: Islamic Art Circle gender, politics and religion in College London, Strand Campus showcasing contemporary Kurdish at SOAS. Part of the Islamic Art Saudi Arabia (Lecture) Madawi WC2. E [email protected] Cinema. Tickets: £5. Th e Mosaic Circle at SOAS Lecture Programme. Al-Rasheed, LSE. Organised / [email protected] W Rooms, A M Qattan Foundation, Chaired by: Doris Behrens- by: LSE Middle East Centre. Al- www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/chs/ Tower House, 226 Cromwell Road, Abouseif, SOAS. Admission free. Rasheed will introduce her new events/byzsem1314.aspx London SW5 0SW. T 020 7370 9990 Khalili Lecture Th eatre, SOAS. T book and discuss the ‘question of E [email protected] W www. 0771 408 7480 E rosalindhaddon@ women’ in Saudi Arabia in light of 5:45 pm | Copts at the Crossroads: mosaicrooms.org gmail.com W www.soas.ac.uk/art/ the interconnection between state, Th e Challenges of Building islac/ religion and society. Admission free. Inclusive Democracy in Egypt 8:00 pm | Mashrou’ Leila (Concert) New Th eatre, East Building, LSE. (Lecture) Mariz Tadros, Institute Contemporary alternative Arabic Friday 11 October E [email protected] W www.lse. of Development Studies at the music with the six-member band ac.uk/middleEastCentre/home.aspx University of Sussex. Organised by: Mashrou’ Leila in their fi rst London 9:15 am | Looking Back: London Middle East Institute, SOAS appearance. Tickets: £17. T 020 Zoroastrian Identity Formation Tuesday 8 October (LMEI). Part of the LMEI's Tuesday 7323 7229 E boxffi ce@229thevenue. Th rough Recourse to the Past Evening Lecture Programme on the co.uk Venue 1, 229 Th e Venue, (Two-Day Conference: Friday 11 11:00 am | Oriental Rugs & Carpets Contemporary Middle East. Lecture 229 Great Portland Street, London - Saturday 12 October) Organised (Sale) Admission free. Christie’s, 8 by Mariz Tadros on the subject of her W1W 5PN. T 020 7631 8379 by: Centre for Iranian Studies, King Street, London SW1Y 6QT. T latest book Copts at the Crossroads: E [email protected] W SOAS. International conference, to 020 7389 2398 E doleary@chrsties. Th e Challenges of Building Inclusive www.229thevenue.com coincide with the Brunei Gallery's com W www.christies.com Democracy in Egypt (Th e American exhibition Th e Everlasting Flame: University in Cairo Press, 2013). Zoroastrianism in History and 5:30 pm | Byzantine Studies Chaired by: Nadje Al-Ali, SOAS. Th ursday 10 October Imagination (see Exhibitions for in Turkey: current trends and Tea and biscuits available from details), which will examine the future directions (Lecture) Nevra 5:15pm. Admission free. Khalili 11:00 am | Art of the Islamic and patterns of identity formation in Necipoğlu, Boğaziçi University and Lecture Th eatre, SOAS. T 020 7898 Indian Worlds including a Private ancient, medieval and more recent the Turkish National Committee 4490 E [email protected] W www. Collection Donated to Benefi t the periods, looking at how texts, for Byzantine Studies. Organised soas.ac.uk/lmei/events/ University of Oxford Part IV (Sale) traditions, icons, rituals and symbols by: Byzantine and Modern Greek Admission free. Christie’s, 8 King have been used to form Zoroastrian Seminar of the Centre for Hellenic Wednesday 9 October Street, London SW1Y 6QT. T 020 identities. Tickets: £30/£20 conc./ Studies, King's College London. 7389 2398 E [email protected] Students Free - Pre-registration Part of the series BIZANS - New 7:30 pm | Kurdish Film Season W www.christies.com required. Brunei Gallery Lecture

