Saudi Aramco World

September/October 2008 -- Following Washington Irving

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In May 1829, the American author saddled up a mule in Seville and set out eastward for Granada, where he spent the summer lodged in the Alhambra. Writing there, he recounted the journey in a book that introduced “Moorish Spain” to the budding American romantic imagination. A modern traveler driving the A-92 autopista finds a few traces still left of the Spain that Irving described.

September/October 2008 -- Suitable Luxury

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

From the times of Alexander the Great to the modern era, throughout Europe, North Africa and Asia, a ruler conferred honor and protection, and received allegiance in return, through a cere- monial gift of an elegant robe. In Arabic, these robing ceremonies had a name—khil‘a—and today, vestiges of them endure around the world.

September/October 2008 -- Mayfair to Makkah

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Aristocrat, grandmother, deer hunter, Muslim and fluent speaker of Arabic, Lady Evelyn Cobbold in 1933 became the first British woman to perform the Hajj. Her journal, titled Pilgrimage to Mecca, has been newly republished, and it includes her observations on daily life among women in what was then the new nation of Saudi Arabia.

September/October 2008 -- Mushaira: Pakistan’s Festival of Poetry

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Drawing on a classical tradition that dates back at least 500 years to the Mughal court’s sharp-witted ghazal competitions, the world’s largest festival of contemporary Urdu poetry, the Aalami Mushaira, draws thousands to Karachi each year for passionately expressive—and passionately applauded—recitations by dozens of poets, from beloved celebrities to dazzling new stars.

September/October 2008 -- We, the Syndicate of Troy

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

We were about a thousand years old when we heard the brazen clash of the Trojan War—muffled by meters of earth above us—but when the Boss pulled us out of the ground in 1873, he made us say we’d been on the battleground. What a joker! The Boss was chasing fame, not truth, and we’ve been locked up ever since. So here we are to set the record straight, all 9000 of us, in your court of public opinion.