The Cairo Genizah is famous as a source of manuscripts for the study of the medieval Mediterranean world, especially Jewish communities during the High Middle Ages. However, among the hundreds of thousands of Middle Eastern manuscript fragments in Genizah collections are more than 12,000 moveable-type printed items, most of which come from Europe.…[Read more]

This article explores how public health was transformed in Egypt soon after its occupation by Great Britain in 1882. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the Egyptian state had invested substantially in health to boost the nation’s economic and military strength, and, especially after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, to address E…[Read more]

This working paper presents a full and annotated translation of two titles by 19th-century Ottoman author-cum-statesman Ziya Pasha: (1) a newspaper article written in exile, modern in terms of format and reformist in terms of tenor and providing an staunch and iconoclastic critique of Ottoman language and literature, and (2) the versified preface…[Read more]

A discussion of majāz or allegory that is commonly ascribed to the 15th-century Ottoman polygraph Mollā Lüṭfī and that builds on the works of al-Sakkākī and al-Qazwīnī.
The author gives two alternative overarching classifications: a linguistic vs. cognitive allegory classification, and a metaphor vs. hypallage classification that is supplemen…[Read more]

In this paper, I interview Dr Helen Wickstead, director of Recycle Archaeology about the reuse of usually discarded archaeological materials as an alternative to disposal. I explain through recent pilot projects partnered with Recycle Archaeology, how archaeological materials can be used by students, researchers, artists and the public to create…[Read more]

This working paper presents in full translation four texts of the Uzbek early 20th-century jadid reformist Abdurrauf Fitrat. Identifying educational reform as the main key to progress, he advocated for the emancipation and nationalisation of the Chaghatay/Uzbek language as a tool to educate the masses rather than to serve the interests of a…[Read more]

The Mandaean proselyte Meryay, best known from her representations in the Canonical Prayerbook, the Great Treasure (Genzā Rabbā), and the Book of John (Drāši d-Yaḥyā), serves as an illuminating example of the sort of figure who partially and ambiguously bridges the interests and concerns of differently constituted religious communities, allowi…[Read more]