28 The Middle East in London October-November 2013 Th eatre, SOAS. T 020 7898 4330 E 6:00 pm | Th e Samaritan Temple Th eatre, New Academic Building, Area Studies, focusing on the [email protected] W www.soas.ac.uk/ and the Sons of Joseph (Lecture) LSE. E [email protected] W www. creation of University Centres by lmei-cis/events/ Hugh Williamson, University lse.ac.uk/middleEastCentre/home. a set of academic entrepreneurs of Oxford. Organised by: Anglo aspx beginning with Sir Hamilton Gibb. 10:00 am & 2:30 pm | Arts & Israel Archaeological Society and Admission free. Old Th eatre, Textiles of the Islamic & Indian the Institute of Archaeology, UCL. 7:30 pm | Are 'Th e Palestinians' New Academic Building, LSE. E Worlds (Sale) Admission free. Admission free. Lecture Th eatre the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel, [email protected] W www.lse. Christie’s South Kensington, 85 Old G6, Ground Floor, Institute of Hidden 'in Plain View' over ac.uk/middleEastCentre/home.aspx Brompton Road, London SW7 3LD. Archaeology, University College Twenty Centuries in the Land of London, 31-34 Gordon Square, Israel? (Talk) Organised by: Spiro Saturday 12 October London WC1H OPY. T 020 8349 Ark. Are the Palestinians of Jewish Tuesday 22 October 5754 W www.aias.org.uk origin? With Geoff rey Ben-Nathan. 9:30 am | 9:15 am | Looking Back: Chaired by: Rabbi Danny Rich. 5:30 pm | Space and history. Zoroastrian Identity Formation Tuesday 15 October Tickets: £10. Th e Montagu Centre, A ‘longue durée’ approach Th rough Recourse to the Past 21 Maple Street, London W1T 4BE. to Constantinople and the (Two-Day Conference: Friday 11 - 5:45 pm | Egypt in Flux: Essays on an T 020 7289 6321 W www.spiroark. provinces (11th-21st centuries) Saturday 12 October) See listing for Unfi nished Revolution (Lecture) org/events (Lecture) Buket Bayrı, Bilgi and Friday 11 October. Adel Iskander, Georgetown Yeditepe Universities. Organised University. Organised by: London Monday 21 October by: Byzantine and Modern Greek 7:00 pm | Infi ltrators Middle East Institute, SOAS Seminar of the Centre for Hellenic (Documentary) Organised by: (LMEI). Part of the LMEI's Tuesday 6:30 pm | Modern Middle East Studies, King's College London. Palestine Film Foundation and Evening Lecture Programme on the Studies as a Distinct Intellectual Part of the series BIZANS - New the Association of the Palestinian Contemporary Middle East. Lecture Field (Lecture) Roger Owen, Perspectives from Turkey in Community in the UK in by Adel Iskander on the subject of Harvard University. Organised Byzantine Studies. Admission partnership with St John of Jerusalem his latest book Egypt in Flux: Essays by: LSE Middle East Centre. A free. K0.31, King’s Building, King’s Eye Hospital Group. Khaled Jarrar on an Unfi nished Revolution (Th e look at the emergence of modern College London, Strand Campus (2012), 70 min. A high stakes 'game' American University in Cairo Press, Middle Eastern Studies as a distinct WC2. E [email protected] of cat and mouse, chronicling the 2013). Chaired by: Dina Matar, multi-disciplinary fi eld within / [email protected] W travails of Palestinians seeking SOAS. Tea and biscuits available routes through, under, around, from 5:15pm. Admission free. and over a bewildering matrix of Khalili Lecture Th eatre, SOAS. T barriers in the West Bank. Tickets: 020 7898 4490 E [email protected] W £9.50/£8.50 concs. Riverside www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/events/ Studios, Crisp Road, London W6 9RL. T 020 8237 1111 W http:// 7:00 pm | Insight with Paul MA MEDIA AND THE palestinefi lmfoundation.org Danahar: Th e New Middle East (Talk) Nearly three years aft er the MIDDLE EAST start of the revolution in Tunisia, Monday 14 October which was followed by uprisings The MA Media and the Middle East is the first across the Middle East and North degree in the UK to critically examine the role Time TBC | Bridge of Persia 2013 Africa, Paul Danahar, the BBC’s of communication, in its different forms, in Fundraising event held every 18 Middle East Bureau Chief discusses contemporary political, cultural and social change in the months. See contact details below what he feels the future holds for the Middle East. Avoiding an exclusively media-centric for tickets. Royal College of Art, region and it’s relationship with the approach, it explores diverse historical and social Kensington Gore, London SW7 West. Tickets: £12.50. Th e Frontline perspectives on the region and encourages new ways of 2EU. T 020 7235 8026 E bookings@ Club, 13 Norfolk Place, London understanding the relationship between communicative magicofpersia.com W www. W2 1QJ. T 020 7479 8940 W www. processes, politics and culture that move beyond magicofpersia.com/ frontlineclub.com Eurocentric debates and approaches. To find out contact more: 11:00 am | Poetry from Art: Wednesday 16 October Dr Dina Matar, Director, Centre for Media & Film Studies Writing the Body (Workshop) T: +44 (0)20 7898 4696 Organised by: Th e Mosaic Rooms. 6:30 pm | Th e New Middle East: E: [email protected] One-day workshop using Th e Th e World aft er the Arab Spring W: http://www.soas.ac.uk/mediaandfilm/ Mosaic Rooms exhibition Equinox, (Lecture) Paul Danahar, BBC. From Beirut to London for Organised by: LSE Middle East inspiration. Led by poet Pascale Centre. BBC Bureau Chief Paul Petit. Tickets: £20. Th e Mosaic Danahar will discuss his latest book Rooms, A M Qattan Foundation, off ering an analysis of the new order Tower House, 226 Cromwell Road, in the Middle East following the London SW5 0SW. T 020 7370 9990 Arab Spring and will explain what E [email protected] W www. it means both for the region and the mosaicrooms.org West. Admission free. Sheikh Zayed

