Tashkent’s Underground Masterpieces
In Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, the subway system offers more than practical travel. Called Toshkent Metropoliteni, or the Metro for short, it also transports passengers on a symbolic journey...
View ArticleMappila Rhythms, Monsoon Connections
It was mainly the pepper in Kerala, at the southwest tip of India, that lured early traders to ride seasonal monsoon winds across the Arabian Sea. With the mariners came music that mixed with Keralan...
View ArticleDisease Detectives of Lebanon
Dropping into bat caves to examine and swab their inhabitants is a day’s work for the epidemiologists at the Beirut-based biomedical research lab Human Link, whose sleuthing in 2012 helped fight mers....
View ArticleGreen Mosques Generate Positive Energy
From Jordan and Morocco to Indonesia, the uk and more, communities and governments are supporting eco mosques. The goals: education and thrift. “We want to lead by example,” says the manager of Masjid...
View ArticleFirstLook: Hambori, Mali
I have many memories of road trips where the possibility of stopping for a casual photo was impossible. I’ve passed by landscapes, seascapes, storefronts, bazaars, people and events where I didn’t have...
View ArticleFlavors: Cheese Parcels with Honey and Orange Reduction
While studying for a diploma in tourism, Diego crisscrossed the entire province of Almería, in Andalusia, Spain, and as a result, there is very little he doesn’t know about local specialties. This dish...
View ArticleGreetings from Cairo, USA
Westward expansion of the United States in the 19th century coincided with the popularity of all things Egyptian. Beginning in 1808 some 25 villages, towns and cities throughout the country were named...
View ArticleOf Spice, Home and Biryani
Slow-cooked with meats, vegetables and spices that vary all across the subcontinent of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, biryani “speaks to love, time and patience” for those who grow up with it, and to...
View ArticleThe Staying Power of 4stay
As an 18-year-old from Tajikistan new to Washington, DC, Akobir Azamovich Akhmedov could barely afford the city’s high rents. A dozen years later, he is cofounder and CEO of 4stay, where his...
View ArticleI Witness History: I, Innocent Asp
You do not know the real me. The demise of Cleopatra is but one of your many slanders against my kind. Even Shakespeare in Antony and Cleopatra called me a “poor venomous fool.” But let’s examine the...
View ArticleFirstLook: Waleed’s Birthday
Including my father Waleed’s birthday. He works in Oman and comes home to Bahrain every weekend. As expected, his routine changed this year. When travel was banned he was stuck in Oman. But when a...
View ArticleFlavors: Nasi goreng
A popular dish in Indonesia and Malaysia—and one that I often enjoyed when I lived for a year in Penang.
View ArticleThe Dialogues of Don Quixote
Amid the fearful turbulence of the 17th century, Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes invented a plot, characters and names that seemed innocently comical, but they cleverly cloaked his insistence that...
View ArticleFlavors: Tamia—Falafel
An easy Sudanese recipe for this great snack or mezze/appetizer that is probably as popular in the West as in the Middle East, where it originated.
View ArticleFirstLook: East Coast of Saudi Arabia, Circa 1952–1964
East Coast of Saudi Arabia, Circa 1952–1964
View ArticleSitar Master of Maryland
With a lifetime of training from leading sitar virtuosos, Alif Laila is one of few women to achieve international recognition with the mesmerizing instrument whose sound evokes the musical identity of...
View ArticleA League of Their Own
In the era when baseball emerged as “America’s National Pastime,” the sons of Syrian Lebanese immigrants were smitten by the sport too— including a leftie slugger in Port Arthur, Texas, named Bill...
View ArticleThe Future’s Golden Fiber
Jute grows in tropical wetlands worldwide but nowhere as organic and plentiful as the deltas of Bangladesh and India, where its golden-hued fibers are inspiring a new generation of biodegradable...
View ArticleArtists Answer COVID-19
Amid this year’s travel bans, museum and gallery closures, lockdowns, quarantines, and social distancing, visual artists are responding with fresh imagery and creative collaborations across new...
View ArticleThe Westward Journeys of Buttons
We all use them. Most fasten; some decorate. A search for origins points toward the Indus Valley and China. By the Middle Ages, buttons reached Europe along with other garment techniques and fashion...
View Article2021 Calendar: Flavors
Cooking at home: Many of us are doing more of it than ever. Stories and recipes selected from our own regular “Flavors” section show just how delicious 12 months of discovery can be.
View ArticleFlavors: Lamb and Egyptian Rice With Cinnamon, Nutmeg and Peas/Green Fava Beans
Lamb and Egyptian Rice With Cinnamon, Nutmeg and Peas/Green Fava Beans
View ArticleBritain’s Muslim Heritage Trails
Not far from London, newly inaugurated walking routes trace some of the first Islamic patronages and cultural contributions to the UK. The trails start at the country’s first purpose-built mosque and...
View ArticleFirstLook: Ahmet Dadali's Rodeo 7 Double Mute Grab
For this shot I did a simple rodeo 7, which is two horizontal spins, and added a little extra spice by throwing in a double mute grab, which is holding one ski with both hands. It was a super...
View ArticleSpice Migrations: Cinnamon
The series Spice Migrations opens in Sri Lanka with one of the world’s favorite spices, which once grew exclusively on that island. Traders priced cinnamon like gold, and those who could get it used it...
View ArticleFor the Love of Reading
From its first read-aloud in Jordan in 2006, We Love Reading has become one of the world’s most-recognized nonprofit organizations encouraging reading among children. Behind its success stand more than...
