Monthly Archives: March 2011

Mar 30 2011

Children of catastrophe: Book review of Jamal Kanj’s personal account as a Palestinian refugee


Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America, memoirChildren of Catastrophe: Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America

Garnet Publishing, Authors: Jamal Krayem Kanj, ISBN: 9781859642627, Paperback, September 2010

From: Now Lebanon, March 2, 2011

ithout a doubt, Jamal Krayem Kanj has had an interesting life. He was born 10 years after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and grew up in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon. As a youth, Kanj flirted with the idea of joining the armed resistance in Syria, survived Israeli airstrikes and fled war-torn Lebanon to finish schooling in Iraq, before eventually settling down in the USA. If Kanj were to put all this down in writing, then it’s definitely worth the read.

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Mar 23 2011

Professor Arash Khazeni Wins 2010 Middle East Studies Association Book Award


Arash Khazeni, an assistant professor of history at Pomona College, has been awarded the 2010 Houshang Pourshariati Iranian Studies Book Award for his volume Tribes & Empire on the Margins of Nineteenth-Century Iran (2010).

The recognition comes from the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) of North America, the premier scholarly organization in the field. Criteria for the award include “substantive understanding of the social and political experiences of the Iranian people and their civilization” and “their contribution to and influence on the world at large.”

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Mar 18 2011

Beyond Belief: Two Thousand Years of Bad Faith in the Christian Church, by James Macdonald


Beyond Belief: Two Thousand Years of Bad Faith in the Christian Church

Beyond Belief

Two Thousand Years of Bad Faith in the Christian Church, by James Macdonald

By James McDonald

Paperback
512pp
235 x 155mm
Garnet Publishing
978-0-86372-345-2

January 2011

Watch

Who and what did Jesus believe himself to be? And who really founded Christianity? How old are Christian doctrines and where did they come from? Was Christ the God a divinity created from several existing Middle Eastern gods? Is there such a thing as orthodox Christianity when so many denominations call themselves orthodox yet disagree on important matters of doctrine? Which parts of what we think we know about Christianity are facts and which parts are fictions? How did the Christian priesthood arise? How were key stories such as the nativity created? Beyond Belief seeks answers to these questions.

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Mar 16 2011

The General Supervisor of Centre for Muslim Contribution to Civilization passes away


Unfortunately Dr Osman S.A. al-Bili, the General Supervisor of the Sheikh Muhammed al-Thani Centre for Islamic Contribution to Civilization, the main supporter of the series of books published by Ithaca Press, the Great Books of Islamic Civilization, passed away on March 14 in Doha, Qatar, as a result of complications to his spinal surgery.

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Mar 16 2011

US/Canadian Muslim Brotherhoods Fund Islamic Chair At Canadian University


The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report
March 16, 2011

The Huron University College has announced the establishment of a $2 million Chair in Islamic Studies funded with major financial assistance from the US and Canadian Muslim Brotherhoods. According to the announcement:

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Mar 3 2011

Former Durham academic released from Iranian jail


14 February 2011

by Daniel Johnson

Source: Palatine Online

Dr. Reza Molavi, former director of the Centre for Iranian Studies (CIS), is believed to have been released from Iranian jail roughly a month ago, but there remains confusion about his arrest.

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Mar 3 2011

Richard Boggs talks to Excess Baggage (BBC 4) about with the Turkish Bath (Hammam) culture in Syria


Listen to the interview on BBC iPlayer

John McCarthy (Excess Baggage, BBC Radio 4) explores some ancient monuments and places of interest across Syria. He also hears about the Turkish baths- or Hammams- of Damascus and Aleppo. And travel along the backbone of England – the Pennines.

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