October-November 2013 The Middle East in London 29 www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/chs/ Taqsim: Middle Eastern Musical and best preserved corpus of Sawalha) who fi nds a captain's hat, events/byzsem1314.aspx Encounters in the Urban UK, a small Turkish rugs outside the the neighborhood children mistake half-day conference on Middle Islamic world. Stefano Ionescu will him for an airline pilot and beg him 5:45 pm | Sectarian Gulf: Bahrain, Eastern music (Conference) Seth discuss how and from where the to tell them stories of his adventures. Saudi Arabia, and the Arab Ayyaz, Shaun David Crowdus, rugs arrived and why they entered At fi rst refusing, he later concedes Spring Th at Wasn't (Book Launch) Peyman Heydarian, Sara Manasseh. the patrimony of the Protestant and tells them imaginary stories of Toby Matthiesen, University of Organised by: City University Churches. Tickets: Non-members his world adventures. Tickets: £10. Cambridge. Organised by: London London, Centre for Music Studies £7. Swedenborg Hall, 20/21 Th e Coronet Cinema, 103 Notting Middle East Institute, SOAS and Inside Out Festival. Conference Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A Hill Gate, London W11 3LB. T (LMEI). Part of the LMEI's Tuesday focussing on the work of 2TH. T 020 7639 7593 W www. 07799 353 773 E yasmin.elderby@ Evening Lecture Programme on practitioners in the Middle Eastern orientalrugandtextilesociety.org.uk gmail.com W www.eventbrite. the Contemporary Middle East. A music scene in the urban UK. / www.orts.org.uk co.uk/event/6783594915 talk by Toby Matthiesen to mark Admission free - Pre-registration the recent publication of his book required. Room AG09, College Th ursday 24 October 7:30 pm | Zahhák: Th e Dragon Sectarian Gulf: Bahrain, Saudi Building, City University London, King of Persia (Performance) Arabia, and the Arab Spring Th at St John's Street, London EC1V 4BP. 7:00 pm | Kurdish Prospects Organised by: Cambridge Wasn't (Stanford University Press, E [email protected] in Turbulent Times (Panel Shahnama Centre and the Iran 2013). Tea and biscuits available W www.city.ac.uk/events/2013/ Discussion) Organised by: Th e Heritage Foundation. New stage from 5:15pm. Admission free. october/off -the-beaten-taqsm Mosaic Rooms. With regional work by Hossein Hadisi which Khalili Lecture Th eatre, SOAS. T experts including Gareth Stansfi eld, celebrates the Persian minstrels' 020 7898 4490 E [email protected] W 7:00 pm | Tracing the Ottoman Charles Tripp, Patrick Cockburn. art of Naqqáli by reenacting the www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/events/ Rugs in Transylvania (Talk) Chaired by: David McDowall. ancient myth of Zahhák from the Organised by: Oriental Rug and Admission free. Th e Mosaic Persian Book of Kings. With music Wednesday 23 October Textile Society. Doors open from Rooms, A M Qattan Foundation, by EXAUDI and dancers from the 6:00pm. Transylvania continues Tower House, 226 Cromwell Road, London Contemporary Dance 1:30 pm | Off the Beaten to be the repository of the richest London SW5 0SW. T 020 7370 9990 School. Performance also features E [email protected] W www. paintings by the Iranian surrealist Lawand: Untitled, Lawand: Equinox, From Beirut to London (See mosaicrooms.org Ali Akbar Sadeghi. Tickets: £20/£15 Exhibitions, page 34) conc. RADA Studios, 16 Chenies Friday 25 October St, London WC1E 7EX. T 020 7307 5060 W www.rada.ac.uk/whats-on/ 6:00 pm | Kamran Djam 2013 other-events / http://shahnama. Annual Lecture at SOAS: Th e caret.cam.ac.uk / www.iranheritage. Perils of Persian Princesses: org Women and Medieval Persian Literature (Lecture) Dick Davis, Monday 28 October Ohio State University. Organised by: Centre for Iranian Studies, 4:00 pm | Israel/Palestine: New SOAS. Annual lecture series. In his Perspectives (Seminar) Ruth Sanz fi rst talk entitled To Whom do you Sabido, Canterbury Christ Church Beautifully Belong, or Whose Life University, Tom Tlalim, Goldsmiths, is it anyway? Women in Medieval University of London, Jamie Persian Poetry Professor Davis will Hakim, University of East London, concentrate on the ways in which and Nora Parr, SOAS. Organised women are presented in medieval by: University of East London’s Persian poetry, particularly but Centre for research on Migration, not exclusively narrative poetry. Refugees and Belonging (CMRB) Followed by a reception at 7:30pm. and Centre for Cultural Studies Th e second lecture will take place Research (CCSR). Admission on Monday 28 October. Admission free - Pre-registration required W free. Brunei Gallery Lecture Th eatre, israelpalestinenewperspectives. SOAS. T 020 7898 4330 E vp6@soas. eventbrite.co.uk.EB.G.18, ac.uk W www.soas.ac.uk/lmei-cis/ Docklands Campus, University events/ of East London, E16 2RD.W www.uel.ac.uk/cmrb/ Saturday 26 October culturalstudiesresearch.org