View ArticleThe Alhambras of Latin America
From the 1860s to the 1930s, architects throughout South America and the Caribbean took inspirations from the Islamic design heritage of southern Spain, where the most inspiring building of all proved...
View ArticleHabibi Funk’s Musical Revivals
Across North Africa a few back-street stores still sell records pressed in the ’70s and ’80s. There Jannis Stürtz has been digging for local classics to rerelease on his digital-and-vinyl label, Habibi...
View ArticleFirstLook: My Grandmother’s Tlaba
In my hometown of Yefren, about 200 kilometers southwest of Tripoli, Libya, in the Nafusa mountains, my cousin Mira wears our grandmother’s tlaba (wool garment) to connect to her family roots. The...
View ArticleFlavors: Spicy Bean Soup
There were several meat dishes, so I asked if I could eat only non-meat ones. They were happy for that and charged very little—perhaps because the meat dishes were the centerpiece. This bean soup,...
View ArticleHi Jolly – Uncle Sam’s Camel Captain
As a young man in Ottoman Turkey, Hadji Ali became an expert camel handler. In 1857 he accepted the US Army’s offer to assist its deployment of camels in the southwestern deserts, where his name was...
View ArticleSpice Migrations: Pepper
It is the most common spice on tables around the world today, and for centuries, growing and trading the round corns of Piper nigrum—black pepper—created wealth, from pepper’s monsoon-watered origins...
View ArticleShanidar Cave Yields New Signs of Neanderthal Emotions
Traces of flowers in a Neanderthal grave found 45 years ago in northern Iraq led to a theory that even the earliest humans may have expressed emotions in ritual. In 2016 archeologists returned: Could...
View ArticlePinisi Boats Sail into the Future
Masterpieces of a wooden-boat tradition from the center of the 5,200-kilometer-wide Indonesian archipelago, pinisi schooners are both unique and related to the Arab dhows and European sailing ships...
View ArticleThe Quest for Blue
Rare in nature and difficult to extract from minerals, blue eluded artisans for centuries until Egyptians invented the world’s first synthetic pigment. Formulas for blues from cobalt and indigo...
View ArticleMasdar City: A Virtual Tour
A few kilometers east of downtown Abu Dhabi, traditional Arab urban principles are informing high-tech construction at Masdar City, one of the world’s most complex experiments in urban sustainability....
View ArticleFlavors: Fresh Thyme Pie (Za'tar Akhdar)
Spreading the toppings evenly across the dough takes practice. Too much or too little of the topping makes a big difference. I found that the best way to spread the toppings on different pies is with...
View ArticleFirstLook: The Sphinx Imagined
Two summers ago I was browsing several hundred vintage postcards contained in narrow boxes all piled up in a Stillwater, Minnesota, antiques store...I came across several postcards that each featured...
View ArticleSpice Migrations: Nutmeg
In the Banda Islands, picking, peeling, drying and selling nutmeg to Arab and other traders was an aromatic business for centuries until the Dutch arrived. Nutmeg’s early fans used it more for health...
View ArticleThe Liverpool Effect
Around the turn of the 20th century, an acrobat from Morocco named Achmed Ben Ibrahim settled near the thriving port of Liverpool, UK. Forgotten until the recent discovery of his 1906 tombstone, his...
View ArticlePreserving Arabia’s Bedouin Poetry
Throughout central Saudi Arabia, Bedouin tribal histories and folklore lie largely in oral poetry known as Nabati. In 1989, diplomat and linguist Marcel Kurpershoek set out to meet poets and record...
View ArticleAmir Zaki's Sculpture of Skateparks
It takes a landscape photographer’s eye to step down into a cement skatepark and turn the lens not on skaters but on the ramps, waves, valleys, bowls and tunnels that are the terrain of the park...
View ArticleCould Phoenicians Have Crossed the Atlantic?
Two thousand years before Columbus and 1,500 before Erikson, the Phoenician maritime empire covered the Mediterranean and west to the Canary Islands. In 2019 a replica Phoenician ship set its sail to...
View ArticleFirstLook: The Sari and the Balloon
On a winter’s afternoon in 2018 in Bogura, Bangladesh, I went out for a walk with my nephew. While walking, I saw a group of toddlers playing with colorful balloons and across from them boys playing...
View ArticleFlavors: Spinach and Ginger Salad
I have childhood memories of my mother making this for me and telling me about its beneficial health effects!
View ArticleSpice Migrations: Cloves
Stems like tacks, buds like gems and scented so richly that their sweet redolence wafted far out to sea, cloves have come to the kitchen from the island of Ambon, the archipelago of Zanzibar, and many...
View ArticleThe 1001 Tales of Hanna Diyab
Thanks to recently published translations of a Syrian storyteller’s handwritten travelog, we now know that it was conversations between him and a French writer that laid the foundations for the final...
View ArticleStreaming Ramadan TV to the World
New platforms, new stories and more subtitles are making the comedies, thrillers, biopics and dramas of what has long been TV’s peak season in Muslim majority countries into a year-round, binge-ready...
View ArticleThe North African Eye of Yves Saint Laurent
The French fashion designer frequently mentioned Morocco as his muse for colors, collection design and even models from around the world, but Yves Saint Laurent’s eye trained early while growing up on...
View ArticleMesopotamia’s Art of the Seal
Compact in size yet complex in the scenes they depict, stone cylinders—many no larger than your thumb—were a popular medium for Mesopotamian artisans talented enough to reverse-carve semiprecious...
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