12:15 pm | Captain Abu Raed 6:00 pm | Kamran Djam 2013 (Film) Organised by: Yasmin El Annual Lecture at SOAS: Th e Derby and Nabil Elouahabi. Amin Perils of Persian Princesses: Matalqa's Jordanian feature fi lm Women and Medieval Persian follows an old airport janitor (Nadim Literature (Lecture) Dick Davis,

30 The Middle East in London October-November 2013 LONDON MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE SOAS, University of London

Tuesday Lecture Programme on the Contemporary Middle East Autumn 2013

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&ŽƌĨƵƌƚŚĞƌŝŶĨŽƌŵĂƟŽŶĐŽŶƚĂĐƚ͗ dŚĞ>ŽŶĚŽŶDŝĚĚůĞĂƐƚ/ŶƐƟƚƵĞĂƚ^K^͕hŶŝǀĞƌƐŝƚLJŽĨ>ŽŶĚŽŶ͕dŚŽƌŶŚĂƵŐŚ^ƚƌĞĞƚ͕ZƵƐƐĞůů^ƋƵĂƌĞ͕>ŽŶĚŽŶ͕tϭ,Ky' d͗ϬϮϬϳϴϵϴϰϯϯϬ͗ůŵĞŝΛƐŽĂƐ͘ĂĐ͘ƵŬt͗ǁǁǁ͘ƐŽĂƐ͘ĂĐ͘ƵŬͬůŵĞŝͬOctober-November 2013 The Middle East in London 31 Ohio State University. In his second Rebecca Steinfeld, Univeristy of Arts See listing for Tuesday 1 5379 E [email protected] W www. lecture entitled Th ose Who are of Birmingham. Organised by: October. pef.org.uk Great do not Belittle what is Little: a Centre for Gender Studies, SOAS. Poet-Princess of 14th Century Shiraz Admission free. Venue TBC. T 020 Saturday 2 November 6:30 pm | Beyond “Strategic Professor Davis will look at women 7898 4367 E [email protected] W Depth:” Islamism, Turkey's poets writing in Persian during the www.soas.ac.uk/genderstudies/ 7:00 pm | Th e Voice of Santur: A Foreign Policy and the Arab medieval period. See above listing seminar-series/ multicultural recital by Peyman Spring (Lecture) Behlul Ozkan, for Friday 25 October for ticket, Heydarian and friends (Concert) Marmara University. Organised by: venue and contact details. 6:00 pm | Christians of Kurdistan Organised by: Th e Voice of Santur. LSE Middle East Centre. Ozkan's (Talk & Exhibition) Saadi Al Malih Tickets: £15/ £10 conc./£6 SOAS lecture will seek to analyse the 6:30 pm | Identity in Algeria: and Father Najeeb Michaeel. Students. Lucas Lecture Th eatre theoretical and ideological sources Educating for Citizenship’ Organised by: Gulan. Photography (G2), SOAS. E events.santur@ of Ahmet Davutoğlu’s Islamist rather than just Educating for exhibition opens at 6:00pm with the yahoo.com W www.thesantur.com foreign policy approach and how Citizenship (Lecture) Malika Rebai lectures at 7:00pm. An opportunity the Arab Spring has aff ected Turkish Maamri, National Graduate School to hear fi rst hand about the life Wednesday 6 November foreign policy toward the Middle of Political Science. Organised by: of the Christian community East. Admission free. Room 2.04, LSE Middle East Centre. Maamri’s in Kurdistan Iraq. Tickets: £10 7:00 pm | Does the Arab Spring New Academic Building, LSE. E talk will present a programme on W www.wegottickets.com/ Need a Summer of Love? (Panel [email protected] W www.lse. citizenship education, which forms event/237418 Royal Geographical Discussion) Organised by: Th e ac.uk/middleEastCentre/home.aspx part of the book she is writing on Society, Kensington, London SW7 Mosaic Rooms. An evening of Algeria: Citizens and the Battle for 2AR. E [email protected] W www. discussion about taboos and Monday 11 November the Nation. Admission free. Th ai gulan.org.uk/news.html changing sexual mores in the Arab Th eatre, New Academic Building, World with Shereen El Feki, Brian 6:00 pm | David to Nehemiah: LSE. E [email protected] W www. 7:00 pm | Th e Wall (Talk) Whitaker, Daniel L Newman and new fragments from Kenyon's lse.ac.uk/middleEastCentre/home. Organised by: Th e Mosaic Rooms. Malu Halasa. Admission free. Jerusalem (Lecture) Kay Prag, aspx Talk and Q&A with author William Th e Mosaic Rooms, A M Qattan Manchester Museum. Organised Sutcliff e and British Palestinian Foundation, Tower House, 226 by: Anglo Israel Archaeological Tuesday 29 October writer Selma Dabbagh on Sutcliff e’s Cromwell Road, London SW5 Society and the Institute of Jewish recent novel Th e Wall. Admission 0SW. T 020 7370 9990 E rsvp@ Studies, UCL. Admission free. 5:45 pm | Th e Power and the People free. Th e Mosaic Rooms, A M mosaicrooms.org W www. Lecture Th eatre G6, Ground Floor, (Book Launch/Panel Discussion) Qattan Foundation, Tower House, mosaicrooms.org Institute of Archaeology, University Gilbert Achcar, SOAS, Laleh Khalili, 226 Cromwell Road, London College London, 31-34 Gordon SOAS, and Charles Tripp, SOAS. SW5 0SW. T 020 7370 9990 E 8:00 pm | Th e tragedy of Zippora Square, London WC1H OPY. T 020 Organised by: London Middle East [email protected] W www. – Moses’ wife (Talk) Organised by: 8349 5754 W www.aias.org.uk Institute, SOAS (LMEI). Part of the mosaicrooms.org Spiro Ark. Benyamim Tsedaka will LMEI's Tuesday Evening Lecture expose a special Israelite-Samaritan Tuesday 12 November Programme on the Contemporary tradition from his new and only Middle East. A panel discussion EVENTS OUTSIDE English translation of the Israelite 5:30 pm | Ephesus during the to mark the publication of Charles LONDON Samaritan Version of the Torah. Byzantine and Ottoman periods Tripp's latest book Th e Power and Tickets: £10. Hampstead Garden (Lecture) Yaman Dalanay, Oxford the People (Cambridge University Suburb Synagogue (HGSS), Norrice University. Organised by: Byzantine Press, 2013). Tea and biscuits Monday 28 October Lea, London N2 0RE. T 020 7289 and Modern Greek Seminar of available from 5:15pm. Admission 6321 W www.spiroark.org/events the Centre for Hellenic Studies, free. Khalili Lecture Th eatre, SOAS. 7:30 pm | Zahhák: Th e Dragon King King's College London. Part of the T 020 7898 4490 E [email protected] of Persia (Performance) Organised Th ursday 7 November series BIZANS - New Perspectives W www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/events/ by: Cambridge Shahnama Centre from Turkey in Byzantine and the Iran Heritage Foundation. 4:00 pm | Th e Walls of Medieval Studies. Admission free. K0.31, Wednesday 30 October See October Events on Saturday 26 Ascalon (Lecture) Denys Pringle, King’s Building, King’s College October for more details. Tickets: Cardiff University. Organised by: London, Strand Campus WC2. E 8:00 pm | Th e Jews of Kerala (Talk) £10. West Road Concert Hall, 11 Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) [email protected] / tassos. Organised by: Spiro Ark. Saul Zadka West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DP. and the BM. Using the results [email protected] W www.kcl. will give a talk that stretches beyond W www.hosseinhadisi.com / http:// from his study, Pringle will unravel ac.uk/artshums/depts/chs/events/ the famous Synagogue of Cochin. shahnama.caret.cam.ac.uk / www. the complex history of Ascalon's byzsem1314.aspx Tickets: £10. Hampstead Garden iranheritage.org Medieval fortifi cations, from their Suburb Synagogue (HGSS), Norrice original construction through the 5:30 pm | Th e New Lea, London N2 0RE. T 020 7289 numerous phases of construction, Internationalism, High-Risk 6321 W www.spiroark.org/events NOVEMBER EVENTS destruction, rebuilding and Activism, and Popular Struggle modifi cation which occurred against the Israeli Occupation in Th ursday 31 October throughout the Early Islamic and the West Bank (Lecture) Joel Beinin, Friday 1 November Crusader periods. Admission free. Stanford University. Organised 5.00 pm | Th e Politics of Stevenson Lecture Th eatre, Clore by: London Middle East Institute, Abortion in Israel (Seminar) Until 30 November | Nour Festival Education Centre, BM. T 020 7935 SOAS (LMEI) and the Centre for

32 The Middle East in London October-November 2013 history and recalls the utopian and contributed to these debates. possibilities that ultimately lost Admission free. Th ai Th eatre, out to civil and regional confl ict. New Academic Building, LSE. E Tickets: £5. Th e Mosaic Rooms, [email protected] W www.lse. A M Qattan Foundation, Tower ac.uk/middleEastCentre/home.aspx House, 226 Cromwell Road, London SW5 0SW. T 020 7370 9990 Th ursday 21 November E [email protected] W www. mosaicrooms.org 7:00 pm | Th e Lady from Tel Aviv (Talk) Author Raba’i al-Madhoun 8:00 pm | Arab Spring & Islamic and translator Elliot Colla discuss the Winter the Potential Impact on bestselling novel Th e Lady from Tel Israel by Gerald M Adler, LLM, Aviv. Chaired by: Rosie Goldsmith. JSD (Talk) Organised by: Spiro Admission free. Th e Mosaic Ark. A look at the regime changes Rooms, A M Qattan Foundation, occurring in Tunisia, Iraq, Egypt, Tower House, 226 Cromwell Road, Syria, the infl uence of Iran, the London SW5 0SW. T 020 7370 9990 potential for change in Lebanon E [email protected] W www. and Jordan and the impact of these mosaicrooms.org changes on Israel's Jewish and Arab citizens. Tickets: £10. Hampstead Saturday 23 November Garden Suburb Synagogue (HGSS), Norrice Lea, London N2 0RE. T 020 12:00 pm | Asmaa (Film) Organised 7289 6321 W www.spiroark.org/ by: Yasmin El Derby and Nabil events Elouahabi. Amr Salama's fact based fi lm about an HIV Positive woman Tuesday 19 November living in contemporary Egypt. Asmaa attempts to keep her status 5:30 pm | Th e Possibility of Modern a secret from a judgemental society Middle Eastern Jewish Th ought and faces a huge dilema when she (Panel Discussion) Moshe Behar, is off ered hope through a television University of Manchester, Laleh appearance aft er doctors refuse to Afsoon: The Travelling Birds and The Flags of Dharma, courtesy of Xerxes Khalili, SOAS and Yair Wallach, operate on her due to her condition. Art (See Exhibitions, page 34) SOAS. Organised by: London Tickets: £10. Th e Coronet Cinema, Middle East Institute, SOAS 103 Notting Hill Gate, London W11 Palestine Studies, SOAS. Part of the New Academic Building, LSE. E (LMEI). Part of the LMEI's Tuesday 3LB. T 07799 353 773 E yasmin. LMEI's Tuesday Evening Lecture [email protected] W www.lse. Evening Lecture Programme on the [email protected] W www. Programme on the Contemporary ac.uk/middleEastCentre/home.aspx Contemporary Middle East. Panel eventbrite.co.uk/event/6798182547 Middle East. Talk by Beinin whose discussion following the publication research and writing focuses on 7:00 pm | From Ibn al-Haytham of Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Monday 25 November workers, peasants, and minorities to Kandinsky: the Unexpected Th ought, Writings on Identity, in the modern Middle East and History of Egyptian Shadow Politics, and Culture, 1893–1958 6:30 pm | Egyptian Foreign Policy on Israel, Palestine, and the Arab- Puppetry (Lecture) Marcus (Brandeis, 2013). Chaired by: Sami towards Israel under Mubarak: Israeli confl ict. Chaired by: Gilbert Milwright, University of Victoria, Zubaida, Birkbeck College. Tea From Cold Peace to Strategic Achcar, SOAS. Tea and biscuits Canada. Organised by: Islamic and biscuits available from 5:00pm. Peace? (Lecture) Amnon Aran, available from 5:00pm. Admission Art Circle at SOAS. Part of Admission free. Khalili Lecture City University. Organised by: LSE free. Khalili Lecture Th eatre, SOAS. the Islamic Art Circle at SOAS Th eatre, SOAS. T 020 7898 4490 E Middle East Centre. Aran's lecture T 020 7898 4490 E [email protected] Lecture Programme. Chaired by: [email protected] W www.soas.ac.uk/ will challenge the conventional W www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/events/ Doris Behrens-Abouseif, SOAS. lmei/events/ wisdom that Egyptian foreign policy Admission free. Khalili Lecture towards towards Israel has been, Wednesday 13 November Th eatre, SOAS. T 0771 408 7480 Wednesday 20 November and remains, one of cold peace. E [email protected] W Admission free. Wolfson Th eatre, 6:30 pm | Turkey and Security www.soas.ac.uk/art/islac/ 6:30 pm | Women and public space LSE. E [email protected] W www. Issues in the Middle East (Lecture) in post-independence Algeria: lse.ac.uk/middleEastCentre/home. Giray Sadik, Yildirim Beyazit 7:30 pm | Th e Lebanese Rocket the moral panic of the 1960s aspx University. Organised by: LSE Society (Documentary) Organised (Lecture) Natalya Vince, University Middle East Centre. A talk about by: Th e Mosaic Rooms. A new of Portsmouth. Organised by: LSE the transformation of Turkish feature documentary from visual Middle East Centre. Vince will Tuesday 26 November foreign policy, and its ongoing artists Joana Hadjithomas and explore how revolutionary progress challenges on the Transatlantic, Khalil Joreige. Th is internationally could embrace puritanical single- 5:30 pm | An island settlement in European and the Middle Eastern acclaimed documentary excavates mindedness and how Algerian Late Antiquity: Boğsak off the fronts. Admission free. Room 1.04, a forgotten moment in Lebanon’s women in the 1960s responded to coast of Isauria (Rough Cilicia)

October-November 2013 The Middle East in London 33 (Lecture) Günder Varınlıoğlu, Koç EXHIBITIONS Th ursday 3 October had on the major world religions of University. Organised by: Byzantine Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Th e and Modern Greek Seminar of Until 30 October | Mourad Salem: exhibition takes you on a journey the Centre for Hellenic Studies, Tuesday 1 October Sultans Are No Sultans Salem's from the earliest days of the religion King's College London. Part of the exhibition inaugurates the 2013 to its emergence as the foremost series BIZANS - New Perspectives Until 5 October | Th e Seven Valleys Nour Festival of Arts from the religion of the Achaemenid, from Turkey in Byzantine Studies. Group show of paintings and works Middle East and North Africa at Parthian and Sasanian empires of Admission free. Council Room, on paper by seven of the artists that Leighton House Museum. His imperial Iran. A conference Looking King’s Building, King’s College Rose Issa Projects has represented works question the Arab world’s Back: Th e Formation of Zoroastrian London, Strand Campus WC2. E or worked with, the title is thematic leaders of yesteryear, which he Identity Th rough Rediscovery [email protected] / tassos. and references the 12th century oft en portrays as fi gures of fun, of the Past to coincide with the [email protected] W www.kcl. Persian poet Farid ud-Din Attar’s emphasising their immaturity as exhibition will take place on Friday ac.uk/artshums/depts/chs/events/ epic work Th e Conference of the fi gures of power. Tickets: £5/£3 11 and Saturday 12 October, see byzsem1314.aspx Birds. Admission free. Rose Issa conc. Leighton House Museum, 12 October Events. Admission free. Projects, 82 Great Portland Street, Holland Park Road, London W14 Brunei Gallery, SOAS. T 020 5:30 pm | Arabs and Israelis: London W1W 7NW. T 020 7602 8LZ. T 020 7602 7700 E info@ 7898 4046/4023 E gallery@soas. Confl ict and Peacemaking in the 7700 E [email protected] W http:// roseissa.com W http://roseissa.com ac.uk W www.soas.ac.uk/gallery/ Middle East (Book Launch/Panel roseissa.com / www.nourfestival.co.uk everlastingfl ame/ Discussion) Abdel Moneim Said Aly, Regional Center for Strategic Until 20 October | Saloua Raouda Friday 4 October Monday 14 October Studies, Cairo, Shai Feldman, Crown Choucair Th e fi rst exhibition in Center for Middle East Studies, the UK of Lebanese artist Saloua Until 29 November | Lawand: Until 14 November | Behruz Brandeis University, US, and Khalil Raouda Choucair (b. 1916), Equinox, From Beirut to London Heshmat: Th e House is Black Shikaki, Palestinian Center for Policy comprising over 120 works, many of Th e fi rst UK solo exhibition by Heschmat has created a unique and Survey Research, Ramallah. which have never been seen before. Syrian Kurdish artist Lawand series of large and small format Organised by: London Middle East Th is retrospective will celebrate featuring new paintings and “treehouse” sculptures for his Institute, SOAS (LMEI). Part of the Choucair’s extraordinary body drawings by the artist recently debut exhibition in the UK. To LMEI's Tuesday Evening Lecture of work and her contribution to made during a prolonged stay in Heschmat, the house is central to Programme on the Contemporary international modernism. Tickets: Beirut, Lebanon. Artists’ Talk: Art human existence, and his treehouses Middle East. A discussion with £10/£8.50 conc. Tate Modern, & Poetry at 12:00pm on Saturday emphasise the instability and frailty the authors of Arabs and Israelis: Bankside, London SE1 9TG. T 020 19 October with artist Lawand of our notions of home. Admission Confl ict and Peacemaking in the 7887 8888 W www.tate.org.uk/visit/ and French/Welsh poet Pascale free. Rose Issa Projects, 82 Great Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, tate-modern Petit. Admission free. Th e Mosaic Portland Street, London W1W 2013), a university textbook on the Rooms, A M Qattan Foundation, 7NW. T 020 7602 7700 E info@ Arab-Israeli confl ict and the fi rst Until 15 December | Siah Armajani: Tower House, 226 Cromwell Road, roseissa.com W http://roseissa.com textbook on this sensitive subject An Ingenious World Th e fi rst major London SW5 0SW. T 020 7370 9990 co-authored by a Palestinian, an UK survey of Iran-born, American E [email protected] W www. Tuesday 15 October Israeli, and an Egyptian representing artist, artist Siah Armajani traces his mosaicrooms.org a broader Arab perspective. Chaired early works on paper, made in Iran Until 19 October | Magic of Persia by: Charles Tripp, SOAS. Tea and during the late 1950s, to his present Friday 11 October Contemporary Art Prize (MOP biscuits available from 5:00pm. day public sculpture commissions. CAP) 2013 Finalists' Exhibition Admission free. Khalili Lecture Admission free. Parasol Unit, 14 Until 17 November | Afsoon: Th e Th e Winner will be awarded a year- Th eatre, SOAS. T 020 7898 4490 E Wharf Road, London N1 7RW. T Travelling Birds and Th e Flags long mentorship with curator and [email protected] W www.soas.ac.uk/ 020 7490 7373 E info@parasol-unit. of Dharma Occident and Orient theorist Doreen Mende, resulting in lmei/events/ org W www.parasol-unit.org coexist in Afsoon's works which are a solo-exhibition at a leading gallery multi layered and oft en combine text space in London as well as a three- Until 15 Dec | In the City Graphic with images, using various media month residency at the Delfi na Th ursday 28 November design and sound art exhibition such as linocuts, photography, Foundation. Admission free. Royal providing a rare glimpse into collage and etching. Admission College of Art, Kensington Gore, 7:00 pm | Shadow Lives (Talk) four Arab cities - Alexandria, free. Xerxes Art, London, UK, Th e London SW7 2EU. T 020 7235 8026 Author Victoria Brittain discusses Algiers, Baghdad and Nablus - and Long Gallery at Grosvenor Place, W www.mopcap.com the shocking stories revealed in showcasing a series of works from a 19 Grosvenor Place, London SW1X her latest book Shadow Lives: Th e line up of established and emerging 7HT. E [email protected] W Forgotten Women of the War on Arab designers, illustrators, video, www.xerxesart.com Terror, with Iraqi novelist, artist and sound artists and explores and political activist Haifa Zangana. each city’s panorama through their Until 14 December | The Admission free. Th e Mosaic streets, landmarks, people, signage, Everlasting Flame: Zoroastrianism Rooms, A M Qattan Foundation, and sounds. Admission free. P21 in History and Imagination Th e Tower House, 226 Cromwell Road, Gallery, 21 Chalton Street, London fi rst exhibition of its kind to provide London SW5 0SW. T 020 7370 9990 NW1 1JD. T 020 7121 6190 E info@ a visual narrative of the history of E [email protected] W www. p21.org.uk W www.p21.org.uk Zoroastrianism, its rich cultural mosaicrooms.org heritage and the infl uence it has

34 The Middle East in London October-November 2013

Kamran Djam Annual Lectures Friday 25 and Monday 28 October 2013 Centre for Iranian Studies, SOAS, University of London Dick Davis, Professor Emeritus of Persian, Ohio State University

The Perils of Persian Princesses: Women and Medieval Persian Literature

Friday: 6.00pm followed by a recepƟ on at 7.30pm Monday: 6.00pm – 7.30pm

Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre SOAS, University of London Russell Square London WC1H 0XG

Admission Free - All Welcome

Enquiries Tel. No. 020 7898 4330 E-mail [email protected]

Website www.soas.ac.uk/lmei-cis/events/October-November 2013 The Middle East in London 35 ON THE OCCASION OF THE OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION:

A CONFERENCE Looking Back: Zoroastrian Identity Formation Through Recourse to the Past

Convenors: Alan Williams, Sarah Stewart, Almut Hintze

Ossuary from Mullah Kurgan, Samarkand Museum, Uzbekistan Photograph © Noshir Mulla, ‘A Zoroastrian Tapestry: Art, Religion and Culture' 11– 12 October 2013 Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre SOAS, University of London Exhibition principal sponsors:

Admission £30/£20 (concessions and LMEI affiliates) Students free Organised by the LMEI Conference sponsors: Enquiries & Booking W: www.soas.ac.uk/lmei-cis/events/ T: 020 7898 4330 / 4490 36 TheE: [email protected] East in London / [email protected] October-November 2013